Ollie… I needed to talk to Ollie. I hadn’t wanted him to leave the room when my parents arrived, but he’d graciously given them the time to be with me while he was… Where was he? I wanted him to come back. Everything was happening so fast, and all I wanted was a few quiet minutes with him.
The nurse came back in and handed me a pen and notepad, and as I held them, I tried to calm my mind enough to writewhat I needed to in case I didn’t get a chance to see him before I went into surgery. In case…anything should happen.
Nothing will happen,I told myself.Everything is going to work out.
That would’ve been easier to believe if another crushing headache didn’t have me wincing and my mom calling out for the nurse again.
“I’m fine.” I tried to wave them off, because, fuck, I was terrified, and I didn’t want them to see it. With the way my heart felt like it was stuttering with every beat, I was surprised the monitors I’d been hooked up to hadn’t already alerted them to my fear. I hadn’t wanted Ollie to see it either, but there was never any way for me to hide from him.
“What are you doing, baby?” my mom asked.
“Just give me one sec.”
Thankfully, she didn’t ask any other questions, and settled into one of the chairs beside me, giving me the space I needed to pour my heart out onto the page.
Ollie,
I know you’re worried. And maybe I am too.
Strike that. I’m a lot worried. There. I admitted it. I’m fucking terrified, but I was trying not to show you.
It doesn’t seem fair that I’m back here, but we haven’t gone through these last few weeks to give up now.
I just found you. I’m not losing you, and I won’t forget you, no matter what happens.
But if, somehow, the worst-case scenario comes true, I need you to promise me you won’t give up on me.
Help me remember.
Help me find my way back to you.
Love,
Your Bluebird
I tore off the paper and folded it four times, and then I closed my eyes so no one would see me cry. I didn’t understand why, but it felt like a part of me was dying, and I didn’t know how to stop it from happening. I just hoped that somehow, some way, Ollie wouldn’t let me go…
“You came back to me.”
I looked up through a haze of tears as Ollie pushed off the doorway and crossed over to where I was sitting on the tile. He knelt beside me and wiped my tears away with both hands. I stared at him, blinking fast, trying to clear my vision as I sat there holding the heavily creased paper with shaking hands. “You kept this…”
“It goes everywhere I do. I told you I’d keep you with me.”
I took a deep, quivering breath. “This whole time…I felt like…I missed you somehow. It didn’t make any sense to me, because I didn’t know you, or I didn’t think I did. But…” I looked down at the letter again, the one that only confirmed how strongly I’d felt about him then, and how right it all was now. “I felt like I should.”
Tears fell down Ollie’s face to match mine, but when he didn’t wipe them away, I set the letter aside and took his face inmy hands. I kissed away every salty drop, and when I was done, I rested my forehead against his.
“I promised I’d wake up to you. It may not have been right away, but I’m awake now, Ollie. I’m awake, and I see you. I see us.”
He lifted his head then and kissed me, a long, deep, searing kiss that scorched my insides, leaving nothing in its wake.
“I love you,” I said. “I should’ve told you that before my surgery, because there’s nothing truer in this world than the fact that I love you, Oliver McFadden. Every perfect inch of you. You never stopped believing in me, even when I lost hope in myself, even when I pushed you away…even when I hurt you. But you…you love so fiercely. You see the good in the world because youarethe good in the world.”
Ollie brushed the wetness from the corner of my eye with his thumb, and I could only stare at him in wonder before shaking my head.
“I don’t understand how you can look at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
