My throat closes up. I can't breathe. I can't think.
The world is spinning and the only solid thing is this grown man standing in front of me, reciting the information I made him memorize when we were kids. The facts I drilled into him so we could find each other again.
He remembers.
After all this time, he still remembers. He never forgot me.
Ivan reaches out slowly, like he's approaching a wounded animal that might bolt or bite him. He takes my left hand in both of his, his touch gentle and careful. His hands are warm and rough with calluses, working hands. He lifts my hand between us and his fingers find the scar, the pale crescent between my thumb and forefinger, the mark I got from a broken bottle when I was nine years old. He rubs his thumb across it gently, tracing the line of it.
"Scar on the left hand," he says softly. "Between the thumb and forefinger."
My whole body is shaking like I'm coming apart at the seams and I can't stop it, can't control it. He's touching me. He's real. He's here. This is actually happening. This isn't a dream or a hallucination or a whiskey-induced vision. Ivan is standing in front of me, holding my hand, looking at me like I'm something precious that he's been searching for.
"Safe place is a beach," Ivan continues, still holding my hand in both of his, his thumb still rubbing that scar like he needs to make sure it's really there, like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go. "White sand and blue water stretching out to the horizon." He pauses, and I can see tears gathering in those blue eyes, can see him fighting to keep his voice steady. "What did you say to me the first night we met?"
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. The words are stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat, trapped behind years of grief and guilt and longing and pain. Behind years of searching and failing and believing I would never see him again. Behind the wall I built around myself to survive, the wall that's kept me numb and distant and alone.
Ivan takes a step closer. He's right in front of me now, so close that I can see the boy he used to be underneath the man he's become. Thosesame blue eyes that looked at me in a dingy bedroom at the Henderson farm and trusted me to keep him safe. That same stubborn set to his jaw that told me he was stronger than he knew. The same freckle just below his left eye. The same way his hair falls across his forehead.
"You can breathe," he says softly. "That's what you told me. You said I could breathe. That you weren't going to hurt me. That in our room we were just us."
Something breaks open inside me. Something I've been holding together with whiskey and pills and sheer force of will for years. Something I've been protecting and hiding and denying for so long I forgot it was there. It cracks and shatters and I can't stop it, can't control it, can't do anything except reach for him with both hands, with everything I have.
I grab him and I pull him into me, my arms wrapping around him, my hands fisting in the back of his jacket, holding on like he might disappear if I let go, like he might be another hallucination that will fade if I don't hold tight enough.
He's solid and real and warm, right here in my arms.
Ivan's arms come up around me immediately, wrapping around my shoulders, careful of my damaged ribs, holding me just as tight. He's taller than me now, I realize dimly through the fog of emotion. When did that happen? When did the scared little kid I used to protect become this grown man, this solid presence who's holding me like I'm the one who needs saving? When did he grow up and away and become someone I don't recognize?
But I do recognize him.
Underneath the height and the muscle and the years, I recognize him. I would recognize him anywhere, in any form, in any lifetime.
I bury my face in his shoulder and I try to hold it together. I don't cry because I never cry and I taught him not to cry either.
And then I'm sobbing.
It comes out of nowhere, or maybe it comes from everywhere, from every part of me that's been holding on for too long. From every year I spent searching with nothing to show for it. From every night I spent alone in this room staring at the ceiling and wondering if I'd failed himforever. From every time I told myself to keep going when I didn't know why, when I couldn't remember what I was surviving for.
It comes from the hospital room where I woke up with a broken arm and no idea where they'd taken him, where they'd hidden him, if I'd ever see him again. It comes from the group homes where I slept with one eye open and the transitional housing where I learned I wasn't worth saving. It comes from this motel room where I've been slowly drinking myself to death, from The Rusty Nail where I got the shit kicked out of me for no reason that mattered.
It comes from the bottom of my soul, from the deepest part of me, this grief I've been carrying like a weight that never gets lighter.
I sob into his shoulder, ugly and raw and uncontrollable. My whole body shakes with it, wracked with the force of it. I can't breathe, can't see, can't do anything but hold onto him and let it all pour out. All the pain. All the loneliness.
All the hope that slowly died until I convinced myself I had none left.
It all comes out.
An ocean of grief and regret and longing that I've been drowning in without realizing it.
Ivan holds me through it. He doesn't say anything, doesn't try to stop me, doesn't tell me it's okay or that I need to pull myself together. He just holds me tighter and lets me break apart in his arms, lets me shatter into a million pieces while he holds me together.
His hand comes up to the back of my head, cradling me against his shoulder, his fingers threading through my hair. And I can feel him shaking too, feel the dampness on my neck that tells me he's crying with me, that this is breaking him open just like it's breaking me.
"I'm sorry," I manage to gasp out between sobs, the words barely coherent. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't find you, I tried, I tried so hard but I couldn't—"
"Shh," Ivan says. "It's okay. I'm here. I found you. I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere."
