For a long moment they stayed that way, his hand in her hair calming both of them in a way that she couldn’t explain.
“When I was young I always thought that if I could be better, look more like them, help them more, that I would be a part of their family. Dominic is right. Sergio adopted me so that I would know that no matter who raised me that I was a part of the family.”
“Mark? Can’t you see that you already are? Those men love you,” she pleaded. Why couldn’t he see just how important he was?
“I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have spent my life feeling like I needed to find a way to live up to what they expected of me. Searching for a home. A place where I belonged.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes tracking his fingers.
“Every time someone would touch me, and I cringed, or every slur about not having parents. It eats at you little bird. I knew that someday there would be that one person that I could trust. That even my family wouldn’t be able to take them away from me.”
“That’s you,” he whispered, his eyes on his fingers in her hair and tears hit her eyes, flowing down her cheeks.
“You are what I’ve been searching for.” He met her eyes, the depths swirling with a pool so light that her heart soared that he was finally seeing what she had already known.
That this was it.
This was them.
Forever.
“I know, Mark.”
“I don’t think you do little bird,” he whispered.
As if there was no way that he believed her, as if he wasn’t sure that this was really happening.
That he was scared it was all a dream.
“I do know, Mark. You think I haven’t missed the way that you shy away from them. The way that they try to help you, support you, and the way that you cut them out. The way that not being touched your whole life has affected you.”
His eyes were wide staring at her with wonder.
She might not have grown up in foster care, but she knew what it was like to not have the touch of a loving person while you were growing up. It left a person with a hole that they may never get filled.
But what he didn’t know was that she was full.
There was no more gaping hole in her heart anymore.
He had filled it.
Filled it with his love.
His light.
His protection.
And everything else that was just him.
And she wanted to be able to give that to him.
“It’s okay to let them in. It’s okay to let me in. I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered, but he just shook his head sadly. His eyes giving away his pain.
“When I first found you, I used to look at you and know that one day you would heal. One day you would be a wonderful beautiful little bird, and when that day came, I was going to have to let you go.”
“What …” She gaped at him, but he shushed her.
“I knew that no matter how much I wanted to keep you with me, that you were going to be so beautiful. So strong. That there was no way that I could be selfish enough to keep you. That you would go on to live a happy and full life.”
