Page 174 of Blackout-

We were in that cabin for days and every day he took care of our daughter. He didn’t ask me to help him change her diaper or bathe her. He figured it out and what he couldn’t he googled. When he wasn’t caring for her, he was checking on me, making sure I took my meds.

After a week, my father showed up with Dr. Spiegel. I knew they wanted me to go back to the hospital. I was depressed not stupid, but my husband told them I was staying put. Dr. Spiegel prescribed me different medication and suggested hormone therapy. I started taking the new meds and I think people credit my recovery to that.

I don’t.

I credit my husband. He gave me what I needed most.

His love and his patience.

Every night I watched as he danced with our daughter to the song, he first danced with me and after the final note was sung, he’d tell her a story.

“Once upon a timethere lived a young girl who battled depression and an older man who struggled with addiction. They fell head over heels in love with one another…”

One nightas he was telling her the story, he came to the part where the heroine told the hero she was pregnant.

“She was sohappy and so in love with the thought of having a little piece of him and her. As the months went on life wasn’t very fair to them. What they always dreamed of being the most special time of their life became the most trying. Their love and will was tried and tested but that little girl growing inside of her got them through. She brought hope. She brought joy. She brought everything God promised she would, and they fell in love with her before they ever met her,” he said.

“And even more in love when they saw her for the first time,” I whispered.

His eyes snappedup and met mine instantly and I’ll never forget the way he looked at me as I made my way towards them. There was so much hope in those sad eyes of his. So much love. At our worst times, I thought love wasn’t enough, but he showed me it was all I ever needed.

Lithium wasn’t the crutch.

It wasn’t my savior.

Blackie’s love was.

Just as the switch flipped taking me away from my daughter, it flipped bringing me back to her. I wasn’t afraid to touch her or to hold her. I wasn’t afraid of loving her. The only thing I was afraid of was that she forgot me.

I don’t know if Blackie sensed this or what, but he placed our daughter in my arms, and everything fell into place. The love I have for Jacqueline can’t be extinguished. It’s meant to burn wild and free so when I’m gone, she always knows her mother loved her more than the moon and the stars.

Depression is no joke, people.

It will tear you apart and make you doubt everything.

It’s a silent killer.

Not everyone is as lucky as I am. My husband went to rehab because a judge forced him to, but he came out a better man. One who not only saved himself but the man who saved his family. We’ll always be the girl who battles depression and the older man who struggles with addiction, but we’re Leather and Lace and we’ve gothope.

Not every fairy tale is a tragic love story.

But sometimes you have to navigate Hell to find Heaven.

Epilogue

Blackie

Three years later…

Throwing Lacey’slegs over my shoulders, I dip my head and lick her pussy from assto clit. The first taste of her is always the sweetest and I groan against her clit as the flavor of her bursts on my tongue.

Fucking Heaven.

Her ankles lock around my neck as she arches off the bed and threads her fingers through my long hair. My name sounds on her tongue and I go to work. Licking and sucking her until her pink pussy is slick with her come and swollen from the assault of my mouth.

Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever get enough of one another. Then she comes violently on my tongue like she just did, and I laugh.

My body may have thirteen years on hers, but it will never grow tired of this.

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