THIRTY-FOUR #2
His chest shudders on a ragged exhale, eyes squeezing shut. “I know I did that. And I’m so sorry. I never stopped loving you. If I could—”
“Go back and do things differently?” I ask with a sad smile, and he sighs. “I just told you I don’t want to hold those things against you. And I really don’t. Please know that I don’t.”
He looks so defeated that my chest starts aching. I don’t want him looking this hopeless. Because we’re not.
So I scramble to explain more. Desperate to make him understand where I’m coming from. “Levi, I-I should’ve had this conversation weeks ago. We should’ve actually talked this through, but…”
I was too busy abandoning my medication. Busy letting my withdrawal claw its way through my body. Utterly and pathetically rung out under the influence of my lows and highs.
He shakes his head slowly, staring emptily into my eyes. “Neither of us was in that space, baby. Things were happening a little too fast. And I could see you needed time.”
He sits up straighter, tightening his hold on me like I’d run away because of his next words. “But Cece… I shouldn’t have put you in a position to make you—” He chokes up, clearing his throat. “To make you question my love for you.”
“I did question it for a while. I questioned it because of the clause. I questioned it because of Iris. I even questioned myself…” for being difficult to deal with.
“But I forgave you,” I quickly add when his eyes start to shine with unshed tears.
“I think eventually I did. I forgave you because you… you stayed even when new specific things started showing up. The new Ceces that even I couldn’t understand. ”
A broken laugh escapes him. “Baby, I love every version of you.”
My chest squeezes painfully at his words. The way he says them. Like they’re the easiest truths he’s ever spoken.
His hand finds mine where it’s resting between us. His thumb brushes over my knuckles before my gaze catches on the ring looped around his little finger.
My ring.
The one he refuses to put away. The one he’s carried around like some ridiculous promise.
I stare at the ring, my throat tightening all over again.
God. He’s wearing my ring on his little finger. As though he never wants to risk forgetting what it means.
And he’s still here. Even after I told him I want us to wait until we know we’re good for each other. Without the clause dictating our lives.
Will he always be, though?
“So my question is… well, I’m just scared that one day something else will happen, and you’ll forget again,” I whisper because I don’t think I can speak through the lump in my throat. “Will you forget to love me… specifically?”
He’s silent for so long that panic begins clawing its way back into my chest.
“I know life doesn’t work that way, Levi. Neither of us can be one hundred percent all the time. I’m not asking you to… I just…” My voice trails off when his expression turns distant, thoughtful.
His eyes drift somewhere beyond me. “Remembering is the action of love,” he murmurs quietly, almost to himself. “Even when life gets overwhelming.”
“Levi?”
His gaze immediately returns to mine. Clearer, this time. But still sadder somehow. “I didn’t hug you, Cece.”
My brows pull together.
What?
A painful smile tugs at his mouth, and he shifts on the couch like he’s bracing for his own words. “I want to tell you none of this will ever happen again. That I’ll never miss something important. That I’ll never screw up like that.” His throat works. “But I already did. More than once.”
“Not anymore,” I reassure him quickly.
He shakes his head. “No. Let me say this.” The rawness in his voice makes my stomach twist. “Fuck, I’m going to say something that might hurt, baby. But please hear me out.”
I nod even as my stomach clenches.
He exhales slowly. “There was a point where I started wondering whether you loved me or not.”
The confession lands between us, making me flinch slightly.
His eyes immediately close. “God, I’m gonna fuck this up.”
“No,” I whisper. “Keep going.”
His fingers tighten around mine. “I… I kept waiting for you to initiate things. Waiting for you to say it first. And when that didn’t happen, I sort of…
reduced everything to the clause.” Shame flickers across his face.
“I let doubt creep in. I was already so frustrated. With the company. With my parents. With the merger. With everything. And instead of stopping and thinking, I just let myself keep spiraling in that doubt.”
His jaw clenches. “I kept thinking about that clause more than I should have. Because—baby, if I’d stopped for even a second, I would’ve remembered who you are.”
My breath catches.
“Because I knew you.” His voice cracks. “I knew so many things about you already. Even in the first ten months of our relationship. That when you’re hurt, you get quiet. That even though you never said I love you first, you always—always—said it back.”
My eyes soften.
“I knew that uncertainty makes you overanalyze every possibility until you drive yourself insane. Yet I still kept you in the dark. I got so caught up in my own doubts that I… I fucked up.”
I sigh. “You didn’t fuck up. You were protecting yourself.”
“What?” he asks, startled.
I cleared my throat, not knowing how to frame the shameful picture I had built in my head. “You were protecting yourself because I never said those words. You felt rejected, right? Be honest?”
He struggles for a long moment before dipping his head down once.
“I was protecting myself too, because I had those same doubts,” I tell him.
He exhales sharply, nose flaring. “Well, maybe we were both protecting ourselves, I guess. The clause muddied up everything. But you didn’t stop loving me specifically, did you?
I did.” His eyes glisten with self-reproaching anger.
“I let the clause explain things that never needed explaining. And I’m so stupid for ever turning my head the other way.
I know I never stopped loving you. But… I neglected you all the same. ”
I frantically slide closer until our foreheads touch. And his eyes flutter shut.
We remain that way for so long that I forget he hasn’t technically answered my question. Not until he breaks the silence with his roughened voice. “I have a playlist on my phone because you hum along to songs whenever we’re driving somewhere. Did you know that?”
A watery laugh escapes me as I shake my head.
“You do.” His mouth twitches. “And whenever you don’t hum, I know you’ve had a bad day. Or something is weighing on your mind that you can’t enjoy the music.”
Leaning back, I stare at him with a frown. Because even though that sounds right, I’m baffled that he noticed it.
“I fought Thomas and Gareth because the first time you created an internal audit plan, and I approved it, you wouldn’t stop smiling for three straight days.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
“You kept pretending you weren’t excited.” A small grin finally appears. “You failed miserably.”
Heat floods my face, but I smile despite myself. I don’t know where he’s going with this. But I’ll give him the same patience he gave me.
“I fought them because I knew how much that role mattered to you. Because I wanted to keep you smiling like that.”
My hands move to his face.
“I call you Cece because that’s your name. And the one and only time I called you Celestine, I watched the light leave your eyes. It lasted maybe two seconds, but I saw it.”
“My mother always called me Celestine whenever I’d throw a tantrum—her words,” I rush to explain.
The anger that flashes across his face is immediate. But it’s gone just as quickly. Reined in.
“What I’m trying to say,” he continues quietly, “is that loving you that way was never difficult.” His voice softens further.
“It was so natural—so easy—that I didn’t realize I was doing it.
And I think I slipped up just as easily because I let doubt take away my focus.
The merger. The embezzlement. My parents. ”
My eyes grow weary, so he continues on.
“Please trust me when I say this,” he says, eyes begging. “I know you’re scared I’ll screw it up again.”
I nod.
He smiles sadly. “I probably will make mistakes. New ones, maybe. But never that one again.”
The certainty in his voice makes me blink.
“I’ll tell you why.” He brushes away the tears sliding down my cheeks.
“Not just because I’ve destroyed the one thing that hurt us—the clause.
But because I’m wiser now. I always knew I’d fall for you the moment we met.
And the more I got to know you, the more I fell. ”
My gaze softens at his confession.
“We were still learning each other. Learning to communicate. And now, I know you more than I did then. I love you more than I did then.”
My breath shudders.
His thumb traces the curve of my jaw, voice breaking. “I also know that I lost myself when I didn’t love you right.”
The tears won’t stop now.
Neither of us tries.
His eyes lock onto mine. “I’ll make mistakes. I’ll say the wrong thing. I’ll probably drive you insane since I’m unemployed now.”
A tiny laugh escapes me.
“But no,” he whispers. “There’s nothing that will get in the way of me loving you. Because I will never stop learning you.”
His lips brush mine reverently.
And my heart warms. Because he isn’t promising perfection. He’s promising growth.
His voice turns rough. “I choose to love you.” Another kiss. “Specifically.” And another. “Deliberately.”
His forehead settles against mine. “Every single version of you. Every day. For the rest of my life.”