Page 102 of Catching Feeling

He loves me.

So many months of hiding parts of my life from others, hiding parts of myself. Months of keeping everything inside until I was bursting at the seams with all the feelings I’ve been neglecting. Grief that I buried, crippling stress, feeling lost and overwhelmed all the time. Guilt. So much sadness. Everything I kept pushing away in hopes that they’d just… disappear. Except that’s not what happens… it’s what makes you quietly fall apart.

I see it all clearly as my emotions purge from my body in the flood of tears. “It’s m-my fault,” I repeat despondently.

He shakes his head. “It is not your fault, baby. None of this is your fault. You can’t hold the blame for others’ actions, and it’s not fair to put this on yourself. Viv, you take care of everyone. You take care of Hallie, you take care of your mom, hell, you even take care of me. But you don’t always take care of yourself. You never put yourself first. You put every-fucking-body’s feelings above yours—their lives, their needs, their happiness. Fuck that, Viv. Fuck always putting yourself last. Let me take care of you for a change. Let me put you first. Let me fucking love you. I was made to love you, and I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Over baseball, over the minors. Over it all. This is what I’m sure of. I should have told you that last night, but I was scared to. I was scared that you’d run, that it would be too much for you to hear. But tonight made me realize that you run when the world gets to be too much, but I’m coming after you, baby. I’ll chase you to the ends of the goddamn earth.”

I feel the slow, soothing brush of his fingers along my back as silence hangs between us. I work to steady my breathing. Even just his words, the tone of his voice, calms me. He steadies me. He makes me feel anchored. Rational thought breaks through my mass of emotion, and I realize how much I just unloaded on him, unfairly taking everything out on him. Everything became too much, and I just…lost it.

I lost it on him, and I feel sick to my stomach about it. About hurting another person I love.

God, this is such a fucking mess. I’m such a mess.

“I’m so sorry. I’m fucking everything up,” I whisper solemnly. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I just… I feel so guilty, Reese. It feels like it’s eating me alive from the inside. Not being there for my mom when I should have been. And I think the dam just burst with everything I’ve been dealing with. Trying so hard to hide what I’ve been feeling, lying to the people who care about me about how badly I’ve been struggling. Trying so hard to not burden anyone else with my shit.”

His jaw works for a second before he speaks, the muscle rippling. “Viv, why do you not give yourself the same grace that you give others? Baby, you move mountains for those that you love. You’d do anything for them. You accept their mistakes and their flaws without a second thought because that’s loving someone. But you never do the same for yourself. It’s okay to need others like they need you. You’re human too. We’re all imperfectly flawed, we all have our baggage, and it’s okay to have all the feelings. To be happy. To be afraid.”

I am afraid. If there’s anything I’ve realized in the last twenty-four hours, it’s that I’m terrified to lose my mom.

And I can’t lose her.

And Reese… I can’t lose Reese.

“I’m worried I’m going to lose my mom. That I won’t be able to hold her together. And I’m scared to lose you. That all this will be too much for you.” My voice is barely a whisper into his shirt, his arms tightening around me as I say it.

“You’re not going to lose your mom, Viv. And you’re not going to lose me. I’m in love with you. I’ve never told a girl I love her until today. I’ve never been in love in my life. Maybe with baseball, but that hardly counts. I might not always get it right, and I’m sure there are going to be times where I fuck up and you get pissed and throw shit at me. And times where you’re regretting your decision to be with someone who’s constantly on the road. But I’m going to show up, Viv. Every fucking time. I know you’re terrified that one day you’ll push me away and I won’t come back. But that’s not going to happen. Because I love you. And I think that you love me too.”

I blink away fresh tears that just seem to keep coming, sniffling as I snake my hands around his neck and clasp there. I press myself closer to his chest, my eyes holding his.

Those deep, dark, stormy eyes that are full of so much sincerity it makes it hard to breathe. I don’t just hear what he’s saying to me—I feel it. I feel it in the way he’s holding me and how I didn’t even have to ask him to bring me here—he already had the plane ready. I feel it in the way he bought me Boo simply because I mentioned once that I always wanted to have a cat of my own. I feel it in the way he goes out of his way to do sweet things to make me happy, how he supports my dreams and makes me feel proud of them. And I feel it in how he stood here and took every single awful thing that I threw at him because he knew I needed to lash out, that I needed to break. And he didn’t walk away. Instead, he put me back together.

He hasn’t just said those words to me; he’s proven it, over and over again.

We are messy. And he’s right, there will be times where I probably throw things at him, times that I frustrate him or push him away when it becomes too much. But he’s too far buried into my bones to let him go.

His actions have proven that my fears are just that… fear.

“I love you too, Reese. And I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry that I freaked out and said those terrible, hurtful things an?—”

“It’s okay. We’re okay.” He dips forward, dragging his nose along mine. “I’m just sorry that I had to tell you I love you here, in the middle of all this and not in a grand gesture kinda way.

You deserve grand gestures, baby. I want to be the guy that gives them to you.”

I lean forward and lay my head on his chest, soaking in the sound of his strong, steady heartbeat. We stay like that, unmoving, his arms wrapped tightly around me for minutes. Just… existing together.

“All I need is this. All I need is you,” I whisper.

“Then that’s what you’ll have.”

25

viv

A New Chapter

We’re sitting in the waiting room, me still clinging to Reese like a lifeline, when a nurse approaches us. She’s not the same one from earlier but a new one. She’s younger, with auburn hair and is holding an iPad.

“Hi, are you Vivienne?”

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