27 December 2010

the party, xxxix (39)

She pleads the same thing, everyday, like clockwork.

Whatever you want her to do, whatever you can promise to make him a permanent character, she’ll do it. In a heartbeat. Because this, she realizes, is what love should be. Being content to hear his voice if there’s no way to see him. Needing to hear him say “I love you” to sleep. Wanting him. Not like lust, no, because she would do anything to just have him hold her. Nothing more. Just to have him near, have him with her and not far away.

Eventually, people start to notice. “Ever few days, I think he appreciates you more than the few days before,” her mother observes one day. And when our girl asked him about it, he agreed:

“Why wouldn’t I – every day you give me something more to love,” he reasons.

It makes her smile. He makes her smile. Heck, even just thinking about him makes her smile. He’s everything she didn’t know she needed, or wanted. She is made beautiful simply when he looks at her. And for once in her life, she believes it when people say so. Doesn’t second guess, doesn’t just think they’re trying to be nice – really believes it.

She’s been in such an awesome place since she’s been with him. One of her friends, another from long before that our girl is reconnecting with (we’ll just refer to him as her brother, because he is in every sense except the, ya know, real one) pulls her to the side one day. “You look happy. That’s new. You haven’t been in a long time. I’ll let this one live,” he tells her, in his half-serious way that sometimes concerns her. But now it just makes her smile wider.

She doesn’t remember this kind of happy.

Not since high school started, at least. Not when she was a shell, a robot, on autopilot. Not with B. Not with A. Not with anyone else in the stretch of our tale.

But all of the sudden? It’s all good. Happiness and rainbows and butterflies. All that jazz and more. Much more.

And it’s all because of him.


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