We walked the trails through the marsh, doing what we’d always done, sharing victories, frustrations, amusements and outrages. I had the honor and pleasure of meeting her daughter. A perfect, beautiful, healthy six month old baby. The entire afternoon was quiet, gentle, wise and sweet- so much so that it I didn’t realize how incredibly overwhelming it was until I left.

To have her friendship and love in my grasp again, to get some advice, some bras that fit, maternity clothes for the summer, a few other invaluable items. Holding that sweet child in my arms, leaning down to smell her head and realizing that this is why I can’t brush my tongue anymore, that this is my reward for the crying jags, the mouth-watering queasiness, the exhaustion that leaves me limp and sour like a wet dishrag. My gratitude washed over me like a warm tide; tears of joy and relief rolled under my chin and down my neck, and I left them there because the breeze through the car windows on wet skin made the heat a little easier.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about the people I love the most, the inner circle of family and friends that are so caring and giving, steadfast as hardy perennials. I thought about how my knot slipped loose with this one, how careless and foolish I’d been, and for what? I’m not entirely sure anymore, but it seemed fairly clear at the time, and here we are, and she’s breathing much-needed light into my life. I hope she got some in return.

My thoughts occasionally drift to other loose knots, some completely undone, like slipped stitches in a blanket. The loss of love pains me, even and perhaps especially when it becomes necessary for my own well-being. But that’s the thing about becoming a mother- it starts with not eating things that don’t smell good to you that moment and evolves into realizing that you’re responsible for teaching a real person how to live and love by example.

I leave for Vegas on Thursday, and I was concerned about feeling well, doing well, and fitting in. Then I remembered who they are, and how much I love this, and how badly I want this baby to understand the capacity for light in the world. So I stopped worrying and started shopping.

I’ve been steadily feeling better since we took that walk in the park. Hearing the faint echo of a heartbeat, and then a loud, clear, strong heartbeat didn’t take my breath away, as I thought it would. It restored my breath and my strength, like a freight train rushing towards me, my feet humming with the pitch of the tracks.

The quality and quantity of people who have, in their own way, walked in the park with me is a wellspring of joy and comfort. I’ve been atrocious about keeping in touch, and even more elusive to see in public, but they march on, inquiring, advising, inviting, and lo, I am blessed.

Pregnancy isn’t a walk in the park, but love ought to be.

The only thing that can sideline a force of nature is nature itself, and I’ve prided myself on rising to her provocations in glorious victory most of the time. This pregnancy gig is an Olympic-level competition, and I’m losing my ass.

As a girl with a chronic digestive disorder, reactive hypoglycemia, and a history of being both over and underweight, I regarded food and eating with suspicion. Eating the wrong thing at the wrong time unfailingly made me miserable for days, and when my low-rise jeans got snug I would budget calories with an iron fist. I felt better, physically and emotionally, when my stomach was empty.

Enter pregnancy. My appetite swelled to quarterback proportions. That lasted until the love-handles and nausea arrived; the circumstances that pre-pregnancy would have triggered severe rationing. Well. The only way to ease morning sickness once it starts is eating enough of the right thing.

I lost forty-eight hours over two bowls of butter parm pasta. White things are so evil. Quick protein is my best friend, and fiber is the sensible girl we take along just to share knowing looks over her outraged reaction to that bacon cheeseburger.

It was my father, fittingly, that delivered the first unsolicited comment about my changing figure. As the source of my pre-pregnancy nutritional strategy, he made note of the aforementioned love handles with palatable relief. Just as I started to adjust to sharing with an unborn life, I was faced with the sense of my body as community property; eligible for open observation and comment.

That moment of realization has all the eternal beauty of the moon and the stars, because it is precisely the exact moment that you begin to understand how motherhood is revered, but mothers are oppressed.

If you think I’ve fallen into hyperbole, I’d be glad to put a pdf list of all the things I can’t eat on a thumb drive for you. It starts with unwashed apples and ends with yolks that aren’t solid. If trying to force queasy, starving women into eating steaming hot lunch meat isn’t oppression, then what is?!

One well-meaning relative admitted to being worried about my drinking during the pregnancy. I mean, isn’t tequila good for bringing my milk in?

So, faced with the list, and the comments, and the responsibility I now have to my future child and thus the community, I realized what kind of mother I’ll be. The kind who doesn’t follow the rules to the letter, because when your father offers you a toasted Italian sub with extra olives, eating it is better than using its questionable status as an excuse for skipping lunch. Especially if it means being able to take a prenatal vitamin.

By the way, I haven’t thrown up yet, but extended exposure to the smell of tequila could change that pretty quickly. My repulsion to alcohol is that strong.

Drowning in a raging sea of hormones, exhaustion and queasiness is one matter- those physical changes are impossible to anticipate properly. Every woman that has ever daydreamed about having children has tried, so accepting those changes is a process, absolutely, but you welcome it. Even in the hardest moments, you’re working for a dream, so inspiration abounds.

What I was wholly unprepared for: an incredibly terrifying sense of vulnerability, and a mental fog so thick and cool that it rendered my brain a piece of cauliflower.

Being gently offered ice water and snacks by my sweet perceptive sister when she sees the color leaving my face and the angle of my jaw tightening carries all the bliss of ancient tenderness, but walking through the grocery store alone with the same demeanor is petrifying. Far from visibly pregnant, my condition is all liability and no asset in public. I move around in the world in a wary, guarded state, as if my own doctor’s office were one of the sketchy neighborhoods I wandered into outside of Phoenix in my first rental car.

Still more frightening: allowing a man certain that I am his dream girl to witness the very depth of my weakness, after catching only the merest glimpse of my strength, and furthermore, realizing that it is my own fear that threatens the sweetness of the soil. My heart is still absorbing the reality of his love and devotion. A thousand times a day I marvel at the joy he takes in planning for our future, and the grace he so happily extends me when I probably least deserve it. I’m not sure I could trust anyone else enough to need them the way I need him right now.

I dated men I never had to fully trust; hell, I married their king. No well-informed party could consider them trustworthy of another’s heart, so I was free to skip merrily down the path to heartache with carefree abandon instead of examining my fear. Those days are behind me, gratefully, as I am finally with someone who approaches higher love with earnest desire and as often as possible, a humble, willing heart. Its a gift and a skill only he could teach me, that just perhaps I could only come to learn through biological force.

When I had mono, I experienced a level of physical exhaustion on par with early pregnancy fatigue. Even in that weakened state, my mind was comfortingly intact- I made a habit of making lists, notes and reminders before sleep stole me away. When I could manage to hold my eyes open, I scurried to mark things off before the sandman knocked me over again.

My poor, hormone-addled pregnancy brain conjured but one lonely line in my planner for the last two weeks: my baby eats my words. I think it was the beginning of a mass thank you note to all the incredible family and friends whose inquiries and congratulations I’ve struggled to keep up with.

So all of this fear, change, realization and revolution doesn’t make pregnancy sound like a joyous labor of love. You wouldn’t be the only person to wonder if I haven’t discovered some unexpected tarnish on this holy grail of mine.

Except, as I approached the nine week mark, I woke up one morning feeling clear, strong, empty but not hungry or queasy, centered, focused and more like myself than I have since we conceived, before I knew why I felt so scattered.

In the privacy of my car, I wept. Not with relief or guilt, though there was some of that in there somewhere, but with fear, sorrow and longing. Having felt so lost, so unmoored, I thought that sensing my former self would be like coming home, and there was comfort in that familiarity, but greater than that was an eerie sense of what was missing.

That girl wasn’t a mama, she knew neither the pain nor the joy of growing a life, and she will never breathe again. She never could have imagined wishing to feel her stomach turn.

I would have paid for it in that moment. Thankfully, I only had to wait and believe.

If we’ve done our job at all, we’ll be on that list, though I’m not too naive to think that we won’t be second and third, or third and fourth. Probably right under some cultural figure(s), the selection of which will amuse, amaze, and perhaps even horrify us. Yes, you will have a preference between us, that’s normal and good- it’s an important part of realizing who you are and who you want to be.

In those moments of cold, sharp doubt, at three in the morning, when the shadows are menacing and your fear sticks to the ceiling like thick, dark clouds, maybe these words can provide you some solace.

Your very existence proves the full potential of the universe and its miracles. 

For thirty-two years, your Daddy and I lay in our respective beds in our respective locations, staring at the ceiling, dreaming of you and wondering if you would ever be real.

He wondered if he would ever find a woman capable of loving him the way he needs and deserves to be loved, someone he could be proud to devote his life to, someone he could trust to care for both of you with wisdom and tenderness.

I wondered if there was a man in the world who could love me with the same honor and grace my own father does, someone who would provide and care for us without attaching some expectation of subservience. A man who could lead a family in the name of love and growth instead of fear and control.

Love is always a miracle in its own right, but we weren’t seeking someone to share a life with. We were both looking for the right person to create life with.

You are made of ferocious love; a force so powerful that it swept our shores like a tidal wave, dragging anything unbecoming of the new landscape to the ancient depths of the sea.

Fear and doubt are unavoidable aspects of the human condition, but I want you to remember that the wrenching restlessness is a sign that you are out of your element. You were created in faith, hope and love. That’s why the darkness feels so foreign and frightening.

Step into the light, where you belong.

The warmth and illumination of our love and guidance is your birthright, and we are just the beginning. There are enough friends and relatives taking an interest in you to populate a small country. They all have some valuable perspective or resource to offer.

Listen to everyone, but make your own decisions.

You don’t always need an answer. Sometimes the question is enough for awhile, until clarity arrives. Treat yourself and others with respect in the meantime and things will work out.

Please know that whoever you turn out to be, however you leave your mark on this world, you are always a miracle to us.

I could pretend to have some control over your words and actions, but I’ve never cared for pretense. The best I can do is consistently create abundance or misery in your life based on your compliance to my will.

Fair warning: I’m really very good at that. Ask around.

You’ve only existed for six weeks, and we already cannot wait to meet you.  Every second dinner, every mid-afternoon nap, all eleventy billion trips to the bathroom, even the crying spells, they are all tiny miracles.

Just like you.

Holding fear and love at once is damn near impossible; it’s exhausting and heart-wrenching and it tears at your soul in the pre-dawn twilight. Things feel heavier than they are, and the weight becomes unbearable, but so does the laying down of burdens. Worry offers that false sense of security, the illusion of control, a feigned preparedness for potential disaster. It feels safer without really preventing anything.

I’ve always excelled at holding on to love but routinely fail at letting go of fear, and so became a master at suffering beneath that crushing load of doubt.

This site was born five years ago last Saturday, and with it came the rebirth of my voice and my dreams, in all their beautiful, dangerous glory. I stand much closer to that girl’s vision than ever before, even though nearly every imaginable detail is different.

No one could have predicted all of the events that made up those years. Hindsight makes it tempting to wonder if at least some of them weren’t answering my subconscious call, if this very exercise wasn’t an unwitting message in a bottle to the universe.

The last five years slowly eroded every part of my life that didn’t serve my true self, whether I was ready to admit it or not at the time. They provided me with quite the education. Of all the lessons I’ve managed to learn, letting go of fear is by far the most challenging.

It’s also the only way to success.

Laying aside the pain of ancient wounds to hold on to new trust. Gracefully retreating in battle to secure a larger-scale victory. Surrendering to the chaos of change and transition in order to pursue big dreams. Leaving bitterness and its rabbit-fever comfort of confinement in search of freedom and betterment. Deciding to admit hurt by letting go of righteousness. Laying down self-criticism and judgment of others to make more room for compassion. Trading fear of failure in for hope and faith.

Choosing love over fear again and again and again is how we become the people we are truly meant to be. Including and especially: loving yourself too damn much to suffer the weight of carrying both on tender, human shoulders.

The key to my personal cage was discovering how to honor my emotional intensity without being swallowed whole: elevating the personal to the universal. I stumbled upon it in an attempt to write honestly about my feelings without revealing details that had the potential to embarrass or hurt unnecessarily.

Much later on, I realized on an emotional level that there isn’t a problem, feeling, victory, defeat, idea or experience that hasn’t been had long before I inhabited this good earth and won’t live on long after I’ve left it. Reminding myself of this truth eases that fear and self-loathing in a way nothing else can, even if it still takes me a few days to turn the ship around.

We are never truly alone in our suffering, even when that isolation seeps bone-deep and makes every waking breath an ache behind one’s rib cage.

For me, that alienation is a good indicator that I’m pulled into an old pattern of tragedy. Coming home to universal truth soothes those deeply personal wounds and makes it possible to transcend all of that fear and shame. From that higher perch, my perspective is more objective.

That’s how I learn to let go. Again and again and again.

there was a dream
and one day i could see it
like a bird in a cage
i broke in and demanded that somebody free it
and there was a kid
with a head full of doubt
so i’ll scream till i die
or the last of those bad thoughts
are finally out

- the avett brothers “head full of doubt/road full of promise”

One would think my skill in recognizing the rabbit hole of angst and shame would be razor-sharp by now, but I still didn’t make the connection between my sudden and surprising loss of compassion and the battle flag running up the pole. A talented female friend posted a link in a closed network, asking for support from the members for one her projects. The first sentence of her message was an apology. It was no less than the fifth self-promotion apology I’ve seen from a female friend in the last seven days.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, really?! Why do we apologize for requesting support and attention in our professional/creative/athletic endeavors?

I should be posting my links and asking for referrals, but I don’t, because I don’t want to look like a stuck-up bitch, but I also refuse to apologize, and fuck if I know how to construct a marketing message that strikes that delicate balance.

Somehow I still managed to be surprised when I woke up this morning and served myself a steaming mug of doubt, failure, and shame. Purchasing new batteries for my mouse without outside financing is a major, orchestrated event right now, and my financial worth is facing a sharp decrease before I can even fathom another upswing in income.

Much of that is no one’s fault. The economy is improving at an excruciatingly slow pace. Start-ups, solopreneurs, service providers and small businesses- my market- are struggling to pay their own rent. They don’t have a need for the recurring accounting work that I anticipated would sustain me while I developed my client base; there’s no money to count, much less to pay for the counting.

Much of it is my own fault. I’m an accountant, I’m a writer, I’m a business owner. Things I am not: extroverted, a salesperson, a marketer, a business development manager. The learning curve, the dues-paying, the crippling lack of familiarity or comfort- it paralyzes me. I know who I am, and I know I’m skilled and talented in both of my fields, but you probably don’t, and that’s my fault.

It’s your fault, too.

When I declared my freedom from the whims of old, fat, balding white men that can no longer tell you what a gallon of milk costs or remember the sickening nausea of floating a check before payday, you cheered me on, and I was grateful and emboldened.

Where are you now?

I live in an entrepreneurial community, which as far as I can tell, means that financially secure baby boomers and aimless trustafarians spout platitudes and retweet each other endlessly. There are no referrals, there is no real encouragement or collaboration, there are cliques and cliches and pet projects. My local encouragement and support, ironically, comes from those who’ve relegated themselves to salaries and cubicials, not from the business leaders of Asheville. Most of those leaders aren’t interested in mentoring me because there’s no immediate payoff for them, like the real estate mogel who informed me that he does business with people who use his services first. He owns several properties and a business services firm. I own an iPad and a ten-key.

If you’ve ever inquired, “why don’t you have a publisher? why don’t you get paid to write?”, the answer is simple. You haven’t liked this page on Facebook, you don’t retweet my posts, you don’t comment here and share these words with your networks. A few of you fall over yourselves praising my talent, but can’t be bothered to answer questions via email to help me understand what’s marketable about my writing. Oh, except for the guy who answered immediately to shame me for not wanting to sell a book about my failed marriage or stormy childhood. Maybe some of you prefer me small and cold, I guess.

Perhaps you know me on a deeper, more intimate level, and you’ve helped to the point of resentment. Maybe you know that your approval matters to me, and you’ve wielded that sacred trust to talk to me about looking for work, or getting a job, or you’ve referred to my very real corporation as a hobby, or little project. Bonus points if you’ve availed yourself of my extra time when business is slow. Since you’re available….

Those are solidly half of the reasons why women apologize for self-promoting, and why I’ve cried all damn day.

I’m working on the other half.

Daily living all too easily takes on the feeling of a extended intermission before the elusive third act. We seek, we strive, we taste victory and defeat, but at three in the morning we wonder when we’ll finally be able to rest, when we’ll finally see the plot resolution unfold before us. Uncertainty about the future is responsible for more insomnia than all the coffee beans in Columbia.

No one knows what the garden will look like this year, and we’re all frantic to see what’s been percolating beneath the ground while we’ve been stewing beneath the blankets. But the soil is still cold, and so is the wind, and it’s way too early to imagine exactly what we’ll be watering in our flip flops this summer.

It’s so easy to forget that winter and spring have been around ages before us and will last long after we’ve done our time. We worry and wonder and wring our hands, and the garden comes back every year, and it’s never quite as we imagined it, but it’s almost always better in some way we never thought to wish for.

Perhaps we just need a reminder. A warm breeze carrying the smell of sweetened soil, an afternoon that finds your sweater cast aside, the first new leaves beginning their eternal lime green march up the ridges. An ancient cellular call stirred by light, warmth and dogwood blossoms.

Hope springs eternal, my darlings, and spring is coming.

From the driver’s seat of an old truck, I looked down a hill at a fork in the road. A man, a dog, and a bear walked determinedly but uneasily along the road to the left, and I intended to take the other. The bear had an obvious limp in one of its hind legs, keeping a steady pace with the man, who was lost in thought and oblivious to either animal.

The dog kept an overall forward motion, though he darted in and out of heel between the man and the bear, back arched, fur standing on end. He suffered a terrible internal conflict- dancing between concern for and fear of the wild, wounded creature. Whether the bear turned around or they were actually headed towards me and I didn’t notice before I’m not certain, I only know that familiar weary pain behind soulful black eyes. No fear, no anger, not even some sense of resistance or resignation, only the wince of bearable anguish. My heart filled with compassion and concern for the poor thing, lumbering along, waiting patiently for some comfort and respite.

At that point, I was distracted from the bear’s plight, the setting changed completely and without transition, and both the dog and the bear were nowhere to be found. I woke up shortly afterward.

Bears often symbolize independence. They are solitary animals, powerful but reclusive, wild by nature but deliberate in temperament. Dogs are a well-known symbol of loyalty; their social mentality is so instinctual and intense that it compels them to consider the needs of even a wild and potentially lethal pack member.

The struggle between independence and loyalty is a familiar battleground. I’ve given too much, and suffered that brand of regret. I’ve given too little, and chosen most of the time to make amends, which eases regret but still leaves a battle scar of its own. Humans, it seems, are forever destined to tread the middle ground between Canis and Ursus. Unable to survive a solitary existence, yet conflicted in our loyalty to the pack. Most of us would keep our distance from a wounded bear- the consequence, if not the risk, would compel us to honor our strongest instinct: self-preservation.

So often we struggle with the demarcation of that sacred boundary, wondering how much is too much. At what point does one fail to retreat, shedding blood and tears to hold precious ground? When does an advance become too selfish and self-serving? One would think that where the advancing party leaves too little space to occupy comfortably, the answer becomes clear, and perhaps in war or business, it truly is that simple.

In life and love, however, we expect to bear discomfort in relationship, we are encouraged to break ranks in sacrifice. The troops on the other side of the battlefield are our allies more often than our enemies, and so are deserving of mercy and consideration. Mitigated only by the threat of ceded ground, we feel compelled to retreat peaceably in the name of love.

I think the lesson here isn’t so much about territory as it is about resources. Territorial strategy is awfully short-sighted. The most productive long-term strategy is to manage resources effectively, which places that battle line at the exact point in a relationship where it becomes a liability rather than an asset, since that subtle shift is the true threat.

Right?

This recurring theme began springing up from all corners well before Valentine’s Day, and for the first time in quite some time, it swelled and deepened so quickly and intensely that I couldn’t pin it to the page. I found myself unable to set it aside and write about anything else; the mental and emotional space it occupies blots out easier subjects.

Faced with a less than enthusiastic reception from an acquaintance and a seeming inability to shrug off the perceived denial of acceptance or approval, it occurred to me that it wasn’t a lack of affection that concerned me, as I first thought, but a lack of respect. The nagging irritation could have been (and eventually was) resolved with a little regard and consideration.

The intensity of my anger and focus were more bothersome than the specific circumstances, so like a child with a new toy, I checked this revelation against other sources of rage that I’d been unable to shake in spite of having rather incredible things blooming.

Which, of course, led me directly to this.

My high school principal often said (in regard to bullying) “everyone has the right to be left alone”, and those words landed hard in my heart as a girl who has endured her fair share of bullying.

That inability to “refrain from intruding upon or interfering with” is exactly how an intelligent and insightful man who claims to be a good person that cares deeply for the people in his life manages to take a girl that loved him home from the bar for his own personal satisfaction, without regard or concern for her mental and emotional well-being. It is also how he finds himself excusing his behavior by denigrating her person and feigning ignorance of her nature, despite having done thorough research on both for some months before ever setting eyes on her.

Dare I say that outright disrespect for someone one “loves to death” must be symptomatic of a deep self-respect deficiency?

Oops. Anyway.

In the last month, my love life has come to resemble something from the middle chapters of cheesy romance novel. On the professional front, I’m actually starting to believe that I might not end up living out of a washing machine box under the I-240 overpass. The advantages to both of these developments are deep and plentiful, but they come with a most unpleasant side effect.

The people in my life who love me more in weakness than strength are revealing themselves, and lo, it is heartbreaking.

Obviously, this is a function of their own insecurities and deficiencies. While my compassion for that mindset is plentiful and borne of experience, my tendency to internalize the negativity of others leaves me in an awkward and difficult position.

I can’t have folks pissing in the garden; my very survival and future depends heavily on that sweetened soil. Both love and entrepreneurship require a faith that leaves no room for playing small to preserve relationships.

In order to hold myself in esteem and honor, I must require it from those permitted to enter my life and heart. The reverse is more often spoken of- a healthy dose of self-respect improves the quality of people one attracts, but that only lasts as long as the standard is upheld.

When I started this post some three weeks ago, it was a preachy, bitter tome about the perils of allowing disrespectful behavior and a righteous, angry call to rise up against those who would make us feel small.

It took me that long to remember that we make ourselves too big or too small; the world only makes that chore easier or harder.

Instead, I’ll just ask you to do the whole world a favor:

Respect yourself.

A few nights ago, I had an incredible idea for your Valentine; a printed copy of every substantial post on this site. A real, tangible piece of me, a hand-delivery of all the goodness your limited internet connectivity keeps you from. I’ve made some arrangements to take care of that, too, but I intended to make a clear statement with the delicious smell of freshly printed pages, hot ink and miles of heart pattern ribbon.

The universe, however, had other plans. Planned maintenance took longer than anyone could have anticipated, and this afternoon, when I had three of my smartest and most devoted friends working tirelessly on several fronts to make this happen for me, I finally realized why.

I wanted to give you full and free access to my past, to let you run your fingers slowly over the words and the edges of my pages, to allow you unfettered access to the whole of me. It’s all here, on the screen and in between the lines, and you are still most certainly welcome to wander that landscape as you please.

It sums up quite easily, though, as you’re coming to understand. The short version is this: every story, thought and idea I had before was just the slow and painful process of being hand-designed by the universe to be perfect for you. The end.

Which is why it worked so diligently to break my focus from the dark beauty of my past and towards this present moment. As a force of nature, it sometimes takes a little longer for me to receive messages, but I finally came around.

Rather than gift-wrapping all the moments that led me to you, I’m bringing you here, to your rightful place in my story, because I believe more every day that you and your love are the karmic payoff everyone keeps insisting I deserve. My past is a part of the woman I am, and that makes it as much yours as the rest of me. Still, if I’m going to wrap something in pretty paper and put your name on the tag, I’d much prefer it be my future.

Until we’re ready for that, how about I just give you all the present moments I can spare? One day we’ll look back and realize that we can’t exact the point when now became eternity. Perhaps when the harsh starkness of daily lives and problems invades too readily, we can borrow one of these first sweet memories and let our hearts be lightened in that new love again.

The only thing I would want for you to glean from all that happened before you: that hundred-acre wood of doubt and darkness sometimes holds me hostage, and the trail of heartache carved into the wood line is slow-going for my poor little brain, who is trying very admirably to keep up with my heart and soul. None of these things is a failure of yours, or a sign of waning trust. It simply is, and just like literal darkness, dawn will come along eventually.

Just like you did.

Despite the welcomed fact that the days are getting longer, darkness encompasses the room. It fills corners occupied only by silence.

She doesn’t want to speak, for fear of upsetting him more.

He doesn’t want to speak.

He rolls up his left shirt sleeve. One roll. Two.

He rolls up his right shirt sleeve.

Then he unrolls them both.

She quietly sips from her glass of water, wondering if ice cubes behave the same as icebergs. Is there seventy percent of them under the water too?

He inhales loudly.

She holds her breath.

He exhales long and slow.

She takes that as an opening and slides her hand into his. After a moment of hesitation, he squeezes.

He stares out the window. Most of the snow has melted off of the CheekyBingo billboard across the street.

The silence gets louder and louder in her ears. She tries to will it away. She can’t.

“Lots of couples go through this,” she whispers.

He just nods.

“I’ll still see you as a man…” she offers.

“What??”

“I mean… I won’t think less of you,” she tries.

“As a man?” he asks.

“Sorry. This is coming out all wrong.”

“Okay,” he says, from even further away.

“Hey. I love you,” she says squeezing his hand.

“I love you too.”

The darkness intensifies.

She finds that freeing. She hopes he does too.

“We can get through this…” she assures.

He nods.

She rubs the palm of his hand with her finger.

The hair stands up on his arm.

The silence threatens to envelope them both.

“Oh fine. I’ll watch Twilight with you,” he blurts.

“YES!!”