Page 21 of The Trust We Broke
Over time, I found a way to shift him from memory. Time has done a lot of the healing.
But only Zach has ever been able to make me feel safe enough to be choked and taken roughly in the most passionate and romantic and uninhibited of ways. He’s the only man who never shied away from the darker things I crave, never wondered if I was okay, psychologically, because of the things I want. And if I watch it now, I know I’ll cry for the loss of it.
I look at the date the files were loaded and skip to Thanksgiving.
The camera is on me. I’m wearing a white lace bralette, reclining in Zach’s bed in his first apartment. God, the place was ugly. Wood-paneled walls in poorly varnished pine. Orange and brown curtains. A beige carpet with bald spots and three cigarette burns.
But we were so freaking happy we finally had a place to ourselves.
Light seeps from the gap in the curtains and dances on the headboard. The watery warm sunlight only ever hit the bed in the morning.
“Five reasons you love me,” Zach says; his voice is rough.
“Your eyes,” I say quickly, and I’m looking slightly above the camera as I speak. “They tell a thousand stories, like you’re an old soul who’s walked this earth a good few times before this one.”
“Reason two?”
I look away for a second. “When I need you, you’re always there.”
“Obviously,” he says. “That’s my job. To be there for you.”
“Yes, but many men wouldn’t be or aren’t. So, I’m grateful. Is it crude to say how good you are in bed as a reason?”
I hear his gruff chuckle, then see his hand slide up my rib cage and cup my breast. He had his hands tattooed by then. The four letters of my nickname, L U C E run across his knuckles as his thumb brushes over my nipple. “Are you kidding me, Luce? Hearing your woman tell you she thinks you’re a sex god is good for the ego.”
My cheeks go pink, and I try to cover my face. But he grips my wrist and tugs my hand away. “Nah, babe. I want to see it when you talk about sex. Love the way you want the dirtiest things but get all shy talking about ‘em. What’s reason four?”
“What you just said. You love me as I am. You don’t want to change me. You just wholeheartedly encourage me to be the best version of myself. Like pushing me to go apply to Harvard. You want that for me, even though it means we might be apart foryears.”
There’s a shuffle of the camera, and suddenly, Zach appears next to me. His hair has an undercut now, and what is left is up in a messy bun. But he’s naked. So utterly confident in his own skin.
He kisses me. “You’re gonna make me so fucking proud when you graduate. I’m gonna watch you walk across that stage with my heart in my mouth.”
My smile slips for a minute, but Zach is so in the moment, he doesn’t notice. I knew I could only get two guest tickets for one of the events. And I wasn’t sure how I would reconcile my father and mother wanting to attend, with them having to sit next to Zach at the other.
It would be a toss-up between the man who paid for the whole thing—my father—and the man who I knew would support me through the whole thing—Zach.
Zach tugs me under his arm, and I snuggle up into him. “What’s the fifth reason?” he asks.
“You never let me hide the shadow parts of me. You dragged them into the light. I was on a path. I think my father has had my career as a lawyer mapped out in front of me since the day I was born. But, as we’ve grown, you’ve opened up my world, Zach. And I’m happier here, in this place with that nasty green bathroom, than I’ve ever been anywhere else.”
Zach smiles as if I gave him all the right answers, and watching my younger self offer them, I see the genuine love I had for him, the optimism I had for the two of us for the future. He pats along the edge of the bed, and then, produces a ring box. In it is a simple engagement ring. A narrow band. Four little chips of diamonds set together to make it look bigger than it really was.
I still have it.
“Then, marry me, Luce. I want history to know that the two of us existed, that we loved each other, and wanted to spend our lives together.”
Sitting in the tub, tears sting my eyes. The flood of joy and surprise and love I felt in that moment back then, flood through me again now.
He was offering me the future I wanted.
“God, of course. Yes. I love you.”
The phone gets dropped onto the bedding, so I can no longer see the two of us. But I remember him kissing me. Hard.
“Let’s do it soon,” he murmurs, and I touch my neck, shivering at the memory of what it felt like when he kissed me there.
“When?” I ask.
