32. Everybody Is A Little Broken #3
Sutton smooths a hand down the curve of my back, cradling me, unwilling to let me go even though I have no intention of ever leaving him again. “Don’t change who you are, Lake. Not for anyone—not even me. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
If I thought my crying was unbearable before, I truly don’t see an end in sight now. This may be the first and only time I’m grateful for the constant waterfall of noise surrounding us.
A part of me was certain I’d be alone forever, driving everyone away because I’m too much. Too rough to handle; too unpredictable. I’m loud and defiant and so fucking complicated. People don’t want broken toys.
Sutton never thought of you like that, though.
Did he? The same man who made a picnic just to impress you, the same man who divvied up a family-sized bag of Starbursts and picked out all the strawberry ones because they’re your favorite, the same man who adopted your love for protesting because it was an inarguable part of who you are, the same man who jeopardized his hockey career just so he can have the chance to be with you again.
“I’m a better person because of you, Sutton.
You came along—with your flirtatious charm and a kindness that I never thought would extend to me—and suddenly, all the pain from my past dulled into this ignorable buzz.
You saved me. I’ll never be able to fully express my gratitude, but I’ll sure as hell spend the rest of my life trying to. ”
“You saved me right back,” he whispers. “I was barely living when I met you, but the passion you have for helping people—it made me realize that I could be helped too. Every time I saw you, you emanated this light I couldn’t describe.
A light that outshone the sun and the moon and the stars.
A light that nobody else possesses except for you.
Just being near you, I could feel it: the warmth of a love that I wanted to be a part of so badly.
I endured all the lackluster moments in my life because I knew you were waiting for me on the other side with a brilliance that could incinerate the darkness I’d grown so accustomed to. ”
Congestion gives me an unattractive hiccup that spikes in between babbling wails. From the moment I met Sutton Whittaker, he’s been walking the dimly lit halls of my mind. Always there, even when we were physically apart.
“Oh, Sutton, you saw my heart. You saw the scars and the blood and were never discouraged from trying to mend it. Nobody has ever shown me the love and patience that you have. I never felt broken around you, and that’s saying something, seeing as I’ve spent my whole life trying to piece the shards of my soul back together,” I cry, salt leaking into the corners of my mouth, and an emotional overload blizzarding through my liquifying body.
I smush my face into his front, undeterred by the slight ripeness of his musk from playing for two hours straight, and all I want to do is tear into his skin and carve a nook in his chest so I can hide there, away from the mess of the real world.
“And it was the greatest achievement of my life,” he murmurs against the crown of my head, mollifying me with loving ministrations.
I’m not ready to break away. For the first time in forty-eight hours, my heart slows to a crawl, and my impulsion to nosedive off the nearest cliff edge wanes. That desire to disappear forever—it’s finally gone.
I’m not sure how long we stay entangled in one another, but by the time I surface for air, the crowd has ebbed to a few stragglers, leaving me and Sutton stranded in the middle of the arena.
Something in my head tells me to glance up at the scoreboard, and when I do, the lapse in my tears is no longer. 4-2. A different kind of slickness lacquers the whites of my eyes.
“Holy shit. You guys won. I didn’t even realize—you’re going to the championship game!” I scream, jumping on him, allowing him to scoop me up by the butt and lift my feet off the ground.
My arms interlace behind his nape, and I don’t have to crane my neck to meet his eyes. I’m staring into whorls of espresso tinted with a luminescent appreciation for life that I feel myself, deep down in my bones.
“I couldn’t have done any of this without you. The world needs more people like you,” he tells me.
I press my forehead to his, the tips of our noses brushing.
Torrents of pride and love rush through me.
“They also need people like you, Sutton. You’re the best part of me.
It doesn’t matter where the hell we end up in the future, you’ll always occupy the largest place in my heart.
There’s nothing time nor distance can do that will minimize the effect you’ve had on me. ”
“Good thing you’re stuck with me, then, because I’d be the biggest idiot in the fucking universe to let you get away again.”
“I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“Not possible.”
“Very possible. And I have all the time in the world to prove it to you,” he drawls, enveloping my lips in the velvet heat of his mouth, kissing away the last needling dregs of self-hatred.
After today, I’ll never remember what it feels like.