The whole ride home, TJ seemed perfectly at ease, while I was the exact opposite, and when I pulled up to my house, my stupid, anxious brain was still working inoverdrive.
As I went to my door, TJ trailed after me like an obedient golden retriever. I couldn’t help but feel the difference between last night and tonight.
Because tonight, I didn’t want him to leave.
When we entered, he quickly turned and started to lock up without me even asking him to do it. It’s like he knew how important it was to me, and he was taking that into his own hands.
I was caught in indecision then, and I don’t know why, but my defensive fight response started to kick in.
“Shouldn’t you get a hotel, TJ?” I asked him in the hallway. “You should probably leave now.” I said it, but I couldn’t deny that a small part of me wanted more than anything for him to fight to stay.
He closed his eyes tight and shook his head like he was struggling just to stay standing. “So tired,” he mumbled with a small smile. He turned me around and started to guide me playfully toward my room.
Once he entered my room, he switched off the light, tore off his shirt to expose his ripped torso, and then plopped down on the left side of my queen size bed like he had absolutely no cares in the world.
I was envious he could shut his brain off and be so nonchalant, like laying in someone else’s bed wasn’t the huge deal that it was to me.
When he noticed I hadn’t moved, he patted my bed next to him.
“Don’t overthink, Ellie. Sleep,” he mumbled.
I leaned against my doorway, knowing that I probably seemed like a weirdo, but my body wouldn’t allow me to move forward. That was the thing about trauma though- you could try as hard as you wanted to go back and delete chapters of your life, but they won’t disappear, not completely. Because your body already read them; your body remembers them.
“What’s up?” he finally asked.
I felt anxiety course through my body over the fact that I didn’t want to ruin it- to ruin what was between us. Because when I finally stopped fighting it today, I felt it, and I was sure he did too.
I walked over and sat on my side of the bed and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark so I could see him more clearly.
His kind eyes stared back into mine as he stretched a hand toward me, waiting on me to talk.
It really wasn’t a big deal if he stayed in my bed...right? I tried to reason with myself. He had shown kindness all day today. He didn’t act like we just met. He acted like my boyfriend. Could it all be an act? Or was that something he was actually interested in pursuing with me? He-
“Ellie. I know your brain is like frying itself going in circles right now about ten million different things,” he mumbled; half his face was smushed into one of my pillows. “But please, stop. Don’t think of us as on opposite sides- we’re on the same team. I see that bat on the ground, and I think I’ve proved- I hope I’ve proved- that I’m no threat. So you swinging the bat or me, babe? You’re gonna want me to. Simple as that. You could leave that front door wide open with me sleeping here for all I care, because I’d never let anyone come near you. Whatever you’re afraid of, I can take care ofit.”
His words all but melted my heart, and I wanted to climb into bed and curl into him. I imagined it would feel so nice, and so warm. But the other half of me couldn’t be convinced. The other half wanted to demand- for how long? You can take care of it for how long, TJ? Because I know you have to leave.
I needed to remind myself that nothing could be figured out tonight and that things would be clearer in the morning- they always were. At nighttime, everything always seemed daunting. Worries came at night. Tears came at night when no one else could see them. Feelings of being trapped, stuck, at the end-of-the-rope all intruded in with the darkness. I was no stranger to those feelings. But with morning sunshine, possibilities- ways out of the seemingly stuck places- always shone in.
So I grabbed my pj’s and went into my large closet to change.
By the time I walked back toward my bed, it looked like he was already peacefully asleep.
I carefully tried to pull some covers out from under him and climb into bed without waking him up. But after laying there for a minute, I felt him moving behind me.
“I’ll make you believe it. I know you don’t right now,” he muttered in the dark. “Linemates, Ellie.” And then I heard him wrestling with the covers, and soon I felt his large, muscular presence against me, being the big spoon. His arm curled around my waist, and it felt so secure, and so loving, that it made me tear up.
Because after trying to deny it for so long… I knew that this feeling, this kind of security blanket, this kind of teammate… was all that I wanted.
I laid there realizing that at that moment, he had my back, and I had my front.
And I felt protected.
I had a Linemate.
And I didn’t want to lose him… even though I knew that I probably would.
And I knew it was going to hurt when I did.
