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“What is it?” I asked.
“There’s something else that’s keeping you from resting and it has nothing to do with what happened to you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I recognize that look in your eyes, daughter. I also recognize the look that I saw in Zac’s eyes earlier. You two are in love with each other.”
I slowly drew in a deep breath and then blew it out. “I have a lot to tell you, Dad.”
“So tell me, but only if you’re up to it. If you’re not right now, then this conversation can certainly wait.”
I looked over at Zac still sound asleep in his chair and readied myself to confess the truth that now lay within me.
“I am up to it,” I said, meeting my dad’s caring gaze. “Ineedto tell you what has been going on with me.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“You’re right about Zac and me. We are in love. Deeply in love. But there’s one problem with our relationship that I don’t think you’re gonna like. In fact, you may wanna disown me after I tell you what it is.”
“I know he’s married, Stevie, and I would never disown you over anything.”
“But… How did… Did Zac tell you?”
“No. I just know, though.”
Of course you do, I thought to myself.
“Dad, neither of us was looking for this to happen. We just fell into it and we fell so fast.”
“I know that too.”
“At first, I really struggled with our affair because of how you and mom raised me, and also because of Graham’s affair with Emma. I not only knew better than to let myself do this but I struggled with being a hypocrite. I don’t care about any of that now.”
“Because now you understand the full meaning behind the saying: things aren’t always black and white. Like me with your mom, it took you falling in love with someone that society says you shouldn’t fall in love with because they view that love as being wrong due to the circumstances surrounding it. Also like your mom and me, you see the ridiculousness in some of the manmade rules and laws that we’re expected to live by. When it comes to love, they don’t apply and never will.”
“N-no, they won’t,” I choked out.
My dad looked over my face again and then squeezed my hand. “How did you and Zac meet?”
“Through Brooke. At the end of my first week of working for her, she invited me to join her and my team at a local bar that they all frequent. Zac and his best friend, Sebastian, orBashas we all call him, showed up there which I learned is a normal thing. Brooke considers Zac and Bash to be bonus sons. They’re all very close.”
“So it started that night for you and Zac?”
“No. It started six days earlier at the running trail. I saw him there, but we didn’t do anything other than stare at eachother. Zac was running toward me and as soon as I saw his eyes, something began pulling me to him. It was a deep, burning ache that I felt inside my body, and in those few seconds that Zac and I held eye contact, that tie from me to him felt tangible. Like I could’ve felt it had I reached out and touched the space between us. Do I sound like I’ve gone crazy?”
My dad quietly chuckled. “No. Not at all.”
“At the time, I didn’t know what to make of everything that I was feeling, but after Zac and I met that night at the bar, I did. At least I began to understand it. Zac was and still is so familiar to me in a way that I can’t explain, and the more we’ve gotten to know each other, he just—just feels like home to me. A home that I’ve never been to before but somehow know.”
“What you experienced when you made eye contact with Zac is identical to what happened to me when I looked into your mom’s eyes the first time. I was immediately drawn to her and I also felt a deep, burning ache inside my body. I didn’t know what was happening to me at the time either but soon realized what it was. Your mom did too. Our souls picked each other’s to love and we were finallyhome.”
My dad and I smiled at each other through our tears, then both took a deep breath.
“I have never felt anything so real in all my life as what Zac and I share,” I whispered while stealing a glance at him. I loved watching him sleep and had done it every time he spent the night with me. He slept so peacefully and seeing it brought me peace.
“It shows, daughter. What I’ve already seen between you and Zac in the short amount of time that I’ve been at this hospital leaves no doubt in my mind that you two really are deeply in love. It is very clear to me that you’ve found a home within his heart and he’s done the same with yours.”
“We have.”
