Page 87 of Love, Literature, and the Linebacker

But that’s not what I have with Dylan.

With him, there are no storms. No cliffs. No threats of ruin.

There are quiet horror movies on my parents’ couch. There are laser tag wristbands and grilled cheese at midnight. There are hands held under restaurant tables and whispered I-love-you’s in the dark.

It isn’t consuming.

It’s calm.

And maybe that’s what scares me.

Because even steady love still has the power to leave.

“Lucy? Are you in here?”

Mom’s voice floats in through the cracked door.

I push the book closed and run my hand over the cover, tracing the embossed lettering. Heathcliff and Catherine loved like a hurricane. Dylan and I… we love like something built brick by brick.

“Yeah, Mom,” I call back. “I’m here.”

The door creaks open, and she steps inside, sweater sleeves pushed to her wrists, a determined smile on her face. She looks better than she did at the hospital, but exhaustion still shadows her eyes. A reminder that life doesn’t pause just because love feels overwhelming.

“What’s going on?” she asks, sitting on the edge of my bed. “You’ve been in here for hours.”

“I was reading,” I say, glancing at the book. “It’s… intense.”

Mom laughs gently. “You always did like the dramatic ones.”

Maybe I do.

Or maybe I’m trying to understand something before it happens to me.

She rests her hand over mine. “I wanted to talk about Thanksgiving.”

There it is.

The real storm.

I twist the edge of my blanket between my fingers.

“I actually needed to talk to you about that,” I say quietly.

Because this year, for the first time in my life, I won’t be here.

And the thought of leaving—of choosing someone else’s home over this one—feels bigger than it should.

Bigger than a holiday.

Bigger than a plane ticket.

It feels like stepping off the moors and trusting the ground won’t crumble beneath me.

Her brow pulls together, not in anger, but in that quiet, maternal way that means she already senses something shifting.

“What’s going on, Lucy?”

I inhale slowly, like I’m about to step into cold water.