Page 86 of Shattered

“I’ve always been supporting you, Delia.”

“I know that now.” Her eyes searched mine. “Can you keep doing it? Seeing me at my worst? Most broken? Least functional?”

“I’ve been doing that for weeks, and I’m not tired yet.”

“What about seventeen more years?”

“I think I can manage that.”

She kissed me then.

I froze for half a second. Then my hands remembered how to move. One went to her face, the other to her waist. Pulling her closer. Holding her like she might disappear or I’d wake up and discover this was a dream.

She pulled back to study my face. Reached up to touch my jaw. Her fingers were gentle and soft.

Then she said, “It really looks like you’ve been suffering.”

“I have been suffering.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Make me.”

So I kissed her again.

Slower this time, taking my time. Memorizing the way she felt against me. The way her breath hitched when I kissed her jaw. The way she kissed me back, her lips soft and warm.

This was real. This was happening.

She leaned against me. I wrapped my arm around her and we sat in her mother’s room and didn’t say anything for a while. Just existed together in the quiet.

After a long time, she stood. Offered me her hand. “Take me home.”

“Where’s home?”

“My apartment. With you.”

I took her hand. Stood. We walked out of Elena’s room together, past Daniel who looked relieved to see us leaving together. Past Maria who smiled like she’d known this was coming all along.

“Tell me more about the letters,” Delia said, settling into her seat, looking at me like I was something worth studying.

“Haven’t I humiliated myself enough for one day?”

“Not even close.”

So I told her. About writing letters describing how she looked when she concentrated on a painting. About letters at eighteen saying I was leaving for college because staying was too hard.

How every letter ended the same way.

I love you. I’ll always love you. Even when I can’t say it.

By the time we reached her apartment, she was crying again.

“I made you cry,” I said.

“It’s not a sad kind of cry.”