Page 113 of Lavender Moon

“Lu,” he breathes as he gathers me up tightly, lifting me off the floor. The clean, manly smell that reminds me of summer nights, and the lock of his powerful arms makes me feel more at home than I’ve ever felt. I feel the rough stubble of his five o’ clock shadow burrow affectionately into my neck, and it feels so good I could cry. In fact, I feel the slight burn from my eyes getting watery as he sets me down. His hands cradle my face as he rests his forehead against mine. “Baby, I missed you so much.”

“I missed you,” I tell him back, no longer caring who was wrong or right all those months ago, or if it was both of us. It doesn’t matter compared to how much love and yearning I’m feeling for him in this moment. He looks amazing, and not just his appearance. His stature, his demeanor… there’s so much beautiful confidence and strength to it.

“Lu,” his voice is a shaky whisper. “Baby, I want to kiss you so badly right now. I want to kiss you and take you home with me right this second, but there’s something I need to tell you first. Actually, there’s a lot I want to tell you first.”

I nod and pull away just slightly, I think, because whatever it is, I want him to get on with it so that we can get on the path to healing together. It’s hard to really take it all in, but other drawings and paintings from when we were growing up decorate more of the walls. I glance around at all of it, bewildered, and it’s then that a small table catches the corner of my eye, set in the direction he’d walked up to me from. On its surface lies two short stacks of paper – one of which I immediately recognize as our divorce papers. I only saw them once, months ago, and for just a few minutes, but I’d know them anywhere.

I take another step away, my breath quickening as I look between the table and Kaleb’s green eyes, swimming in deep emotion. “Kaleb, what is this?” I ask. “What’s going on?”

49

LUNA

“Ihave so much to tell you,” he whispers, and those words barrel a trail right down to my core. I’ve never heard him sound like this; the man who never wants to tell anyone anything. “Luna, I know a lot of painful things have happened between us, but I was wondering if you could give me a chance to speak my mind… and my heart. I promise I’m not here to hurt you,” he breathes out, closing his eyes.

That’s all I needed to hear to put my soul at ease. I’m still feeling a small amount of nerves dancing through my bloodstream, just from the anticipation of what’s coming, but this side of him he’s showing me, while new… it’s him and it’s real; and I trust it.

“Okay,” I nod, trying to give him a faint smile. He smiles back, taking a strand of my purple hair between his fingers and then placing a kiss to my forehead.

“Do you want to sit down?” he offers, and I shake my head.

“No, I want to stay close to you,” I tell him unabashedly, and it earns me another smile before he steps away quickly to grab a couple of the papers that lay on the nearby bistro table.

He steps back in front of me, and it’s now that I notice on the chain, along with his dog tags, are both the engagement and wedding rings he once gave me. It makes me automatically look to his left hand, clutching the papers to find the one that I slid on his finger that same day, still in place. Though he leaves a little space between us this time, he reaches his free hand out for mine, threading our fingers through each other’s as if quietly asking for strength. He’s seeking support from me; showing me a shadow of vulnerability, and it’s enchanting.

“I wanted to tell you,” he starts, looking at me rather than the notebook papers he’s holding between us. “That I’ve been seeing a therapist,” he admits, and my heart squeezes tightly into itself.

“Really?” is all I can think to retort, and he nods.

“I started that day…” he trails off uncomfortably, as if the very words would strike pain into his heart if he dare speak them, and I know what day he must be talking about. “I wanted to make sure it was something I stuck with before I told you about it, and, well, anyway,” he swallows nervously. “One of the things we’ve worked on is how I’m not great at telling you what I’m thinking or feeling. He pointed out how we used to write letters to each other, and suggested I try that, so…” he holds up the papers and I press my lips together, willing the tears to stay where they are so that he can have this moment. He squeezes my hand as he begins.

“My beautiful, silly girl,

“I’m writing to tell you every truth I’ve held back from you.

The truth is, I’ve pushed you away at many different points in our lives, and it’s because the one thing I’ve been conditioned to hate feeling is vulnerable. Telling you things, and letting you know the things I’ve been through made me feel that way, and I avoided it at all costs. And now that I’ve learned one of those costs is you, I’ve decided I can’t live that way anymore. I want you back in my life, and I want to tell you things.

“The truth is, when I proposed to you, I was in a hurry to marry you because I'd been a hopeless fool for you for eleven years at that point. And after getting you back, I was going to be damned if I waited another fucking second.

“It’s true that I needed to protect my assets, I can’t lie about that, but it served more as an excuse to get you on board that fast.

“Another truth is, before I left, you and I were this beautiful, powerful force to be reckoned with. We’d just found each other again, and we were stronger than ever together. It felt like we could conquer the world. And then I came back from getting injured. My only other friend in the world had died, and you were all I had left. Rather than cherish that like I should’ve, I immediately started prepping for you to leave me too. I thought it was a strong possibility with how I seemed to be less than my half of that force that we’d become. I thought I needed to run away from the impending blast, and hide in my proverbial ranger hole the rest of my life.

“I drew up those divorce papers hoping it would test me. That having them in front of me would help me realize if I really felt like I wanted to leave our marriage. I was disappointed and frustrated when it didn’t help me find clarity, and then I forgot about them, Luna. The clarity I wanted came when the damn pills left my system. I could clearly see how I was hurting you.

“That leads me to another truth. You’ve always been so damn tough, you never let anyone hurt you, not even me. Therefore, I didn’t think I really could. I was proved wrong that night you kneed me in the balls,”

A giggle bubbles out of me at that, and I’m happy to see him smile too.

“That really hurt, by the way,” he smirks before straightening and going back to his letter. “The thing is, that night was the first time I saw tears in your eyes, put there by me. That was when that clarity I wanted came. Up until then, I didn’t think getting us back was possible, but in that moment, I refused to accept anything else. I wanted to make you smile for the rest of our lives.

“And you may not want to hear this, but the times I caught glimpses of us again were those few times you let yourself be vulnerable to me. Feeling needed by you gave me life, and made me want to strive for what we had again.

“Which brings me to now, my girl. If you’ll allow me the privilege of remaining your husband, the truth is, I promise to always pull you close and not push you away; not ever again.

Love, your Kaleb,” he concludes, lowering the letter, and as soon as that last word is out of his mouth, I finally release the tears that had been pushing to leave my eyes.

“Oh my God, Kaleb,” I gasp for breath, trying to keep my breath steady as his arms come around me again.

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