Page 84 of The Space Between
After the storm I unleashed.
Gently lying her down, I lay beside her, turning to face her. She wraps her arms around my waist in her sleep, pressing her cheek to my ribs like she’s instinctively trying to hold me together.
She has no idea how much she already has.
I stare at the ceiling in the dark, trying not to breathe too loud. Trying not to break whatever fragile spell this is. Trying not to admit what’s been rising in my chest like a fucking tide for days now.
She’s still here. After everything.
Even though she had every reason to leave, to shut me out, to walk away… she’s here.
That’s more terrifying than anything else.
This is more than comfort… more than sex… more than healing in the arms of someone just as wounded.
It’s the first time I’ve let someone all the way in since I watched the river take my family… and I don’t know if I’ll survive it again if this ends.
I lie awake,unable to close my eyes. Her body curves into mine without a word, without her even waking up, as though her skin knows mine already… like there’s no part of her that isn’t willing to trust me, even when I’m still trying to convince myself I’m worthy of it.
I’m not.
I never will be.
And still… I can’t stop wanting her.
She stirs just after dawn,blinking sleepily up at me with one bare leg tangled over mine, my hand resting low on her hip.
Her voice is scratchy with sleep as she says, “Did you get any sleep?”
Shaking my head, I look at her and murmur, “I didn’t want to miss anything.”
Her eyes soften, and she curls closer like she can sense that I’m not just talking about the morning. Her lips press against my chest.
She doesn’t offer words… just warmth. A silent promise that she’s not going anywhere… not yet.
Maybe not at all.
We stayin bed for most of the morning. Her laughter is muffled by the pillow as I tickle the backs of her knees with myfingertips. She steals half my eggs from my plate and doesn’t apologize, just says she’s ravenous. She spills orange juice on her chin and watches as I lick it off like it’s her favorite game.
It’s quiet. Simple. The kind of domestic I didn’t think I’d ever know again. The kind I swore I wouldn’t want.
But I do.
Not with just anyone.
With her.
Mid-afternoon,she mentions that she has to go to school to start decorating her classroom. I call Reece and he says he and the two teenagers, we recently hired, can handle the shop and that I better not come in.
We take my truck to town, and I help her carry a box of books into her classroom. She’s stacking paperbacks on a crooked metal shelf, talking about how she wants the room to feel safe for her students… how she’s going to put twinkle lights above the whiteboard, and maybe hang up poems from the kids in frames on the walls… even the silly ones.
She’s alive when she talks about teaching. She lights up from the inside out.
She loves teaching. She actually loves it.
“I never had a teacher like you,” I say.
Glancing over her shoulder with a book in each hand, she smirks as she says, “You mean hot, tired, and slightly unhinged?”
