The sun is warm on my face. The waves are low. Seagulls call out overhead.
I breathe in. Salt and ocean.
The ground does not move.
The sea does not threaten me.
I breathe out.
It’s a start.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “For being my mom. I don’t know if I ever said that to you. Thank you.”
A breeze ruffles my hair. I close my eyes and lean into it. In my head, I hear bits of a bad poem from long ago. She would have said family is all a person needs, and it doesn’t matter if they’re near or far. All that matters is the lesson we must heed; to know that this is us, this is who we are.
Then it’s gone.
I smile and wait for just a moment longer. It doesn’t come back.
That’s okay. It was enough. I know she heard.
It’s time to go home.
I turn and head back up the hill toward the inevitable.
IT STARTS in the car.
Just a touch. He takes my hand. Caresses the palm. Scrapes the flesh with his nails.
He brings my hand up to his lips. His stubble is rough against my skin.
I’m shaking because it’s him and because I never thought we’d be.
I’m shaking because I’m scared.
I’m shaking because I can’t think straight. It’s all stars.
But I can breathe. Somehow, I can breathe.
It takes days, weeks, months, years to reach his house, even though it’s only a few miles away. He never once lets me go. He has to feel the way my skin vibrates. He has to hear my teeth chattering. He has to know I’m a mess. He has to know I probably always will be. He has to know there will come a day when my breath will stop in my chest and the earth will move beneath my feet again and I’ll panic. He has to know.
Still. He doesn’t let me go. It’s his promise without needing words.
The world goes by, the colors bright. I’m hyperaware of them all.
Eventually, finally, he pulls into the driveway. He turns off the SUV, and we’re surrounded by quiet. The engine ticks.
This is too much, it says. Too much. Not ready.
No, I think back. No.
“Ty?” Dom asks.
“Yeah?”
“We… don’t have to do this.” He sounds hesitant. Unsure. “I can take you home. You probably want to see Bear. And Otter. I know you need them.”
I turn my head, and he has a look of such earnestness on his face that it makes my chest hitch. It also causes my heart to race, and a strange, feral thing begins buzzing in my toes, working its way up, and I think Now, now, now.