Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Monk stiffens beside me. So still that after a moment, I hazard a glance up at his face to make sure he heard, that he’s still breathing. He’s staring back at me. And it’s like before, when we first came back into each other’s lives, and even looking at him felt dangerous. You stare at the sun, only to find it staring back at you. You bask in its heat.
In his love.
“Don’t play with me, Vee,” Monk says, his voice hoarse and his face judge-sober. “I don’t have to have that.”
He rubs Dessi’s back through the blanket she’s wrapped in.
“As long as I have you and as long as I have her, I’m content, but you know…” He pauses, swallows, the muscle in his strong jaw flexing. “You know I’d marry you today if you wanted that.”
“Well, today might be a little soon. I mean, you just met my parents.”
He barks out a laugh and winds an arm around my waist to bring me as close as our baby girl will allow sandwiched between us.
“You mean it?” he asks, searching my face.
I understand his shock. I was as adamant about not marrying as I was about not having kids. Yet here I stand with my beautiful baby girl and the love of my life. It’s only through therapy that I’ve been able to forge a path that isn’t controlled by my fear and trauma. Those fears weren’t baseless. There are real risks with this condition, but I fight every day for my stability. For so long, I didn’t acknowledge my desires, didn’t pursue them because of what might go wrong. This healing journey has taught me that bipolarity doesn’t mean I have to forfeit all my dreams or ignore my desires. I deserve joy, too, and I’ll do what it takes to give myself the best chance possible. I’ve made my own mistakes. Now I have to make my own peace. I have to make my own life.
And the two people in my arms are at the center.
“Yeah, I mean it,” I reply, “and Wright Thelonious Bellamy, don’t act like you haven’t already bought a ring.”
“Shit.” He grimaces. “You found that? I promise it was just going to be like a forever ring. I wasn’t going to pressure you to… I didn’t want to make you feel… I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me this is it.”
“Oh, well, if you don’t need it, then we don’t have to—”
“But,” he cuts in quickly, “I wouldn’t object to marrying you.”
“‘Wouldn’t object’ is not a very romantic way to propose.”
“God, Vee, if you’d told me you changed your mind, I would’ve—”
“Would’ve what?” I whisper, searching his face for all the emotions he never bothers to hide from me anymore.
“I would’ve gotten down on both knees and begged,” he says with no apparent shame or hesitation. “Begged you to marry me.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I say, dropping a kiss on Dessi’s sweet cheeks and grinning at my soon-to-be fiancé. “But it’d be nice.”
He laughs, and this unbridled joy I used to think I was incapable of is all over his face. It’s loosed inside me, too. I am his and he is mine, this man who has proven his love to me over and over again, through all the moods and episodes, ups and downs. The forgiveness it took to get us here sits between us like a gift wrapped in grace. The sweetness of it, the power, is almost too much and my eyes sting with tears. Emotions—gratitude and love—overwhelm me. What we have is more than a second chance.
It’s a miracle.
I’ve searched the songs, the poems, the myths and fables; seeking words to articulate what this love feels like; what it is. There were years we were apart and I wondered if I’d imagined it. Had it been real? Dust? Vapor? When all along, it was this solid thing curled around my heart and barnacled to the walls of my chest. When all along, he would never have left me had he known.
I’m a coin, two-sided and tossed in the air, left spinning. I’m sun and storms. Hope and fear. Faith and despair. A living, breathing dichotomy searching for constancy.
Mania and depression.
I’m me.
And I am loved.
And when this world leaves me spinning, Monk, this connection, is my gyroscope. It doesn’t fix, but it steadies. It stays. Even if I fly, even if I crash, it stays.
“Ask me the question,” Monk says, his palm spread over the small of my back, anchoring, comforting.
“The question?” I peer up at him, confused for a moment, but then smiling, understanding. “Oh, that question.”
“Ask me,” he says again, eyes fixed on my face, loving, claiming.
“Okay, Mr. Bellamy. What would you save in a fire?”
“This.” He presses his temple to mine, his voice shaking even as his arm tightens around me and holds our daughter secure between our hearts. “Only this.”