Her pencil pauses, and I watch her expression shift slightly as she studies me again, more focused this time. Then she goes back to it, completely absorbed, like the rest of the world has stopped existing.
I should be thinking about everything else. I usually am.
But all I can see is her future.
Dinner reservations I haven’t made yet.
Flights I haven’t booked yet.
Her reaction to a place she’s never tasted food in before, laughing at something she didn’t expect to like.
Her hand in mine in cities she’s never stepped into.
And I know that this is what I want now.
Not just keeping her safe.
But giving her everything she was denied.
All of it.
Every first she should’ve already had.
I watch her draw me while I quietly plan a life I didn’t have before her—and somehow, it doesn’t feel like too much.
It feels like the beginning.
The sketchpad lowers slightly, and she pushes herself up from the chair, moving toward the bed.
Before I can even ask, she’s climbing up beside me.
Warmth settles over me as she settles on top of me, careful not to press too much weight down, balancing herself easily with one hand on my chest and the sketchpad in the other. Her hair brushes my arm when she leans in, and everything in me goes still in a different way.
“This,” she says softly, like she’s sharing something she’s been holding onto. “I want you to see.”
She turns the sketchpad toward me.
It takes a second for my brain to fully register it—not because I don’t understand what I’m looking at, but because I do.
It’s me.
But not how I usually see myself.
Not the version I’m used to.
This is… different.
It’s me, softened in a way I don’t have a word for. The posture is relaxed, but not careless. There’s strength in it, but not the kind I usually rely on. The tension in my face is still there, but it’s quieter—like it’s been understood instead of fought with.
And the eyes.
That’s what hits first.
Because she’s caught something in them I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to acknowledge.
Something unguarded underneath it.
Something that looks—if I’m honest—like I’m not bracing for impact for once.
