The Real

Her anger disappeared as she looked up at me.

“Tell me what you want, Cameron. Don’t give me the answer you think I need, just tell me what you want.”

“Jesus Christ,” I choked out. “What I want? Abbie, all I want, all I’ll ever want again, is you.”

And in that moment as I looked at her, I believed we were absolute.

A lifetime of promises raced through me as I stared down at her. “I will never keep anything from you again,” I said softly as I took her face in my hands and made the first promise to shimmering blue eyes. “Ever. And I’ll never let you go again without the fight you deserve. Everything you think you aren’t, I can tell you right now you are, to me you are. And if loving me is what you’re good at, I’ll spend my whole life earning that affection. I want this, with you, until I’m not breathing. I need you to remember that when shit gets tough. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed easily as if we were making simple plans for the day ahead instead of decisions on our future.

She’d just given me back my life, my happiness and I nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead out of words as my heart stuttered in relief. “Okay.”

Chinese food in hand, I walked down Milwaukee Avenue as the sun set. I passed the graffiti walls and strode underneath the squeaking train as I made my way home. I’d taken the long route because Abbie liked her Lo Mein cold, the weirdo. I grinned as I thought of her text.

Me: Dinner tonight?

Witchy Woman: Will sucky suck for some sweet and sour soup and shrimp lo mein. Me love you long time.

Me: You’re geeking out again, babe.

Witchy Woman: Fine, no sucky for you. Just get the food.

When I was growing up, I never really gave love a second thought. It was just something I was supposed to have. A futuristic endeavor of . . . eventually or when the time was right. At the time of my choosing, I always assumed I’d have it when I wanted it.

I’d never been more fucking wrong.

Love in all its splendor is a damned nightmare if kept secluded to a timeline. You don’t just stumble upon the love of your life and expect things to work out in your favor.

Love by its definition is a lie, its true definition is work and a fuck lot of it.

It also means so much more than that one syllable. It’s a one-word representation of everything that can make or break a person. Love is only meant for the brave.

I didn’t know when I was younger that I had love. I had the love of the first girl I bedded in high school. I remember feeling it and dismissing it for some other time. I had the love of my college sweetheart but never really returned her affections, always knowing in the back of my mind that she wasn’t the one I would marry. That’s a harsh truth. That makes me a bastard in a way. I’d abused her affections for my own personal gain and to pass the time.

The brutal truth about my ex-wife was that I’d married her because I loved her just enough and the timing was right. It was another bastard move on my part. And I still can’t help but wonder if somewhere deep-down Kat knew it too, and that’s what ruined us. I didn’t love her like I should’ve.

In hindsight, I’d fucked it all up with my assumptions about something I’d never truly experienced. I honestly feel like

I could have loved my high school sweetheart. But I’ll never know, because that’s how I taught myself how to love, by timing and convenience.

With Abbie, the timing was both right and wrong. I had no right and every right to fall in love with her. It didn’t matter, because she was the one I was supposed to give my heart to.

But I got knocked on my ass—because of my arrogance and sense of entitlement—when loving her showed me different.

Hers was the love I craved all along. It was a gift. And real love is a fucking miracle. And if you’re lucky enough to find it, you throw every one of your preconceived notions away and you hold onto it with every ounce of your being, because it’s unforgiving in its wrath and if you’re not careful it will let go of you as fast as it took hold.

Love broke us both and put us back together.

I was going to hold on to my love for Abbie, so tight that it hurt. And I would let it hurt as a reminder of how lucky I was to have her. I would never find another love like what I had with her, not in my lifetime.

And I was done bending to the timeline.

The day my divorce was final, I asked Abbie to be my wife.

I turned the key and walked into our three-flat.

“Abbie?” I called out as I looked around the living room. The TV was on and her purse and cell phone were on the coffee table along with a pharmacy bag. I went upstairs to find her in the bathroom.