Chapter 20 #3
She wasn’t sure that there’d ever been a time when she felt more comfortable in a social situation. After they’d eaten, Brynn felt like she finally had a chance to look at Hallie properly while everyone else was absorbed in a conversation about Reese and Sydney’s wedding planning.
Their eyes met, and Hallie mouthed, “I love you,” before her lips bloomed into a wild smile that lit up Brynn’s entire body. It only reinforced Brynn’s opinion that Hallie feeling any type of dismay about today had been totally unwarranted. Hallie was the most likeable person on the planet.
It was clear from her parents’ subtle, smiling looks at one another that they felt the same way. Now that Brynn had her own person, she understood those looks a lot better. She understood everything a whole lot better now that she’d met Hallie.
Brynn could say, without reservation, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life learning every single thing about Hallie Thatcher.
When they got back from brunch, Hallie returned to working at the front desk, which meant that Brynn had a few hours to finish the project she’d been working on for the last few days.
She was putting the finishing touches on it when Hallie walked through the door in her work uniform, her ponytail shifted to the side in the way that Brynn loved so much.
“I really thought that Greg and Candace were going to be going strong after his near-death experience,” she said in exasperation.
Brynn quickly closed her laptop. “What happened?”
She could tell that Hallie was gearing up to launch into the saga, but then she threw her body down on the sofa and snuggled into Brynn’s side.
“You know what? It’s not important. Those two will figure it out or they won’t.
I have a gorgeous woman here whom I haven’t seen in hours,” she said, leveling a look in Brynn’s direction.
Brynn loved this, too. The sheer domesticity and simplicity of their lives. How one of them would come home from work and immediately throw themselves into the other, their bodies melding together as they did.
Maybe this moment they’d found themselves in wouldn’t be able to last forever, but Brynn wasn’t going to take a single second for granted.
Tragically, though, she had to stand up for the next few minutes.
There was no way she wasn’t going to be able to make eye contact with Hallie.
She planted a kiss on her temple before sliding off the sofa.
Which, to her credit, took a lot of effort.
Hallie was quick with the cuddling blanket after a long day.
A day that had also been filled with meeting the parents, which Brynn didn’t take for granted.
Hallie showed up for her continuously, and Brynn wanted to do the same. Which was why: “I made you something.”
She loved the slightly confused look Hallie’s face made as one of her eyebrows arched upward. “You made me something?”
As they’d been lying in bed one night, Hallie had used a phrase that had struck Brynn dumb.
She’d referred to her feelings as “a pining paradox.” And for having little interest in scholarly pursuits, Hallie had hit the nail on the head.
That idea had rattled around in Brynn’s brain for weeks before she’d settled on a place to put her energy.
Because she had spent her life trying to understand the world around her. A world that she’d never really felt like she’d fit within. Until Hallie.
“Did you know that today is the three-month anniversary of me arriving in Stoneport?” Brynn asked. When she’d realized it a few days ago, she hadn’t been able to believe it.
Hallie’s whole body softened against the sofa, the exasperation in her voice that Brynn loved so much clearly evident when she said, “Then why did you make me something? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
Instead of answering right away, Brynn picked up her laptop from the coffee table and sat down in its place.
Hallie was only about a foot away from her, their knees brushing together.
When she had what she needed queued up, she put her computer into presentation mode.
“You give me the gift of yourself every single day.”
Hallie rolled her eyes, but Brynn was serious. In three months, her entire life had changed. And it was because of Hallie. From her very first day in Stoneport. She wanted Hallie to understand that. How important she was.
She turned her computer screen around so that it faced Hallie. The hardest part had been memorizing the presentation, but she’d spent the last few hours practicing.
“The Pining Paradox,” Hallie read off the screen. “Brynn, did you make a PowerPoint presentation about our relationship? Because I was there the last time you did one of these, and let me say, it didn’t go well for the other guy.”
Brynn laughed, undeterred. “That was me using my powers for evil. This is me using my powers for good!”
“I would argue exposing Grant as a serial cheater was using your powers for good, too.” Hallie had sat up straighter, clearly curious even as she said, “But you really didn’t have to do this, Brynn. All I want is you.”
“And being with me means that sometimes I’m going to do things like this,” Brynn argued. Hallie was going to be given this presentation even if Brynn had to trail behind her through the house until it was completed.
Hallie needed to know how Brynn saw her. Especially because Brynn knew that it was often not how Hallie saw herself.
She smiled, seeing Hallie relent in real time. “Okay, let’s do this. But I reserve the right to disagree.”
“A thesis defense wouldn’t be complete without the ability to ask questions.
” This was Brynn, in her element, and she was sure that her research was sound.
Well, at least as sound as anything driven by emotion could be.
But what the presentation lacked in facts, it more than made up for with the overwhelming knowledge that Brynn would defend her opinions until her dying breath.
She’d never been this sure of anything in her entire life.
And with that in mind, she moved on to the next slide.
This part had been the hardest, since she’d had to work with Sydney to covertly get photos of Hallie when she’d been younger.
To no one’s surprise, Brynn had been lovingly staring at them since they’d arrived in her inbox.
Luckily, Sydney had made Hallie a birthday collage when she’d turned sixteen, which meant that the hard part of getting young photos of Hallie had already been done.
She’d chosen a photo of Hallie and Sydney on the tennis court at the inn.
Another of Hallie swimming in the pool at the inn during a summer when she couldn’t have been more than five or six.
Another photo that had meant to be of Mason, but Hallie was in the background, spinning around in circles outside.
Brynn had had no qualms about cropping Mason out.
She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “The Pining Paradox: A Case Study. Prepared by Brynn Fitzpatrick.”
“Babe,” Hallie half-heartedly pleaded, even though they both knew that Brynn wasn’t going to be stopped.
It only made Brynn smile before she launched into her speech. “First, it’s important to contextualize why we’re here today.”
“Sure,” Hallie responded dryly, even as she continued to look at the photos of herself with rapt attention.
“Philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language through critical inquiry and rational argument.”
“Because everything about this is so rational.”
“When considering the context of one’s place in this world, it absolutely is,” Brynn batted back before adding, “But please save all questions and comments for the Q&A period.” She tapped on the screen, holding Hallie’s stare. “We have a lot to get through.”
Hallie laughed and gestured toward Brynn. “My apologies. Please continue.”
“Anyway, as I was saying…” Brynn cleared her throat for effect. “As a philosopher, I’m constantly attempting to detach my own biases from the rigor with which I need to approach inquiry.”
Hallie nodded, though Brynn could tell that she was still fairly confused on whether Brynn had a point.
“And if you’d asked me three months ago, I’d have told you that I was pretty good at the separation. But that was before I met the other subject in our case study today. The two of us together create…” Brynn flipped to the next slide, which said, written in all caps, “The Pining Paradox.”
She watched as Hallie pursed her lips, clearly wanting to say something. Brynn waited, but Hallie finally nodded for her to continue.
Brynn straightened her shoulders. “What is the pining paradox? And how did the two of us find ourselves in this situation? There are eight billion people on the Earth. The statistical improbability that we would find one another is mind-boggling. Is it the sheer luck of geography? Do soulmates actually exist? Will this presentation net out in any semblance of coherency to answer these questions?”
Hallie smiled as Brynn clicked through to the next slide. It was a photo of Brynn and Hallie that they’d taken a few weeks ago. In it, Brynn was behind Hallie, arms wrapped around her in a bear hug. Hallie had taken the photo as Brynn’s head had rested on her shoulder.
“The answer to all of these questions is that I don’t know.
And, for the first time in my life, I’m okay with that.
” For months, this was what Brynn had been circling around in her mind, trying to understand.
Ever since Bridget had died, she’d been obsessed with finding the answers to everything and anything that she could learn about.
Hoping, somehow, that it would help her loss, and her own life, make sense.
“I don’t know that it’s possible to be rational and to also be in love.
And I’m okay with that, too. Because there are some things that just need to be experienced, and I’m lucky enough to be having that experience right now.
And maybe it’s some larger, karmic plan that brought us together, but I don’t know if I believe that.
What I do know is that it’s almost impossible that, out of eight billion people, we’d ever meet.
And sure, we can talk about age and geographical probabilities, but let’s not get bogged down here. ”
That earned another laugh from Hallie, who’d done a very good job of letting the presentation play out until now. “Wouldn’t want to get mucked up in the details.”
Brynn nodded seriously. “Exactly. Because there’s no point. The way that I feel about you defies definition. It’s encompassing and yet never enough. It holds me steady but also makes me feel like I’m flying. It’s both the best and the scariest thing that I’ve ever experienced.”
With that last one, Brynn noticed Hallie’s eyes grow a little glassy.
“It’s a complete paradox. The fact that nothing makes sense is the reason that everything makes sense.
Which shouldn’t make sense! Even down to the fact that the more I tried to be okay with just being your friend, the more it made me fall for you.
I know that there are great scholars who’ve spent the entirety of their careers trying to understand love.
To quantify it and measure it and create boundaries for it to exist within. But I don’t want to do that.”
“You don’t?” Hallie questioned, her eyes shifting back and forth from holding Brynn’s gaze to looking at the screen.
Brynn shook her head. “No. I want to be living it. With you. I want the stabilizing and the confusing and the safe and the exhilarating. I don’t want to pick it apart because, for the first time, I’m too busy enjoying what’s happening.”
She flipped to the next slide, another photo of the two of them together.
This time, Hallie was kissing Brynn’s cheek.
Reese had taken it last week, when they’d gone axe throwing of all things.
“I’ve spent so much time trying to control the outcomes of situations, but suddenly, you were in front of me. ”
It was thrilling to watch, in real time, as Hallie started to be swept up in Brynn’s words. She was glad because Brynn was putting her whole heart behind every single one of them. She needed Hallie to understand that.
“I want you to know that, whatever happens, I’m in.
And the only reason that I’m not getting caught up in the details is because, for the first time, they’re irrelevant.
I’m not trying to make us make sense because it doesn’t matter if we do.
What matters is how you make me feel. What matters is that I love you and you love me back.
Everything else is something we can figure out together, as we work through it.
Because I do love you, Hallie Thatcher. So, so much.
And all I want is for you to know that and feel it, too. ”
She took a deep breath, her heart hammering in her chest. It didn’t calm when she looked at Hallie, who had a few gentle tears falling down her cheek.
“Please tell me those aren’t bad tears,” Brynn said at the same time that Hallie grabbed her laptop, closing the lid and throwing it to the end of the sofa.
And then she was pulling Brynn toward her, into her lap. “Why are you so insanely perfect, Brynn Fitzpatrick?” Hallie said as she kissed her way across Brynn’s face. Her nose. Her eyelids. Her cheeks. Her chin. Her lips.
“I think I’m just perfect for you,” Brynn answered as she basked in the insistent brushes of Hallie’s mouth, not sure if the question was rhetorical. She would have answered even if she was certain it was because, without a doubt, she knew that to be true.
They’d found one another, and even just having the chance to meet Hallie—let alone to love her!?—defied all of the odds. Especially when Hallie answered between kisses, “And I’m perfect for you.”
Which, for the first time, wasn’t just enough for Brynn. It was everything.