Page 153 of Promising You
“But my dad hardly went to any of my swim meets. Where did you get all these photos and the stats?”
“Your dad gave me your high school coach’s number and I called him and he emailed me the stats. And your dad had some of the photos and Decker helped me get the other ones.”
Garret’s quiet as he flips through each page. When he’s done he sets it on the table next to my bed and says, “Come over here.” I go up to him and he pulls me onto his lap. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“So you like it? You’re not just saying that?”
“I love it. Really.” He slips his hand around mine, his other hand wrapped around my waist holding me in place on his lap. “How long did it take you to get all that stuff and put it together like that?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted you to have a record of all your swim meets. Your dad said you didn’t have anything like that. And I’m making you one for college, too. I’ve already got some photos and all your stats for the meets up until you got hurt. But I’ll do a better job on the next one.” I glance back at the album. “Sorry that one looks so bad, but I warned you about my craft skills.”
“Jade.” He turns my face back to his. “Stop apologizing for it. The book is perfect. I love it. Thank you for doing that for me.”
The look on his face causes a warmth to spread through me that goes deep within my soul. He’s happy. Really happy. And I know it’s not just because of the scrapbook, but because of what it means. Garret knows I can’t always express my feelings the way he can. Telling him how much he means to me is still hard for me. But this book I made for him, even if it’s kind of a mess, is my way of telling him how much I care about him, and appreciate him and everything he’s done for me.
Now I wish I’d done something special for Garret a long time ago. I’m not sure why I didn’t. If I’m truly honest with myself, I think it’s because I was still afraid to give Garret too much of myself. I was afraid to give him all of my heart because I’ve already had so much pain and loss in my life that I didn’t think I could handle the emotions I would feel if I opened my heart completely to him and this didn’t work out. But I’m tired of being afraid. Garret’s given his whole heart to me and I’m ready to give him mine. In fact, I feel like I already have and I’m not even sure when it happened. Now I just need to make sure that he knows that. Not just with words, but with actions, and tonight was the first step in doing that.
When I look at Garret again, I see him smiling at me. “You’re really sweet, you know that?”
The tough-girl side of me does not like being called that, so I roll my eyes and say, “I amnotsweet.”
“You’re sweet. Deal with it.” He kisses me, then backs away just enough to look at me. “That took a lot of time and effort and it was really nice of you to do that for me.”
“It’s just a photo album. It’s not that great.” I glance away but he turns me back to him.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t put yourself down like that.”
“I didn’t.” I try to look away again but he cups my cheek with his hand, forcing me to face him.
“Yeah, you did. And I don’t want you to do it anymore.”
“I didn’t say anything about myself. I was talking about the album.”
“Yeah, but you did something really nice and then I tell you that and you get all uncomfortable, like you don’t believe me.”
“Because doing this one little thing doesn’t make me nice. Or sweet. If Iwerethose things, I would’ve been doing stuff like this the whole time we’ve been dating instead of waiting until now.”
He sighs.
“What?” I ask, not sure where this is going.
“Why do think all these bad things about yourself when none of them are true?”
I don’t respond because I’m not sure I know the answer.
His hand is still cradling the side of my face and I feel his thumb brush my cheek as our eyes meet.
“You’re so many good things, Jade. You’re thoughtful and caring and whether you like it or not, you’re sweet. And when I think about the hell you went through as a kid and how you got through that—” He stops. He seems frustrated. “You’re a fucking amazing person, Jade, and it pisses me off when you can’t see that.”
His words make me smile but also make me tear up a little because nobody’s ever described me that way. Nobody’s ever said I’m thoughtful or nice or caring or anything like that. Most people would probably describe me as being the opposite of those things because I shut people out and keep them at a distance. But I don’t want to be that way and I’ve been trying to figure out how I even got like that. I think it’s because I tried for so many years to do nice things for my mom so that she’d like me, maybe even love me, or at the very least stop yelling at me. But no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, she never changed. And so I gave up trying to make her love me. I gave up trying to makeanyonelove me, but then Garret came along and loved me without my having to do anything other than just be me.
And now that he knows me, the real me, he knows that deep down I don’t think I’m a very good person. I know that’s why Garret said that to me just now. He wants me to believe I’m the person he described as much as he believes it. And maybe someday I will.
I give him a hug, squeezing him really tight. “I love you so much.”
