“So, Mr. Therapist, what do you make of what’s been going on? What do you think is going to happen for me next?”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in closer to him, and I allowed myself the simple pleasure of relaxing against his chest, indulging in his spicy-sweet smell. “Well, my psychic powers haven’t finished developing yet – I heard that happens in grad school – so my future sight might be a little shoddy, but I’ll do my best,” he chuckled, the sound of it shaking me a bit in the most pleasant way. “There’s still some haze in my mental crystal ball, but I think you’re going to be okay. I think it’s going to be a long and complicated road to get you back to whatever ‘normal’ is, but I think you’ll make it. You have people who care about you, you’re about to begin a new chapter of your life, and you seem to have a good attitude about dealing with whatever comes your way. I don’t know where you’re going from here, but I have it on good authority to say that you’re going to get there.”
I took a moment to digest his words, melting into his body as much as I could. “Thanks, Joey. How much do I owe you for this session?”
“The first one is on the house,” he reported authoritatively, “but moving forward, I’m sure I can work with your insurance to figure something out.”
It fully hit me then how much I had missed him in the time I’d been without him, missed just having him in my life to lie around and be silly with. Everything in my life had been so complicated on so many levels, but our connection and the love he had for me had always been so pleasantly simple. He, like the meadow, was a safe space, someplace I could go to lose myself for a while, someplace I felt comfortable and secure. Never before had a person felt like home to me, but I was more certain than anything that, with him, I would always be warm, safe, and loved. There were parts of me deep down that were connected to parts of him that I couldn’t even identify, but all I knew for sure was that, lying on his chest with a smile on my face, I was right where I was supposed to be. His presence wiped away the haze in my life, and even if his looming personality had shaken things up for me, he himself was so delightfully uncomplicated, so easy to indulge in. Stripping away all the fake friends and massive, unavoidable shadows that came with them, I was left with just bare-bones Joey, the cute, goofy boy who had loved me from the start.
“I missed you,” I cooed to him before I could stop myself. I wanted to try to ease back into things with him, so unsure of what we would be without his ego hanging over our heads or how we would proceed now that my meltdown was over, but I couldn’t help myself. “I’m sorry I dragged you onto this crazy train. I’m even more sorry I threw you off while it was moving at full speed. I was on the verge of a breakdown and I thought I was doing you a favor by making you leave.”
He constricted his arms around me and rested his head against mine. “I never wanted to leave, Ash; you don’t just abandon someone you care about because they’re having a tough time. I was going to give you some space before I tried to patch things up, but I couldn’t stand to be away from you. I hadn’t even been without you for two days, and already, I was miserable. I was actually going to head over to your house after work to try to talk to you the night Ellie called me from your phone to tell me what happened.”
His words lit up some of the darkest spaces inside of me, and I smiled against his chest. “I can’t promise that I’d have listened to you then, but I can promise that I’ll listen to you now.”
“I’ve told you time and time again, and I’ll keep saying it – bare bones, plain and simple, I love you.” He began to stroke my hair softly, and I closed my eyes, focusing solely on him. “I could add all the flowery words, all the bells and whistles, but that’s what it boils down to. It’s really not as complicated as we’ve been making it. We let my old friends get involved and shake things up, but the constant was that we always had each other. Had I known then how tough things were for you, how hard of a time you were having with everything, I’d have called it all off with them a lot sooner than I did.”
“Well, you seemed like you liked being popular,” I justified myself and my decision to grit my teeth and try to carry on like nothing was happening to me. “I didn’t want to try to change you and have you resent me for it. You hear all the time about girls who date guys and insist they change, and then she breaks up with him because he isn’t the guy she fell for anymore. I didn’t want you to think we were heading down that path. I never wanted to change who you are by taking your popularity away from you.”
“The popularity isn’t who I am, though. It was part of me, but it wasn’t me. It was egotistical and hollow, and I’m still trying to figure out who I am without it, but you’re worth every single question I’m asking myself. Everything about my life seems empty without you there with me, I learned in the past few weeks. You brighten every single day you spend with me, and I think I’ve come to need your light in my life, because I can’t fathom what I would do without you.” He paused for a moment. “I love you, Stellina. If I never know anything else in my life, at least that, I know for sure.”
His words were sappy, but they were sweet as candy, and I ate them all up. Even after they were out, though, I remained hungry, craving more and more of him, and I couldn’t help myself anymore – I picked my head up off his chest and didn’t hesitate to kiss him. His lips were warm and soft and familiar, and if we had several weeks’ worth of missed kisses to make up for, I was eager to catch us up to speed.
After who knew how long, we pulled apart just a bit, coming up for air with smiles on our faces. I rested myself beside him, lost in his eyes, and I tucked myself in as close to him as I could physically be. “I love you, too,” I told him with a giggle, “if that wasn’t super obvious already. My world is wild and fluid, but you’re the only thing that makes sense to me. Can we just overlook this silly breakup nonsense? Can we pretend it didn’t happen, and just go back to being crazy in love with each other?”
Instead of saying anything, he pulled me back into him again, and I could feel him smile into our kiss.
To be entirely honest, I didn’t know where I was going from there. The foundation of everything I thought I knew had been shaken so thoroughly, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared of anything. The road ahead was uncertain, but instead of terror, I found myself full of excitement. Yeah, life was an unpredictable, wild ride, but I had some extremely special people to ride it with me. I had a boyfriend who loved me from the bottom of his heart, a best friend who knew how to like me even in my darkest of times, and parents who were far from perfect but were finally trying their best, for my sake.
It took a whirlwind to get me to where I was, but strangely enough, I felt fully prepared for wherever I was going from there. I had my head on straight, good company, and, for the first time in a very long time, I had hope for myself. It wasn’t always going to be easy – sometimes, it might be really freaking hard – but wherever I was going, I believed I could get there.
In the end, I guess life isn’t so bad. In spite of everything, I think I’m going to be okay after all.
Lucid Page 25