“Well, the challenge we have here is your fear of someday becoming abusive. You thought you were doing the right thing by distancing yourself, but all it did was make us both miserable. I think you had the answer all along, you just weren’t seeing your own work. Look around you, Brett. You have provided any protection, any cure, any safety net we could ever need right here. When you offered to give me your house, when I saw myself willing to settle for what you said was the best you could give me, I knew that I was in over my head. I came here, Brett. To talk to Lila and Sara. And now I’m bringing you here.
“This is your shelter from the storms that might rage someday, Brett. This is your place where all of your secrets will always be safe.”
Something rumbled inside him. Something huge. Uncontrollable. And before he could stop himself, Brett started to tremble. His chest hiccupped. And his eyes flooded.
He hadn’t shed a tear since his first year of college. Had sworn he never would again. And as the aching pain of so many years alone, of regrets he could never appease, of lost loves he’d never recover, ripped out of him, she sat there with him. Holding him. Kissing his face. His neck. Saying words he’d never remember in a voice he’d never forget.
And when the pain was spent, at least for the moment, she told him how much she loved him.
He wanted to tell her he loved her, too. She kissed him fully on the mouth. Drawing out of him the things he didn’t yet know how to put into words.
“Will you marry me, El?”
He’d asked once before and gotten it wrong. That had to be a mistake he could fix.
“Yes, Brett. As many times as it takes.” He thought she might be smiling. He almost did, too. And then she said, “And if I ever feel you slipping back into your cave, I’m coming straight to Sara. I won’t suffer quietly and alone again.” And he understood.
She didn’t completely trust him yet. He’d hurt her. Badly.
Issues didn’t disappear overnight.
But she loved him. As he loved her.
“Give me time, love. I’ll show you that I can do this.”
“I know you can.”
“I know it now, too.”
“So this is your choice? To marry me?” In spite of her big words, he saw the doubt in her eyes as she asked the question.
“It is.” His words came right on out. No hold up at all.
“Okay, then.”
“Okay.”
He sat there, arms itching to take what was his and get on with it. Take her home with him. To his bed. Their bed.
And spend the rest of his life showing her just how open his heart could be.
Except that he wasn’t sure he knew how.
“I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
And that’s when he truly got it. He wasn’t all that different from everyone else. He had his challenges, but so did she. So did everyone.
The trick was to face them.
And to share them when you were lucky enough to have someone who was willing to sit in the fire with you.
Ella guided his palm to her stomach. And he knew what she was asking.
“I’m not panicked, El,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for it to happen, but it hasn’t.”
“No nightmares?”