“I got my closure at Christmas, and I’m worried that seeing Sabrina’s family again will reopen the wounds that have finally begun to heal,” she’d explained regrettably. “But I wanted to call and let you know, I am so proud of you, Blake. If I haven’t said it enough, I really am, and I do hope I see you again.”
I didn’t think I ever would, but I hoped, too.
Audrey quietly entered the room and closed the door behind her, barely allowing it to click shut. “Oh, my Lord,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I didn’t think that kid would ever go to sleep.”
“He’s excited,” I offered. “It’s been a long day.”
“Oh, I know.” She climbed onto the bed beside me, sitting with her legs crossed. “I just couldn’t wait to get in here with my birthday boy.”
Her porcelain fingertips made absentminded circles along my bicep while she hell my gaze with a quiet affection. Round and round, up and down, her eyes hooded and lips curved into a small smile. A full heat puffed inside my chest, coiled through my throat, and licked with pressing insistence against my tongue until I asked, “How the hell did I get so lucky?”
“I ask myself that question a thousand times a day.”
We had a good life and a good routine. It was an easy, comfortable blanket, wrapping us up in a warm security and reminding us with gentle smiles and gentler touches that this was it. She was it for me, and I was it for her, and I couldn’t create a more imperfectly perfect pairing if someone paid me to.
“I have something for you,” I said, losing the staring contest to look away and grab a book from the drawer in my nightstand.
“It’s not my birthday,” she protested with a giggled laugh.
“Trust me, this is a present for me, too.”
I handed her the book, something she immediately recognized with widened eyes and a soft separation of her lips. When she cracked the spine and opened the pages, she let out a whispered gasp.
“What?” I asked, amused.
“I didn’t think you’d write in it,” she admitted quietly.
“Why not?”
Audrey smiled and cocked her head exhaustedly, like the answer should’ve been obvious. “You’re a little hard to please.”
Snorting, I gestured toward the book, encouraging her to read, and she did.
There wasn’t much between the pages, admittedly. Poetry was something I succumbed to only when the inspiration struck, and that didn’t happen often. Only when life got too loud, too hard, or too much, did I feel the itching need to put pen to paper. But I had, when inspiration called, and I kept every single one.
There was a poem for my birthday last year. One for Thanksgiving and for Jake’s second accident. The prose scribbled on those lines were laced with pain and written with a shaking hand. But then, there were the others that came after. The one I wrote after Audrey and I had made love. The one I jotted down quickly while unpacking her boxes. The one about having dinner with my parents, so overwhelmed by the absence of bitter words and sour faces. The one I woke up to scribble in the dark, about watching her sleep, so overrun by love and the good things I never thought I’d have, or ever deserve but always wanted.
“Blake …” Her hand pressed hard against her chest, fingers splayed.
“I’ve come a long way,” I replied as she continued to read.
“You have,” she agreed.
“That’s because of you.”
Audrey looked up, blue eyes swimming in crystal lakes, and shook her head. “No. It’s because you let it happen. You got tired of standing still, of living in the past with all your guilt and anger, and you decided to start moving. You did that. I was just there, hoping to come along for the ride.”
“Well, it was a bumpy road,” I laughed bitterly.
While clutching the book in her hands, she leaned in, kissed my lips, and whispered, “The ones worth taking usually are.”