Page 154 of Jayson
“I keep thinking about who I used to be,” I say, wiping my cheek. “And I can’t get her back.”
“You’re not supposed to.”
That hits harder than anything else.
“You mourn her,” she continues. “Of course you do. Yougrieve the innocence, the before, the girl who didn’t know what it was to bleed from the inside out. But you don’t go back to her. You honor her by surviving forward.”
I swallow. Hard.
“I didn’t think I’d live this long,” I whisper. “There were nights I prayed I wouldn’t.”
“I know,” she says.
“And if it hadn’t been Jayson…” I trail off. “If it had been someone else who found me that night—anyone else—I think I’d be dead.”
“You think he saved you?”
I nod. “Not just from them. From me.From what I was turning into.”
Tayana tilts her head. “And now?”
“Now he just… stays,” I say. “He doesn’t try to fix me. He just holds the broken parts without asking me to hide them.”
I glance out the window, the world beyond it humming with ordinary life. Cars. Birds. Sunlight.
“I think I’m starting to believe I deserve that,” I whisper.
“You do,” she says, firm now. “You do.”
Another silence. But this one feels like breath, not weight.
“You’re not here to become who you were,” Tayana says. “You’re here to become who you survived to be.”
And in that moment, I feel it.
Not healing. But the space for it. The permission to begin.
When the session is over, I walk out into the sunlight feeling taller. Not lighter—just more rooted. Like I finally belong to my own skin again.
I take the long way home. Past the corner café where Jayson once dragged me after a night so sleepless I could barely see. Past the library with the cracked marble steps. Past the used bookstore I can’t help but walk into weekly.
It could’ve been anyone who took me that night. Anyone. But it was him.
And maybe that’s fate. Or maybe it’s just the cruel mercy of the universe. But either way, Jayson was the weapon fate handed me when everything else was stripped away.
And instead of using me like they all did…he shielded me. Loved me. Let me bleed, then helped me bind the wounds.
He could’ve turned away. Could’ve played the part of a monster. Could’ve broken me. But he didn’t. He chose me. Again. And again. And again. And now I get to choose him back.
When I get home,he’s on the floor, cross-legged in the middle of blueprint chaos. There are rolls of plans laid out, coffee mugs, red pens, and a million notes scribbled in his almost-illegible scrawl.
He’s shirtless. Hair damp. Eyes sharp.
And when he sees me, he smiles like I still surprise him. Like Imatterin a way no blueprint ever will.
I step over a pile of plans and drop to my knees in front of him. He watches me, patient, quiet, like he knows something’s shifting.
“You okay?” he asks, always asking.
