Chapter 22 #3
And love is a complicated thing, or at least it is between Danny and me.
Because I do think he loves me in the broadest sense of the word; I wouldn’t hesitate to say the same about him.
But we’re not just friends here—I do and feel things with Danny that I don’t do or feel with my friends.
There’s always layers with Danny. We needed more forms of touch to account for those layers, and maybe we need more forms of love too.
But what Danny and I share is so radically different from what I had with my ex or any other boy I was groomed for in the church.
And I still can’t see clearly past tomorrow.
Basically, I don’t know how to conceive of love in this equation.
Charlie claps his brother on the shoulder. “And your low?”
Danny smiles secretly at me. “That Christina stubbed her toe.”
More cheering and laughter.
“Okay, Jim honey, take us home,” Trish prompts.
Jim runs a hand through his lightly salted brown hair. Is Danny’s hair going to get those same silver streaks? I have to wrap my fingers around Danny’s wrist across the table at the thought.
“This feels like a little bit of a cop-out,” he drawls, “but I think my high might be meeting you, Chris.”
My face goes slack.
“You’re everything my son said you were.”
My hand trembles on Danny’s wrist, and he quickly covers it with his other hand.
Jim sighs heavily and drops his gaze to the table. “My low is hearing everything your father did to your family. And everything your family did to you.”
That ache from earlier—the hurtful one—pulses again. Hot tears prick at my eyes, but before I can succumb to the tangle of unknown emotions, Danny rescues me so I can stay in this happy space a little longer. “Is it D&D time?” he asks.
I start, a laugh bubbling up to soothe the ache underneath. “D&D? I knew y’all were cool, but Dungeons & Dragons is another level.”
Jim tilts his head. “Dragons …?”
Laughing, Charlie clarifies, “For the Reeves family, D&D stands for Decaf and Dessert.”
“Should it stand for these dragons?” Trish asks. “I’m intrigued.”
Shaking his head, Danny rounds the table and offers a hand to me. “Help me get the coffee going?”
I smile as he hauls me up, the force of it landing us in a hug—a brief, sweet acknowledgment of this evening’s hidden pains.
Charlie bounds from the table as we fiddle with the coffee maker. “I’ll get Scattergories.”
“Oh, you’re in for it now, Chris,” Trish says as she and Jim clear away the dinner plates. “Scattergories is a serious business in this family.”
“Thank goodness.” I look sternly to Danny. “No re-rolls for X or Z, Big Brother.”
He groans. “Please don’t call me what my mother calls me.”
I flip the back of my fingers against my mouth to stifle my laugh, and Danny sneaks a kiss on my outward-facing palm, like he did yesterday. “Thief!”
It isn’t until hours later, after the most wonderful family dinner I never knew was possible, safe in Danny’s arms and bed, that I cry.
Danny immediately senses my quiet whimpers, and he arranges me so he can softly kiss away every tear as they come in the dark.
Because I suddenly know what the ache is. I suddenly know what the sadness that’s underlined every TJL item has been adding up to.
It’s grief.
I may have spent a year in trauma therapy exorcising my self-hate, but I now have to grieve everything I lost. Everything I never had.
I have to grieve for the younger version of myself and all the trauma she endured.
In fact, the work I did in EMDR to recognize my self-worth only makes the grief that much sharper.
Because I know I deserved more, but I was denied.
That girl who performed on the church stage, who fulfilled her duties as the pastor’s daughter, who trod the path toward a minister husband at a fundamentalist university …
she’s still here. And the more I embrace my Jezebel, the more she mourns what was done to her.
And that was Jim’s low for the week.
“Can you talk to me, sweetheart?” Danny whispers against my skin, voice lined with so much concern that I cry harder, twisting my fingers into his hair. He draws soothing lines down my back and kisses the wet on my face again and again.
I finally swallow and take a steadying breath. “I didn’t know a family could be this way. I was so sure they would be pressuring you to save the world and work harder, but it was the opposite.” I nudge his nose with mine. “You developed that little compulsion all on your own.”
He simply hums in his throat, creating space for me to sort through my emotions.
“Do you know how lucky you are?” I ask, fresh tears springing out.
Danny catches them by feel only with his lips and with swipes of his thumbs.
“They celebrate you. They only want you and Charlie to be yourselves and to be happy. I wouldn’t believe it was possible for parents to be this way if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes tonight.
God, they celebrated me. More than I’ve ever been celebrated.
For the very things my family has punished me for. And your parents barely even know me.”
Now Danny wraps me up and tucks my head under his chin.
His voice comes out quiet above me. “I do know how lucky I am. I think it’s why I put pressure on myself to reveal and correct all the injustices of the world.
Because I won this unearned jackpot in life.
I started with more than I deserve, so the least I can do is elevate people who started with so much less. ”
“Oh, Danny.” I shake my head against him. “You deserve everything. Everything. You can pay it forward to the world and still have plenty for yourself.”
We lapse into silence, holding each other tightly in the dark.
Just when I’m about to nod off, Danny whispers, “I’m here for you, Christina. I’ll always be here for you.”
Danny and Charlie are so lucky to have Jim and Trish, but maybe I’m a little bit lucky too.
Because at least I have my found family.
But I’m only now starting to confront the fact that my family is splitting in two directions—D.C.
and New York—and I have to choose which way I’ll go.
And as Danny’s breathing slowly morphs into the deeper rhythm of sleep, I know with profound clarity that my found family is not just splitting in two directions.
My found family is splitting in three directions.
Because Danny is now part of it.
Fuck.