Page 29 of HoHoHo for You

Where to start, though?

I swallowed hard, my breath quick and shallow, and put the pen to the page, took a deep breath, and wrote the first thing that always came to mind whenever I thought about that first day.

Why didn’t my mother love me enough to leave my father and keep us both safe?

Why wasn’t I worth that?

10. Worth It

~ SAM ~

God, she fought for it. She fought for it hard.

That first hour or two she spent with one leg tucked under her, the other down so her foot was on the deck, her heel bouncing. There was a lot more time staring out at the trees and tapping her pen on the page frowning, than anything else. I had to swallow back the urge to talk to her, to offer advice, even encouragement. She’d asked to be alone, and not have to talk. I was asking her to relive the worst of her trauma, the least I could give her was that.

But it was so fucking hard to watch her huff and claw a hand through her hair and mutter curses.

It was worse when her chin trembled, though.

I doubted myself too. Who was I to ask her to do this? What if I was wrong and this would only make it worse? Gerald, her psychologist, had thought the exercise was a great idea—but warned me that he’d attempted something similar more than once before and she’d flatly refused.

For those first couple of hours, when she battled and shivered and looked so afraid and uncertain, I almost pulled the plug. Almost told her not to do it—that we’d try again in a few months, maybe at home. I prayed she’d find the courage, or at least, not hate me if she couldn’t. I prayed we’d find a way through this whether she was willing to write it down or not.

And I prayed she’d heal. IbeggedGod to touch her with even a portion of the healing He’d given me. She needed it so desperately.

But my head spun with doubts—it was the wrong time, I was the wrong person, I would ruin this beautiful thing we had, it might send her dark and then how would I get her back?

I’d almost convinced myself of that last one when I watched her drop back in the chair, eyes screwed tight, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, the hand holding the pen slack on the page…

But at some point around midmorning, her brow pinched into lines and she wrote something with her jaw tight, pressing the pen hard into the book like she was angry with it. Then she read it back, frowned harder, wiped her eyes… and wrote something else.

Then, even though her expression remained serious and dark, the pen started moving. And this time, it didn’t stop.

For hours.

I brought her food. Water. Coffee. I stayed silent and didn’t ask her to speak.

I went swimming alone and lay on my back in the water, begging God to help her. I walked the beach looking for shells and brought back a beautiful one with iridescent blue on the bottom that reminded me of her eyes.

I took away her dirty, half-eaten plates and replaced them with new meals.

I went to sleep in the bed alone, only to wake up hours later when she slipped under the covers, dropped her head to my chest, curled herself into a ball, and breathed fast against my collarbones.

I held her all night, but she didn’t speak, so neither did I.

I woke up to her slipping out of bed and going back outside, the pen and journal in her hand.

And then we did it all again.

I went to bed alone again the second night… and woke up to find her sitting at the dining table, staring at me. Her hair was wet—she’d either showered, or gone swimming. The deep shadows under her eyes looked like bruises. Her eyes were bloodshot, but clear.

The journal was closed on the table next to her.

I blinked and our eyes locked.

“Babe?” I rasped.

“It’s done,” she whispered. Then tore her eyes away from me to look at it on the table next to her, then back at me, wary.

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