He’s so devastatingly beautiful.
He’s showered since the game and his hair looks a wonderful mess. The simple white t-shirt he wears hugs him like I wish I was right now, and his fitted blue jeans accentuate his strong, long legs. Yet, despite his statuesque build, there’s only one thing I care about in this moment—his eyes. As I stare into the pools of green, I notice that they are no longer empty. They aren’t filled with the light that they usually hold, but I see a flicker or life and that’s enough for me. And he’s here! He’s HERE! I want to jump into his arms but I don’t, somehow knowing that I have to allow him to make the first move. So, I wait.
She slays me.
She’s short and weighs no more than a sack of potatoes, but that face—God, thank You for her face—and the delicate curves that shape her petite body, and her long, thick, silky black hair—all the details that I’ve come to adore—they pillage my heart, leaving nothing behind but my selfish desire to make her mine so that she can’t ever leave me.
I knew the second I walked away from her and out onto that field that I would find myself here, in front of her, as soon as time would allow. I think I played the second half of the game in anticipation of this moment—although, it’s hard to say, since I’ve never been so focused on anything like I was in that stadium this afternoon. It was almost like an out of body experience, or like a dream; the cheers from the crowd were muted and the only thing I heard were the sounds coming from me and the guys. Every command, every whistle blown, every collision, every shuffled foot—I heard it loud and clear, over all the white noise that was a distraction. As soon as the game was over, I was snapped out of it and Avery was the only thing I could think about.
Standing here, right now, it’s not a choice—it’s a need. When she called for me in that stadium, it was as if I was being reawakened. The second I saw her, I realized that, no matter what, we can’t be apart. Going almost four whole days without seeing each other? Without speaking to each other? It can’t ever happen again. On top of everything else, knowing that the silence between us has been my fault makes me feel like an ass.
With the game behind me and Avery in front of me, the pain that I’ve been trying to ignore has now been released; the dam that was my stubbornness and my self-preservation has broken and I feel overwhelmed by all the things that have been in the back of my head this week—all the things that I just couldn’t deal with. As I look down at the woman that I love, I realize that I was never going to be able to deal with any of it without her.
She is my proof that God loves me. Not my past. Not the pain. Not the abuse. Not the neglect. Not the disappointment. None of those things come from the Father—but Avery, my Avery, she does.
She’s more beautiful now than I’ve ever seen her. In shorts and a t-shirt—a t-shirt that brands her as mine—I can’t take my eyes off of her. I want to scoop her up and breathe her in; I want to bury my fingers in her hair and feel the warmth of her body against mine; I want to kiss the worried look off of her face and taste the inside of her mouth—but I can’t move. I can barely breathe as all that needs to be said seems to be pressing down on me like a ton of bricks.
“Say something, my love, anything…except, don’t break up with me. Oh, gosh, please don’t break up with me,” Avery murmurs as she stares up at me.
Her filter is off. The fact that she thinks I could actually leave her pierces me to the core. I did that. I made her think that. How in the hell did we get to this place?
“I’m not here to break up with you,” I manage. The blush that fills her cheeks gives me the strength to keep talking. “I’m not mad at you. I just—I just—wish—I wish it hadn’t been you.”
She draws in a shuddered breath as she nods. “Me, too,” she whispers.
“And I wish you hadn’t lied. You should have come to me. Before. I just—I wish it hadn’t been you.”
“I know,” she says as a single tear spills from her eye. “I’m so sorry, Sonny. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really didn’t.”
“You can’t understand, Avery; you can’t understand how it feels—to learn—” My tears come without warning and I know, as I bring my hand up to cover my eyes, that I can’t stop them. I’ve been fighting them and holding them back for too long; and, just like always, being with Avery rips me open and leaves me completely exposed.
She takes my free hand and gently pulls me inside before shutting the door behind me. I let her blindly lead me to the arm chair where she encourages me to sit; and then she crawls into my lap and pulls me into her arms, where I go willingly.
“She left me,” I cry onto her shoulder. The pain is too great for me to feel ashamed of my emotional state; and Avery’s love, felt in her soft caress, is too powerful for my stubbornness to fight against. “She left me all alone. There are things—things I should have never had to deal with that I can never forget because of her. And then—she replaced me!
“I can’t read it, Ave. I can’t read that letter. I just can’t. I can’t give her that. She had too many chances to come and get me—to find me. Even if she never wanted to see Patrick again, all those times I was staying with Uncle Charlie—her brother—I don’t care what her excuses are. I don’t want to hear them. I can’t, okay?”
“Yeah! Okay. Okay, love—you don’t have to.” She kisses the top of my head as she continues to run her fingers through my hair and massage my neck. “Sonny, you’re going to be okay. I’m here. I’m here and I won’t let her hurt you.” I can tell she’s crying now, too, and my need to comfort her takes over. I pull away from her embrace, just enough to look into her eyes. I hate to see her sad and I know that what she feels is on my behalf, which kills me.
“Don’t cry,” I insist, reaching up to dry her cheeks.
“I’ll stop if you stop,” she says with a small smile as she runs the back of her fingers down my face to catch my falling tears.
“Deal.”
“Sonny,” she begins to say after a pause. “I know what I did was wrong, but please believe me when I say that I had your best interests at heart. I always do. When I opened it, I just meant to check to see if it was nothing—I didn’t expect to find what I did.”
“I believe you,” I assure her, resting my forehead against hers. “But, Ave…we can’t lie to each other.”
“I know,” she breathes. A couple more tears escape and rush down her cheeks and I kiss them away. “I love you so much. Please don’t ever shut me out like you did again.” She barely gets the words out before she starts sobbing. “I know I screwed up, but your silence was almost impossible to bear.”
“For me, too,” I murmur, pulling her close. “I’m sorry. It was just too much all at once. You didn’t deserve it and I should have handled it differently. I know that now.” She wraps her arms around me and buries her nose in my neck as she continues to cry. It isn’t until this moment that I realize how much a conflict between the two of us hurts. It will never be one sided—if one of us is wounded, we both are. Every move we make effects the other. This is love.
In this embrace, as we share tears and apologies, I can feel us becoming stronger while we start to repair what was fractured. As our broken hearts are mended, I’m introduced to a different side of love. Yet again, I find myself falling more and more in love with her. This—right here, right now—isn’t easy and it isn’t fun; it’s hard and it’s messy, but it’s real and I cherish it. I cherish her, always.
“Hey,” I murmur, stroking her hair as I try and coax her away from my neck. “Look at me.” She does as I request and brushes her hands under her eyes to remove any excess moisture. I breathe in deeply before I continue. “Thank you. For pushing me. Nobody else does it like you do. Just, next time—”
“I’ll never go behind your back again. I promise.” She furrows her brow and shakes her head. “I guess that doesn’t mean very much right now, but—”
“Don’t say that,” I tell her, tracing my fingers down her cheek. “I trust you. Always.”
/>
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.” Silence settles between us, but it’s the most welcome silence I’ve ever experienced. I’m so incredibly relieved to be sitting here, with my shorty in my lap, and I know we don’t need words to make this moment any more right than it already is. “Sonny?” Avery whispers.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Can I kiss you?”
My stomach tingles at her request. I think back to the kiss we shared at the stadium. I regretted that it ended as soon as it did. A smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth as my eyes travel from her brown irises to her lips and then back up. “Now you ask? You seemed content to take what you wanted earlier today.” Her cheeks turn a lovely shade of red as a small smile plays at her lips. God, I’ve missed her.
“I didn’t know if, maybe, you wanted us to talk some more. Are we okay?”
“Come here,” I whisper, leaning in to press my lips against hers.
Unlike earlier, this kiss isn’t urgent or rushed; it isn’t hungry or intense. Instead, it’s slow and sweet; it’s soft and intimate. This kiss is an apology. This kiss is a reminder. This kiss is a promise. Just the same, I get lost in it. Nothing else matters except for this very moment. Now, more than ever, I wish I could show her just how much I love her—just how much I need her. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life. The need to make her mine, so that she will know I’m not going anywhere and so that she will always stay, it’s becoming harder and harder to fight back.
I separate my mouth from hers and pull her into an embrace, knowing that if I let my mind continue down that path, I might lose all self-control. When she wraps her arms around me, I know that she doesn’t mind. Again, silence falls between us. That’s when I remember— “Ave?”
“Yeah?” Letting her go, I shift so that I can take it out of my back pocket. She flinches at the sight of the yellow envelope. I don’t blame her; I know it’s for different reasons than me, but I react the same way every time I look at it. “You still have it?”
“Someone I trust told me I couldn’t throw it away without reading it. Well,” I pause and shrug. “I can’t read it. I don’t want to. But—I might not always feel this way. I mean, I’m not holding my breath thinking that’ll change any time soon, but maybe…I don’t know. Maybe one day? Not for her, but for—” I can’t even say it. My siblings. I have so many conflicting emotions just knowing that they exist. Right now, I resent them more than anything else. There’s a part of me, though, that knows that isn’t fair. I’m not even sure if they know I exist. It would surprise me if they did. I apparently wasn’t worth much to my mother, so why would she bring me up?
“Hey,” Avery whispers, lifting my chin with her delicate fingers so that I’m looking at her, instead of the letter in my hands. “What are you thinking?”
“Just how worthless Rhonda makes me feel,” I say the words without thinking and the face Avery makes in response speaks of her offense.
“Don’t ever think that you’re worthless. You, Grayson O’Conner, are not worthless or replaceable. It’s a fact. I have proof. You exist. God doesn’t create worthless people—He especially doesn’t create worthless people as handsome as you.” I smirk at her comment, partly because it’s amusing, but mostly because she says it like she’s dead serious. “Second,” she pauses, taking one of my hands and placing it over her heart. She covers my fingers with hers, applying pressure so that I might feel her pumping organ through her chest. “This heart could never love anyone else the way that it loves you. You’re valuable just because you’re you. So don’t ever let anyone make you feel worthless. You’re not. You mean everything to me.”
God, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t do anything to warrant the blessing of Avery. She’s a treasure that I didn’t even know I was looking for. You just gave her to me. Your grace is so overwhelming. I hope I never become complacent enough to take it for granted—to take her for granted. Please don’t let me screw this up.
“Thank you,” I manage, unsure what else there is for me to say. She kisses me in response. When she pulls away, she releases my hand and reaches for the letter.
“So, what do you want to do with this?”
“Oh. I was hoping you could hang onto it?”
“Of course,” she assures me with a nod.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I’d do anything for you.” She turns and tosses the envelope onto the coffee table, as if it contaminates the space between us and she can’t stand to have it in our laps a second longer. I breathe a sigh of relief at the same time that my stomach growls. For the first time in days, eating doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. “Hungry?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to go out? The others are still at Cooper’s. We could get a pizza.”
“That sounds amazing.” My mouth is salivating at the mere thought of delicious food. “I haven’t had a meal I’ve enjoyed in days.”
“I know the feeling.” For a moment, the pain of being without each other seems to resurface, but she shakes it off and then stands. “Let me just go change and then we can leave.”
“Change? What? No way,” I insist as I join her on my feet. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her back to my front, and kiss the top of her head. “You’re wearing my new favorite shirt.”
She giggles and my heart swells at the sound. “Well, since it’s your favorite…I suppose I’m ready.”
I let her go so that she can grab her purse. When she returns to my side, our hands find each other as if they have a mind of their own, and we lace our fingers together. As we head to my car, I’m amazed at how fresh the air feels in my lungs. It’s as if I’ve entered a new world. It’s not even that things have gone back to normal, back to the way they used to be—now it’s better. I know Ave and I haven’t seen the end of conflict, but now we have proof that we can survive it.
Finding parking in Old Town is a nightmare, but I don’t complain. Avery prays for parking mercy, which always makes me chuckle, and we eventually find a space a couple blocks away from our destination. As we walk, hand in hand, a few people recognize me and call my name as we pass. It always makes me feel so weird, knowing that some of them are CSU fans who watched me play on television today. It's nothing new, but to me, when I'm on that field, the only thing I'm thinking about is the game—not the cameras or the fans I can't see from the sidelines.
“O’Conner—glad you decided to show up for the second half!” someone calls out from an outdoor table at a restaurant along the way.
“Hey, Big Red! Way to bring it home!” someone shouts from across the street.
I seriously wonder if I would be half as recognizable if I had brown hair—plain ole brown hair. I wave self-consciously as I shake my head. I’m relieved when we finally make it to Cooper’s, until we walk in and I realize that the place is full of patrons who are indulging in college football, some of which have probably been around since the big rivalry game. Henry happens to be at the hostess station as we head toward the bar and he stops us to have a word.
“Rough first half, kid. Shame about that fumble. You sure did turn things around in the third quarter.”
“Thanks,” I mutter. The disappointment I felt just after I dropped the ball washes over me again. I wish he hadn’t mentioned it. I never fumble the ball—well, I guess that’s not true anymore.
“Hey,” says Avery as she gives my hand a squeeze. “Think of it this way: not only should we never go to sleep angry at each other, you should never play football when we’re in the middle of a fight. Lesson learned. We’ll never do it again.”
I smile down at her and then kiss her forehead. She’s right—at the end of the day, I got my girl back, and that matters more than anything else.
“Alright! Big Red and Little Red in the house!” I follow the sound of his voice, unable to hide my grin. Jackson’s on his feet and when the rest of our grou
p spots us, they’re up, too.
Someone at the bar yells, “C-S-U!” and all the patrons respond with a hearty, “RAMS!” But I know the excitement coming from the table we approach isn’t about the game.
“I heard there was some sort of celebration going on,” I tease as we pull up a couple more chairs. “Something about med school applications?”
“Old news,” says Beck, clapping me on the back. “My best friend is back, and he brought his girl with him.”
“I hope he brought his appetite, too, because I’m about to order a whole lot of pizza,” Jackson declares.
“Bring it on, man. Bring it on.”
Paster Doug started a new series this morning about finding contentment in any season of life. As soon as he introduced the topic, I couldn’t help but smirk and shake my head. Finally, when I think I’ve managed to settle into the crazy decision to break up with Addison, a sermon series that might be helpful. I could say that this would have been helpful a long time ago, but I won’t. Something tells me that this isn’t a coincidence and that there will be new things for me to learn over the next few weeks. Today, he’s definitely put me in a contemplative mood.
When service is over, a bunch of students are quick to make lunch plans. It’s nice to have the larger crowd back and I look forward to heading out with them no matter where they decide to go.
“Hey.” Addie plops down in the seat beside mine and leans against my shoulder, tapping my knee to fully capture my attention.
“Hey,” I reply, smiling down at her. Her proximity is refreshing and I relish in the fact that we can be so close to each other without either one of us getting upset about how far we are from where we someday hope to be.
“Interesting sermon topic, yeah?” I laugh, not because what she’s said is particularly funny, but because her sarcasm is spot on and I know I’m the only one who can appreciate it the way she does. She joins me, laughing softly, and suddenly I feel far from content. For a second, all I want to do is lean over and kiss her—like really kiss her. “Think God is trying to tell us something?” she asks, pulling me from my wanton thoughts.
The Promises We Keep (Made for Love Book 1) Page 41
