31. Chapter Thirty-One - Joyful Reprieve #3
“How about you?” I fired back, suddenly bold enough to redirect the attention. “Has any man taken your heart lately?”
“You know I don’t have time for such things,” she replied dryly, though the slight curve at the corner of her mouth betrayed her amusement.
I laughed, completely unbothered.
“What?” I shrugged, biting playfully at the inside of my cheek. “I was just asking since you’re so nosy about my love life.”
She opened her mouth like she already had a comeback prepared, but nothing came out. Instead, she closed it again with a quiet huff, the smallest smile flashing across her face before her attention drifted back to the road.
The drive home settled into a quiet that felt warm instead of awkward. Music hummed softly beneath the silence, filling the car without demanding anything from either of us. We didn’t need to keep talking just to prove something.
By the time we pulled into the driveway, it was already past lunch. My stomach grumbled the second I stepped out of the car, but the thought of my ma cooking again made my face scrunch instinctively.
We decided to make something together… Though really, I decided to push past the old worry about her turning simple meals into complete disasters.
She slipped easily into the rhythm beside me, grabbing the knife to slice vegetables while I handled the heat on the stove, her voice drifting through the kitchen with little suggestions that felt more like companionship than criticism.
We laughed more than we cooked, turning every uneven chop and overflowing pan into playful back-and-forth that softened the weight of all the decisions still looming over me. The kitchen filled with the sharp scent of onion, sizzling butter, and toasted bread.
I’d missed this.
Not just the way she filled a room with her steady presence, but the deeper comfort of simply existing beside her.
As the afternoon stretched into evening and eventually softened into night, I found myself clinging to the fading daylight more than usual.
A quiet ache settled inside me as golden light shifted across the countertops, making me realize just how precious the hours with her really were.
She was the one constant I always craved more of, our connection running deeper than typical mother-daughter stuff.
It felt more like an honest friendship built from surviving hard things side by side for years.
When I finally collapsed into bed that night, my body melted into the mattress with a deep, satisfying heaviness.
It wasn’t exhaustion. It felt fuller than that.
A soft ache, the kind that came from a day that had actually meant something.
My limbs were loose, my chest warm, like some tightly wound part of me had finally exhaled.
I’d learned to be self-sufficient early. Not out of pride, but necessity.
Her absence hadn’t been cruel, not intentionally, but it still taught me the harshest version of love.
The unspoken rule that nobody was going to step up for me unless I did it myself first. The lesson rooted itself so deeply inside me that it colored every connection I made afterward, from casual friendships to messy situationships with guys.
I always held something back.
Just enough to protect a core piece of myself even while pretending to let people all the way in.
I gave enough to seem invested. I laughed easily. I flirted and danced. I teased and charmed and let people believe I was completely there, but I always kept a part of myself tucked just out of reach because I already knew how the story went.
People left. People disappointed you.
And it hurt less if you never leaned too heavily on them to begin with.
That was why I’d never fully believed the sweet promises my exes made. Their pet names and future plans had always slid right off me like rainwater. Deep down, I’d already been braced for them to leave eventually.
Culver changed that, though.
Not because he was perfect or because he said all the right things or looked at me like I hung the moon…
although those definitely didn’t hurt. He was different because he felt inevitable.
Like he’d wedged himself so deeply into my life that pulling him out would tear something essential apart with him.
Because I was starting to understand something I’d sworn would never happen.
If I lost Culver, it wouldn’t just sting.
It wouldn’t be some sad but manageable heartbreak I could dance my way through and eventually shake off.
It would ruin me completely. I could picture it too clearly: the way the world would hollow out around me, the way every day would stretch thin and colorless without him anchoring it.
He’d become my oxygen somewhere along the way, and now I was left wondering how much of him I needed just to keep breathing.
I’d spent my entire life convincing myself I was fine on my own. That I always landed on my feet. That no matter what happened, I’d survive it and keep moving forward.
But now? Now I knew I’d crawl if it meant keeping him close.