Shortly after that, we both realized that we weren’t getting as much time together as we used to. Most of the time we were sotired after we’d gotten her parents squared away for the night, we’d fall asleep without so much as agood nightwhispered into the dark. It scared us both.
Prue was worried that I was taking on too much responsibility in her family unit way too fast, whereas I was worried about what would happen between us if she tried to take more on. We had to find a way to connect that wasn’t just texting each other or sneaking in make-out sessions in the office between our respective workplaces.
That’s when Prue told me about the diary she and her dad used to keep at the shop. The little stories and poems they’d write to each other about the customers who had come in, and how it brought them closer together. We agreed to give it a shot. Only, I’m not much of a writer.
So, instead of notes or poems, I started leaving Prue sketches to find under the desk. In return, Prue would take those sketches and let her imagination run free, writing each of them an accompanying short story or poem. It became our way of speaking with each other and creating art, even amid the chaos—which we’d so desperately needed.
On the especially hard days, it became a lifeline between us. Prue would leave poems riddled with self-doubt, worry, heartache, and grief that would let me know her mother had a particularly hard morning, or her father had received less-than-positive news from his medical team. Whenever those came, I’d leave her drawings of howIsee her: strong, beautiful, capable, and filled with love as she goes about her day. The tender holding of her mother’s hand in hers. The light in her father’s eyes that never, ever subsides when he talks with her. The laughter she pulls from each of my nieces and nephews whenever they’d stop by.
Other times, our exchanges were love letters. Filled with lust,inside jokes, or apologies. All in all, the first six months of our relationship became fairly well documented.
A month or so ago, Sef got hold of our notebook—probably because Prue showed it to her after they shared a few too many glasses of wine—and she managed to convince us to get some copies printed to sell at the store.
I’m not sure anyone willactuallybuy one, to be honest. But, if they do, we’ve decided to save up the money we make and go on a holiday together. Prue is ready now, if only for a week, to lean on our community to care for her parents so that she can take someverywell-deserved time off.
I’m proud of her for that, for discovering how leaning on others is a sign of strength, not weakness. I’m proud of myself too, if I’m being honest. I’ve made a real life here, somehow. One that I could never fathom running from.
Things aren’t perfect. They’re far, far from it actually…
But it’s a good life.
“You are so deep in thought, I almost don’t want to interrupt…” Prue says, curling her hand around the nape of my neck. “But wedohave a wedding to get to.” She smiles, attentive eyes looking into mine and bringing the world to a pause. I love that about her, how she creates moments of stillness that make me feel as if I’ve never existed anywhere else. “You all right?” she asks me.
“Yeah, I was just thinking about this….” I take the book from her and tuck it into my back pocket again before placing one hand on her waist. “Us…” I look over all my favorite parts of her from head to toe as my fingers tuck underneath her chin and my thumb sweeps the side of her jaw. “You…” I kiss the tip of her nose. “All of it.”
“Aww,” she teases, “feeling sentimental today, gorgeous?”
I pull her in, holding her as close to me as I can as I bury my face into the wild tendrils of her hair.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she mumbles against my chest.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“I love you too,” she replies, relaxing against me. “Mmm. This is a good one.”
“The hug?” I ask.
She nods against me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket for what must be the tenth time. I think, fondly, of the group chat and all the people we know and love rallying to make today special for Tom and Julia. I let myself daydream, for admittedly not the first time, about what it would be like to plan a wedding for Prue and me.
“We should do this again someday, don’t you think?”
“Hug?” Prue pulls back to look at me, her crooked brow making me smile. “I can probably pencil you in.”
“No, Killer…a wedding of our own.”
She blinks up at me, visibly confused. “Really?”
“Don’t look so surprised.”
She laughs, shaking her head before her eyes veer off, shyly avoiding my face. “That’s a bit of a crazy thing to say!”
I laugh too, bringing her focus back to me. “What? Why?”
“Because we’ve only been dating for like…six months?”
“And?”
