“It’s good to be home.”
“Now maybe some of the nightmares will go away,” she whispers.
“Are you going to take the victims advocate up on the free therapy sessions?”
“I might. I hate feeling jumpy and scared all the time, even when I sleep. You’re the only thing that makes it better, you know?”
“I’m just worried about leaving you when we have our two week stretch of away games after Thanksgiving.”
“You have to go play. I’ll be fine. Not like I can attend classes yet, so I’ll be right here all tucked away safely.”
The dean agreed to let her finish the semester remotely given what happened to her. She’ll start attending classes in the spring semester. I advocated hard to let her do remote, and all her teachers were on board with it. Even our Statistic’s professor. He has a daughter.
“I got you a new phone.”
“Not again.”
“Asswipe ruined your other one.”
She sighs. “I could have bought one.”
“You would have bought a cheap one from Walmart.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Nope, I just got you the same model I bought you for your birthday so I know it’ll be reliable. Don’t argue with me for once, Red, please. I need to know you have a phone. It’ll make me feel better about going away.”
“I just don’t want you to waste your money on me.”
“Babe, I’m going to be wasting my money on you and our kids until the day I die.”
“Kids, huh?”
“Well, yeah. Not right away, obviously. We need to actually get married first, but eventually, yeah.”
“You keep assuming I’m going to marry you.”
“You love me.”
“I love you. Doesn’t mean I’m marrying you.”
“That’s fine, you want to live in sin for the rest of our lives, I’m down, but you can explain it to my mother and my grandmother.”
She looks horrified at the mention of my grandmother and the words living in sin.
I tip her face up to me. “I do love you, sweetheart. More than I can ever tell you. Married or not, we’re spending the rest of our lives together. I almost lost you once, I’m not doing that again.I’d put a ring on your finger today if I didn’t think you’d run screaming for the proverbial hills.”
“You really mean that, don’t you?”
“What? That I’d put a ring on your finger today?”
She nods hesitantly.
“I have the ring. I’m just waiting for you to be ready for it.”
She smiles. “I love you Jonathan Wayne Hutchinson.”
“I love you more.”
