Page 155 of Bring You Back

She wanted me to find her.

She still trusts me.

Once I’m able to focus, I take her in; my eyes holding on to her when my hands aren’t. Her hair is fanned down her shoulders, wind-blown from outside, raked through with her hands. She’s staring at the floor, hugging her knees.

I notice how beautiful she is each time I look at her.

I remain hyper-aware of where my hands have been and where they always want to be.

I have the same, repeating wish I could do more.

Touch away her sadness. Kiss away her doubts.

It’s impossible not to want to.

It’s more impossible not to love her. Once you’ve spent days learning what makes her laugh, only to find there’s so much that can make her smile. Once you’ve learned how she sees the world, how she thinks about people, how she loves. Once you’ve spent time in her private thoughts, seeing her strength, learning why she cries, why she cares and when she doesn’t. Once you’ve spent days and nights just growing with her.

There’s so much to Reyna, but she’s never too much.

She’s the girl for me.

Life can mess her up, but I’ll never not be here. I’ll never not find her. I’ll never quit wanting to learn.

And I’llneverunderstand how anyone can’t see her the way I do.

It’s their loss.

I pray to whoever is listening it’s not my loss now, too.

How’s today?

Our question sits, unasked, on my tongue. Reyna wears her feelings, lets them shape her. She’s so open and unafraid, always embracing all that she is. I wish the important people would embrace her just as much.

We ask to get us talking. It’s our way of letting each other know we want to hear the answer, without using the blanketHow are you?We care about the details. But after this day, it feels almost too cheap. This day is being shit, people are being shit, and the night has gotten a lot worse.

Her fingers rub at the hem of her green dress, the one she wears the most. Her hands move in a similar way when she’s concentrating on a project, or, like now, when she’s anxious.

The cool night air blows through the open door and she looks up slowly, expectant eyes blinking. “Do you hate me?”

I pull the strings of my Polo hoodie, breathing a laugh around my thoughts. “Wrong L word.” Her brows furrow for the slightest second before her lips purse with amusement, and she laughs back.

She’s laughing.That’s always a good sign. Agreatsign.

I tell Reyna how I feel almost every day. She knows I love her. We use the word a lot.I’minlove with youstays knotted in my mouth.

Our futures are pulling us in opposite directions, but I have to make sure our paths will still touch. I don’t want to risk a single chance of losing her, of pushing her away. It’s never hurt to love her, to say the word, to carry these feelings. But it hurts her to not feel loved. More than most of us. If a day comes when she wantsthatkind of love from me, I’ll show it to her without blinking.

But she needs a friend now.

“I couldn’t do it,” she says, unfolding her knees with a shrug, and Grumbles’s carrier comes into view by her lap, my favorite Halloween cat poking her paw through a hole, and I’m mad at myself for even thinking the slightestwhat if.

Told you, Julian.

“But thanks for not hating me.”

My body reacts to her gauging, all the air I have leaving my lungs from the pressure of her doubt, my head shaking as I go to her. She should know I don’t have to be tested.

Reyna’s not Reyna right now, man.

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