Page 113 of Emma
“I kept pretending you weren’t,” Emma said, aware that she was saying this for the first time. But that was the beauty of how much progress they’d made. Emma felt as though shecouldsay it now. “Because if I’d acknowledged it, I’d have to admit I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix you.”
“You fixed what you could,” Vanessa said. “You kept me breathing when I wanted to curl up and never face the world again.”
Emma sat up and searched the familiar lines of her wife’s face in the low light. The strength, the softness, the story in her eyes. “When I think of you on the bedroom floor the first time we took the dressing off together, I…” Emma exhaled and shook her head. “I wish I could have fixed you there and then.”
“You got in the shower with me and washed my hair for weeks. You learned how to change dressings without making mefeel like a patient. You told me I was beautiful so often I started believing you…and I’mverystubborn.” Vanessa reached out and took Emma’s hand. “You dideverythingI needed, baby.”
“Youarestubborn,” Emma agreed as her voice broke. “But you’re also the bravest woman I know.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Vanessa whispered into the quietness of the room.
“I was so frightened,” Emma admitted. “Not just of losing you, but of you vanishing behind it all. I never wanted the light in your eyes to go out.”
“It didn’t, and that was because of you.” Vanessa squeezed Emma’s hand. “And now we have Freya.”
Emma’s heart stuttered. “We have Freya.” God, that name still felt like a miracle whenever Emma uttered it. Still… “Do you ever worry that we’ll wake up and it’ll be gone? That Carmen will say she’s changed her mind…or that Freya will decide it’s too complicated and stop coming over?”
“At one time, yes,” Vanessa said, as honest as ever. “But then I remember how happy she was at the cinema with us. I remember that dinner wasn’t the end of the world, and we’ve had enough of them now to know that Freya is fully here in our lives. I remember that she’s requested matching pyjamas tomorrow night…and then the worry is gone.”
When Vanessa put it like that, it was hard to worry. “You’re right.”
“She calls and texts you now. She’s not afraid of what any of this is. The distance you’ve walked is astounding, and I know you don’t see that yourself, but I do.”
“I’m just so used to being abandoned that my mind naturally goes there.” Emma cast her gaze at her mulled cider and sighed. “That I’ll take a wrong step.”
“I’m sure you will at some point. And then you’ll apologise, and she’ll roll her eyes and call you dramatic…and then you’ll goagain.” Vanessa leaned in and kissed Emma’s temple. “You and I have done harder things than learning how to love someone new.”
Emma frowned. “Have we?”
“We told the truth about our relationship when it would have been easier to hide. We’ve forgone the easy version of our lives for the true one. We’ve held each other up when the ground went from under us, and we’ve come out of it happier.” Vanessa’s voice softened. “Wecando this.”
Emma’s shoulders relaxed as everything fell away around her. “I’m so grateful for you.”
“I know, and I’m grateful for you. For all of it. Even the parts that hurt.”
Emma rested her head back, her mind wandering through the reel of the last few weeks. Freya at the table blowing on her hot chocolate. Freya lighting up at the sight of Emma collecting her on the doorstep. Freya leaning over the arm of the couch to ask a question about a film and accidentally fitting into the gap between as though she’d been designed specifically for that moment. The arcades, the laughter…the belonging.
“What are you most looking forward to tomorrow?” Vanessa asked as she stole half of Emma’s blanket.
“My Yorkshire puddingsnotdeflating,” Emma narrowed her eyes towards the living room door. “I swear to God if they do…”
“You do set the bar low, baby.”
Emma lifted a shoulder. “Freya walking through the door and not hesitating on the mat,” she admitted. “Just stepping in like she belongs here, kicking her shoes off and flinging her jacket over the nearest surface.”
Vanessa grinned. “So,exactlylike you then?”
Emma toyed with the corner of the blanket. “I guess so. You?”
“Ben trying to pretend he’snotimpressed by my roasties, then asking exactly how I got them that way.”
“You’ll lord it over him.”
“Briefly,” Vanessa said with a straight face. “I’m gracious in victory.”
Emma bumped her knee. “And Carmen?”
“I’m looking forward to handing her a glass of wine and telling her to sit down and rest,” Vanessa said. “And I’m looking forward to her seeing whatIsee when I look at you and Freya together. That the person in front of her is good news and cares a great deal.”
