His beautiful brown eyes darted between mine. I wanted to drown in them. Icoulddrown in them, let them swallow me without a fight. That was what scared me most of all.
“You’re so afraid,” he whispered finally. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’d lose myself. That madness runs in my blood. If true love doesn’t send me there, jealousy could.”
“Olivia, that’s completely within our control. It’snotin your blood. We’ll fight with each other. We’ll struggle.” Lines formed between his eyebrows as he frowned. “But we’ll also fightforeach other. This is still new. In time, we’ll become so secure in our love, jealousy will be a distant memory. We have a love others can only dream of at our fingertips—but you have got tolet go. You’re killing something beautiful here.” I inhaled sharply and tried to look away, but he caught my chin. “Trust me like I trust you. If you leave me now, I’m the one who’ll break. Is that what you want? You’re it for me. It’s you. I love you, and no matter how much shit you put me through, nothing will change that.”
My chest stuttered with short breaths as he tore away at my exterior, forcing me to confront my fears or lose him.
“I won’t let anything hurt you, my love,” he said. “And if it does, you’re strong enough to handle it. You’ve been so strong for seventeen years.”
My eyes widened with the unexpected way he cut right to my core. I’d promised that young girl I’d never let her get hurt that deeply again, but in doing so, I’d also taken some of life’s most beautiful things away from her. Unconditional love, trust, joy. I burst into tears and tried to look away, but his hand held my chin firmly. “I’mnotstrong, David. That’s why I can’t handle a love like yours.”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “You’re a fucking warrior. Since the divorce, you’ve carried this fear with you. You’ve grown and adapted and taken care of others. You’re strong. You’ve proved that. Now, letmetake over. Give it all to me, and let me be strong for you. Please, let go so I can take care of you.”
I pulled away finally and bawled into my hands. After a few moments, he tugged on my wrists. “Don’t hide from me.”
“David,” I said through uncontrollable sobs. “When my parents divorced, I realized that there was no such thing as forever. That things could be taken away in an instant. And it scares me to death how strong our connection is because,” I paused, whimpering, “because the thought of you taking it away is too much to bear.”
He set my hands back on his knees and tucked my hair behind my ear before cupping my face. “You’re there, Olivia,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “Keep going.”
“But since the moment I saw you,” I continued, “I’ve felt something that I didn’t think existed. Real and true love. I didn’t recognize it at first because I didn’t know what it was.”
“Give me all the shit,” he said. “Everything you’ve been through. I will take it. Let it go.”
I nodded. “I want to let it go.”
“So do it,” he said gently. “You’re there, just do it.”
My face contorted as his words ran through my mind.Do it. Let go.He said I’d been strong. He knew the load I carried, and he wanted to take it. I wanted to give it to him. I had to love him fully, without a single reservation, or I would lose him now—and I refused to let that happen.
I surprised him and myself by throwing my arms around his neck. “I trust you. For you, only you, I can do it,” I whispered and cried into his shoulder. I cried because the little girl in me, my thirteen-and-a-half-year-old self, could let go. She could finally trust someone enough for me to love—and to let him love me without condition. I cried because I thought I’d never know what it meant to open myself and be at the mercy of another person—pleasure, pain, and all.
His arms tightened around me as he stroked my hair. “That’s it,” he said. “At your most vulnerable, you’re strongest. You can handle anything. But you don’t have to do it alone anymore. Not as long as I’m here.”
“All I ever wanted was to let go,” I said into his neck. I pulled back and looked into his sweet, chestnut-brown eyes. With tears streaking my cheeks and my nose running, I said, “I love you.”
“I know,” he replied, running his thumbs under my eyes and wiping away the wetness. “I’ve always known.”
* * *
From over the rim of my wineglass, I watched David poke at a steak on the grill as he and my dad talked very masculine things I didn’t care about.
I had done it.
I’d taken the plunge, and though the fears that came with this kind of love would never fully leave me, for the first time since I could remember, they were soothed by a new inner peace. And blissful happiness.
David had broken through something in me with his words, his eyes, his unrelenting love. How had he known there was a girl in me who couldn’t let go? Who’d been hanging on to something for so long, she couldn’t remember a life before it? David was the only thing I wanted, and if it didn’t last between us, at least I would have these moments with him.
He looked over at me and winked, and I wondered if I’d ever seen a more beautiful sight than that.
It was a perfect night in Dallas, and the sun set over us as we sat at the patio table and cut into our steaks.
“So,” my dad said, “what happens next with Bill?”
I sighed as my bliss bubble popped. Peace was always fleeting. “Well, he’s been clear about the fact that he’s not going down without a fight. I guess that means we’ll be going to court.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” my father said. “I always knew he had a little weasel in him.”
