The Mixtape

I felt as if my knees were going to buckle beneath me any second, and right before I almost fell apart, Oliver was there, linking his arm with my free one. He kept me standing when I felt like falling.

“Keep walking, Em,” he whispered. “Just keep walking.”

We moved on autopilot until we reached the car. I buckled Reese into her car seat and then moved into the passenger seat. Staring forward, I tried my best to control the anger and pain rushing through me.

“Hey, Mama?”

“Yes, Reese?”

“Why did she say I wasn’t yours?”

I shut my eyes as tears rolled down my cheeks. “I don’t know, sweetheart. She was just a crazy woman.”

“Oh, okay.” She accepted it easily as ever, before saying “Hey, Mama?” again.

I sniffled. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“I don’t think you’re a disappointment.”

My head lowered as the tears kept falling from my eyes. “Thank you, baby.” I tried my best to still the shaking of my body so Reese wouldn’t see my poor reaction.

“Are you okay?” Oliver whispered.

With a deep inhalation, I said, “Just drive, please.”

He did as I requested, and I kept my eyes closed the whole time as we drove toward the bed-and-breakfast. I didn’t pull away when I felt Oliver’s hand fall against mine. With a gentle squeeze, a splash of comfort hit my soul.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Always.”

Reese was asleep within seconds of falling against her queen bed once we made it to our room. I moved slowly as my mind was spinning fast. After washing my face and putting on my pajamas, I heard a knock at the door.

I opened it to find Oliver standing there with his hands in his pockets. “Hey.”

I tried to force a smile, but it wasn’t there. “Hey.”

“Let me hold you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “It’s okay, you don’t have to; I’m okay. I’m fine. It was just a long day, that’s all. I should be getting to sleep.”

“You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Be strong all the time.”

“Yes,” I said while nodding, “I do. Because if I’m not, then I’m not able to be what my daughter needs me to be. She needs me to be strong in order to take care of her.”

His eyes moved to the sleeping girl in her bed, and then he looked back to me. “Right now she’s good, she’s safe, she’s okay, Emery. So, now it’s time for you to be taken care of.”

“I . . .” My words faded as I crossed my arms and shook my head slightly. “I’ve never had anyone take care of me before. I don’t even know what that looks like.”

“It’s different every time, but tonight it’s me holding you.”

I bit my bottom lip and nodded slightly, giving him permission to take me into his arms. The moment he wrapped himself around me, I melted into him, feeling at home in an instant. He moved us to my bed, and we lay down beside one another. His arms felt like the greatest weighted blanket that my soul needed that night.

He didn’t push for conversation; he didn’t try to understand what had unfolded before him that evening. He simply gave me comfort, he took care of me, and I kept falling, falling, falling . . .

I love you, I thought.

I love you, I felt.

I love you, I knew.

I couldn’t say the words, though, because love scared me. Every person I’d ever loved had always let me down. I couldn’t allow myself to verbalize my feelings for Oliver, because once I did, I knew there was no going back for me.

My body turned to face him, and I looked into those brown eyes that had been the source of sparks of happiness over the past few weeks, and then my stare fell to his lips. My heart began racing; my mind began to spin.

“Oliver?”

“Yes?”

“Do you feel for me what I feel for you?”

“More,” he whispered, inching his face closer to mine, resting our foreheads against one another. “I feel more.”

“Does it scare you?”

“No.”

“It scares me,” I confessed. “I’m not used to people caring about me, and the ones who were supposed to are the ones who left. So that scares me. Getting close to you freaks me out, because what if you change your mind? What if one day you decide that you don’t want me anymore and you leave?”

“I can’t erase your fear, Emery, but I need you to know that you did this to me,” he said, taking my hands into his and laying them against his chest. “You found me when my heartbeats were hardly there, and you stamped them. You stamped my heart, and that’s why it’s still beating.”

The way my body filled with love was almost overpowering. “Oliver . . .”

“Ask me to be yours, and I’ll be yours. If you let me stay, I’ll stay forever.”