He saw my face and stopped moving. “You okay?”
I held up the picture. “She sees it.”
He stepped forward slowly, carefully.
“She seesus,” I said. “Even when I wasn’t sure I did.”
His voice was barely above a whisper. “Do you see it now?”
I nodded, eyes burning.
“I want this, Grant.” I didn’t dress it up. Didn’t apologize for it. Didn’t protect it in qualifiers or caveats. “I want the house, the mornings, the bookshelves full of fairy tales and paint stains. I want the dinners and the swings and the nights we don’t say anything but still know we’re not alone.”
I stepped closer. “I want you.”
His breath hitched.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I don’t want to hold it all alone just to prove I can. I want to share it. All of it.”
He touched my cheek like I might dissolve if he pushed too hard. “You don’t have to prove anything,” he said. “You never did.”
And then he kissed me.
Not the first kind of kiss. Not the eager, searching kind. The second kind.
The kind that feels like home.
That night,I pulled out Iris’s journal again.
Dear Iris,
You told us to make something beautiful. To feed someone. To offer a kindness. To remind this place that we were here.
I think I did all of those things today.
But more than that… I let myself belong.
And for the first time in years, I’m not tired from giving. I’m full from receiving.
I’m not leaving.
I’m choosing this.
I think maybe… this life chose me back.
18
WILLA
The email came just after breakfast.
Subject: Congratulations – Oaklight Summer Artist Residency
I stared at it for a solid minute before opening it. Then I read the first line three times:
We’re thrilled to offer you a place in this year’s program...
I didn’t smile.
