Page 64 of Lighting the Lamp
“I’m protecting him,” I hiss, the words sharp and defensive, like maybe if I say them hard enough, they’ll sound like the truth.
“No, baby,” she says, her voice softening in a way that always makes me feel seen and exposed all at once. “You’re sacrificing yourself to save a man who hasn’t asked for it.”
I go still because she’s not just close to the truth, she’s standing in it. Holding it out to me like a mirror I’ve been too afraid to look into. The silence stretches as I grip the edge of the couch cushion to keep from falling apart, nails digging into the fabric like it’s the only thing anchoring me. My chest feels too tight, my skin too thin. Everything hurts in a low, aching way, like grief with nowhere to go.
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” I whisper, and it’s not a defense anymore; it’s a plea. A cracked, trembling thing I barely recognize. “Even if it rips me in half. Isn’t that what grownups do? Isn’t that what love is? Choosing the hard thing and doing what’s best for someone even when it destroys you?”
My voice breaks on the last word, and I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, because if I let myself fall apart now, I don’t know if I’ll come back from it.
“I know he’d choose me, and that’s the problem. I know he’d do it without thinking. He’d put me first. He always has. Even when he shouldn’t.” I suck in a shaky breath, staring at the blank wall, my voice hollow now. “If I let him love me right now, pour one more drop of himself into someone else, it’ll break him. I can’t be the reason he breaks, Momma.”
She just reaches out and rubs my back in slow, soothing circles—the way she used to when I was little and overwhelmed and didn’t have the words for what hurt—and I fold in on myself. Now I have all the words, a way to describe everything I’ve been feeling, but it still doesn’t change a thing.
“I don’t want to be the girl he only turns to when he’s hurting. I don’t want to be convenient or a safe bet. I want to be wanted. Chosen. Not out of need. Not because I’m the soft place to land. Not because I’ve always been there.”
I choke on a sob, tears spilling down my cheeks before I can stop them.
“I want him to want me when he’s whole. When he’s standing tall and strong and the world isn’t falling down around him. I want him to look at me with clear eyes and say,Yes, still her. Always her,not because he needs saving and is in pain but because it’s me.”
“Then why don’t you let him see all of you?”
“Because if he sees all of me—all the mess and the noise and the broken pieces—I don’t know if he’ll still say yes.”
There it is. The deepest wound, dragged into the light and trembling in my hands.
“I want to believe he would. God, I need to believe he would, but I don’t. I’ve been too much for people before. I’ve been the thing they thought they could carry until they couldn’t.”
And suddenly, I’m eight years old again. Sitting on the edge of my bed, feet dangling and heart pounding, as my father stood in the front doorway, bags packed, trying to explain to my mother why he was leaving. He wasn’t angry at either of us, but he was just done. I was too needy. Too sensitive. Too much. That’s what he’d said before walking out the door.“I want to live my life, Peggy. I can’t keep navigating my life around her issues.”And a part of me still lives in that moment, still bracing for the next person I care about to walk away from me.
“I don’t think I could survive it again,” I whisper.
Momma leans in, forehead pressing to mine like she’s trying to infuse her strength into me. Trying to remind me I’m not alone and never will be.
“Maybe the right thing isn’t what keeps you safe, but maybe it’s what makes you brave.”
I shake my head, but the fight’s gone out of me. “I’m so tired of being brave, of holding it together and pretending I don’t want more.”
“I know, baby,” she murmurs, her thumb stroking slowly, grounding circles across my shoulder. “But you deserve morethan being someone’s safe place when the world goes to hell. You deserve to be loved fully, loudly, and without fear.”
And just like that, something inside me cracks wide open, and I break. Right there on the couch, with a blanket slipping off my shoulders and the tea having gone cold on the table. My heart splits open under the weight of grief and longing and all the places I’ve tried to shrink myself small enough to be kept.
And Momma holds me like she did when I was small—no fixing, no rushing, no “you’ll be okay.” Just her usual soothing presence, and I cry. Because for the first time, I don’t know if keeping my distance from him is a strength or just one more way I’ve learned to disappear before anyone else can make me vanish.
She holds me until my tears dry up and my breathing evens out. Until the silence between us feels less like suffocation and more like safety, but neither of us says much after that. I’m not sure how long we sit there, but at some point, she kisses my forehead and tells me she’ll be in her room if I need anything, then disappears down the hall. I don’t move to go to my room, although I know I should, but I stay curled on the couch, mug abandoned, and grief still blooming quietly beneath my ribs.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because when I blink my eyes open again, mid-morning light floods the room. The TV is playing some baking show, not the same one I remember from last night, and my phone is still face down on the coffee table like even the possibility of a message from him would crack me open.
A heavy knock rattles the front door, and I jolt upright, heart lodged in my throat. They are three slow, solid thumps with no urgency to them. It’s more than likely not an emergency based on the knocks, but no one just shows up unannounced at my house. I grab my phone, checking for any missed calls or messages, but find none. My body refuses to move, one handclamped around the throw blanket like it’s armor, and then I hear it.
“Alise.” Beau’s voice is aching and full of something I’ve tried so hard not to need.
Why is he here? He can’t be here. Not now. I’m not ready to see him. My pulse quickens, and it feels like someone threw me into open water, making my stomach lurch. My fingers tremble as I peel the blanket away from my lap and push myself to my feet.
I could not open the door and let him say what he wants through the door, but a part of me knows he won’t just leave. He’ll stand out there until someone forces him off our porch, so I stand and cross the room. My steps are slow and uncertain, each one a battle between longing and fear.
I look through the peephole, bracing myself for seeing him for the first time since everything happened, and I gasp. Beau is standing there in all his glory. Same backward baseball cap, same hood, but his eyes look tired. Full of the same quiet heartbreak that seems to be etched into every line of his body. He’s standing there as if he’s waiting for a sign. For a breath. For me.
Don’t do this, I tell myself.Don’t open it. Don’t let him in. Don’t let yourself hope.
