I have her. She’s worth it. Everything will work out.
She clasps our hands together on her cheeks and brings them to rest between our chests, a soft, sweet reassurance that she instantly knew I needed. Her tongue sweeps out and I quickly grant her access. Our mouths glide softly around each other, but she keeps our hands locked tight, heart to heart—an anchor tethered to its vessel.
When we break the kiss, I rest my forehead against hers. “I talked to your brother.” She looks up at me. “He called while you were in the shower.”
“And?”
“And he asked about you, wanted to know what was going on, but I told him you’d probably want to be the one to tell him.”
She nods, albeit nervously.
“He wouldn’t tell me anything, Gretch. But whatever’s going on with him is not good.”
She rasps out an affirmation of what we’d both already assumed by now. “It scares me, too, but”—her eyes dart between mine—“there’s more, isn’t there?”
I run my thumb over our clasped hands. “He thanked me for being here for youandfor him and…” I trail off, shrugging my shoulders. “Can I be honest?”
“Of course.”
“I meant everything I said last night. I choose you. But I’m gonna need you to be patient with me when it comes to your brother. I heard what you said about it being his choice how he responds to this. And I get it. But he and I have a lot of history and I’ve spent years convinced that he would never forgive me if he ever found out about how I felt about you. That choosing you meant losing him…meant you potentially losing him.”
I take in a deep breath, my lungs craving air. Gretchen’s sympathetic gaze shows no sign of judgment.
“My head is a chaotic wasteland at the moment. I’m in this for the long haul because you’re it for me, but those fears are still there and it’s just…it’s really hard to shut them off.”
She pushes to her toes and kisses me again. “I wanna show you something.”
I follow her into the bedroom and take a seat on the bench at the foot of the bed as Gretchen runs to the closet for something. When she settles in beside me, she props one leg underneath her, turning to face me. I take the old copy ofLittle Womenshe holds out for me. The same one I caught her reading on the hike and that I bought for her twelve years ago.
I gently run my hands over the cover, memories of her tenth birthday rushing in. “I saw this two days ago.” I arch a playful brow and she rolls her eyes.
“I know, but you didn’t see what was inside.” The softest smile pulls at her mouth. “Look at the bookmark.”
I open to the page marked by a thick piece of card stock that’s not a bookmark at all. A three by five envelope with Gretchen’s name scrawled across the center in my familiar handwriting lays between the pages. Tucked inside is the goldfish birthday card.
Gretchen’s words stop me before I get the chance to open it. “I know keeping the card all these years is a little pathetic, but I?—”
“I don’t think that.” I look at her, my stern expression the only cover for the heart somersaulting in my chest.
She smiles softly. “Five years old is my earliest memory of understanding I was adopted. My parents never kept it from me before that, but it’s like I didn’t fully grasp what it meant until then. Ever since, birthdays have been…bittersweet for me. But, my tenth birthday, when you gave me this, I felt seen in a way I never had before.
“I know it was twelve years ago, but it’s still the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me.”
Gretchen’s hand comes to rest softly on top of mine.
“I’ve collected about a dozen editions of this book, but I only ever read this one. And it’s not because it’s my favorite story. It’s because it makes me think of you. Eventually I found myself picking it up just so I could feel close to you.”
I turn my hand over and weave our fingers together.
She runs her bottom lip between her teeth. “In the card you said I was your favorite and you called meFish.” She gives me a half-shrug, a shy smile playing at her lips. “I guess it was the first time you felt like more than my brother’s friend, like maybe you were my friend, too.”
I flip the card over in my hand, opening and closing it along the well-worn crease in its center, recalling the details of that day twelve years ago.
“Everything about that day has led me here. The gift, the card, the things I shared with you…it’s why all the times I imagined this day, it was always with you.
“And I know it sounds dumb because I was only ten and it wasn’t like I was reading all of this into it at the time, but when I think about it now? I don’t know, it feels like it was the start ofus, even if we didn’t know it then.”
Maybe love is that simple. It can arrive unsuspectingly into your life when you’re just a kid. A love that starts out as something innocent and pure, but over time blooms into more. By the time you realize what’s happened, you’re so far gone you don’t even knowhow or when it began. All you know is you love this person—yourperson—and you can’t remember a time when you didn’t.
