Our Love Story: Part Eight

Part 8! The Happy Ending.

As I stood there in Bills hallway kissing him with everything that I had, for the first time ever, I felt him kiss me back with all he had too. I melted into his kiss, I blurred into his edges, I dissolved against his skin like chalk on the sidewalk in the rain. I was swirling paint, mixing with him, I was cloud shapes morphing into a smear of gray and white. 

We kissed for so long, I couldn't breathe. When I realized he had me pushed against the wall, I pulled away and asked for a drink. I still had a lot to say.

We moved into the kitchen where he poured me a shot of Patron and cut me a piece of lime. I drank the Patron quickly, and asked him, breathless and feeling warm already from the booze, if he knew what I had done before I came over.

No, he said.

He smelled like alcohol. Not Tequila. He'd been drinking.

I saw a movie, I said.

He didn't see what a big deal this was. 

I went on to explain what movie I saw, and why it was important, and as he stood there wide eyed, watching me have a mental breakdown, I said this:

"The point is, when we ended things in that daycare parking lot back in April, I was fine with that. Yous aid you didn't want me, and I walked away. Then, you came after me. You chased me. And we got back together. And when you broke up with me, that was FINE, because you said you didn't love me, and if that was true then you should've gone. It was the right thing to do. But then last night, you laid in bed with me and told me you LOVED ME?! If you love someone, you fight for them, You don't let them go, you don't leave them, you DO NOT let them marry other people. But you did. So what that means is that either you didn't love me enough to fight for me, or you're just a coward. And I can't live in a world where either of those things are true, so I need you to tell me you don't love me. Ready, go."

And I stood there, holding the edge of the counter, bracing myself to hear that he didn't love me. But instead, he smiled.

He moved toward me, took my face in his hands and said quietly "Oh is that all?" I nodded as tears filled my eyes.

"I can't do that." he said. And then he kissed me.

We stood in that kitchen most of the night hammering things out. We said we loved each other probably 100 times, we kissed until my lips hurt, we drank until my eyes blurred.

And we agreed to take a chance. 

One more time.

We were finally both in love with each other, and we got back together.

I wish that I could tell you that it was all a piece of cake after that. 

It isn't.

It's taken a lot of hard work and uncomfortable self awareness for me to learn to accept that Bill really loves me. It's a struggle every day to remember that things are different now, and that I can trust this to last in a way that it never did before, because we're both really all in it this time.

In the process of learning and retraining myself and trying to undo years of damage from him, my childhood and what I've inflicted on myself, I've made a lot of mistakes. 

I've hurt him.

I've hurt us.

I've hurt myself.

But I'm trying. 

I'm learning.

I'm not giving up, and I'm not walking away.

I'm loving him every day, and doing everything I can to put our love and my commitment to him and to us, before my pride, before my anger, before my need to be right, before my restless wild impulsive nature.

I'm not perfect.

I don't get it right every day, and some of the mistakes I've made have left permanent scars on our relationship.

But we love each other to forgive, to heal, to take care of each other and say I'm sorry, and try to move on. 

We keep at it. 

We keep loving each other.

Because this is my home. This is my destiny. And there is nowhere else that I could possibly belong other than in his arms.

This is our love story, and it's far from over.

I love you more than the air that I breathe, Bill.

I always have.

I always will.