Chapter 12 #3
Not that I didn’t still have to work through things. We still couldn’t have sex with Gideon behind me, and I still occasionally had terrifying nightmares. And there were days when I felt hopeless, despairing, but they no longer overwhelmed me to the point where I thought that’s all there could be.
I was still seeing Dr. Jones, but only every other week now.
In April his team at work had another cookout. I teased him unmercifully about his coworkers’ unnatural penchant for getting together with their families to grill burgers and play volleyball all the time (or at least twice a year), but I wasn’t at all unhappy to be coming this time.
Gideon was on fire that afternoon—charming the women, outmaneuvering the men, and generally being the center of attention, so naturally that no one found it obnoxious.
They loved him—these people he worked with.
I could see it on their faces even as they called each other names.
I knew from the stories Gideon told that they argued and drove each other crazy sometimes, but it was obvious to me that they were like family.
I’d been too caught up in anxiety at the last cookout to recognize it as clearly.
They loved Gideon, and it made me strangely happy to see that they saw the same qualities in him that I’d seen myself.
That other people saw too how incredible he was, how much he should be loved.
They didn’t treat me like a stranger this time, and I made more of an effort to try to get to know them.
They teased me about being My Diana, and a few of them enthusiastically sang a “My Diana” song, made up of new lyrics to “My Sharona”—which they’d evidently come up with last year as a way to hassle Gideon.
I had to admit the lyrics were really clever, and I ended up laughing hysterically, partly at Gideon’s expression when they sang it.
I had a good time, and for some reason it felt to me like a symbol of the way things could change, the way I could change. I was on a little bit of a high when people started to gather up their stuff to go.
Gideon was standing a short distance away, chatting with a couple of kids. The kids loved him as much as the adults.
I walked over toward him quietly, trying to sneak up on him. But when I reached out to try to gooch him, he whirled around and grabbed my hands before I could.
So we had a little wrestling match, with me trying to reach his sides and him holding me back from doing so. The kids squealed in delight, cheering for me rather than him, a fact that caused him to complain loudly even as he was grabbing my arms.
I was trying not to laugh so I could focus on coming out victorious, and then I had a brainstorm.
“Wait!” I gasped. “Gideon, wait. Wait a minute.” I grew still to emphasize the words.
He stopped immediately, his expression changing.
So I took that opportunity to gooch him good.
He roared in outrage while the kids and a couple of lingering adults roared in laughter. Then he stopped my gooching—which I’d more than earned—by wrapping his arms around me and holding me against him.
I fought the hold good-naturedly and ended up turned around, my back to him. Before any fear could trigger, he’d dropped his arms.
Feeling affectionate and appreciative, I turned back around and leaned against him. “I won,” I said, just to make sure he knew.
He grumbled, “You’ve heard of the boy who cried wolf, right?”
“What’s your point? I am not a boy, and you are not a wolf.”
Hiding a smile, he replied dryly, “I think, in this scenario, I wouldn’t be the wolf. I would be one of the townspeople who came out to—”
“Oh, just shut up. The point is I won.”
He laughed uninhibitedly and stroked a hand down my hair. “The point is you’re a little cheat.”
“I know better than that.” I smiled up at him, brimming with too much to hold in. “I know that I’m actually the light that shines on the dark—”
“Not when people are around!”
There were people milling about, but no one listening to us anymore. I giggled helplessly and pulled his head down so I could give him a little kiss.
We gazed at each other for a minute, standing right there in the middle of the others, who were putting up all their stuff and starting to their cars.
And Gideon must have recognized what I’d been sensing all afternoon because I saw the feeling break on his face. The recognition—so sharp it was almost poignant—that we weren’t where we’d been a year ago, or six months ago, or even the day before.
He made a rough sound in his throat—the one he always made when he felt too much to rein in—and he pulled me into his arms, hugging me with all the intensity of his deep and generous soul.
I hugged him back, pressing my face into his shirt, smelling, feeling, loving Gideon the way he’d always loved me.
I knew then what I hadn’t known more than a year ago, when I’d been walking on a city sidewalk, thinking about my new boots.
The world isn’t the one I used to think it was, where the hero rides in to save the day at the very last minute.
It’s so much harder and deeper and uglier and more beautiful than that.
Because the truth is just this—sometimes no one can save us, but salvation might come anyway.