Page 275 of Eternal
“You never got to feel gentle hands on you. I hate it.”
I kept watching him, confused by the warmth in my chest and the way my heart was beating so fast I could’ve sworn I felt it in my soul.
“I don’t know how you feel,” he said, quiet now. “I never felt it. I never had someone to be disappointed by. So, I can’t help you with words. But I’ll help you with my presence instead. I’ll cook for you, I’ll braid your hair. Might sing if you want, but please don’t ask, I’d hate it. And I’ll watch every movie with you, I’ll give you the softness you never had. Because I hate how empty you look when you talk about it.”
“So… No singing?”
He laughed, a soft, and warm sound like something I wanted to wrap myself in.
Then he leaned in and kissed the tip of my nose.
It was stupid, probably, silly and small, but it undid me more than anything else ever had.
My throat clenched, tears pressed against the backs of my eyes like they were waiting for permission.
I didn’t give it.
I was trying so hard not to fall apart in a moment that felt too safe, too warm. Like sitting in the sun after years in the cold and realizing your skin still remembers how to feel.
But I smiled, it was small, but it was a real smile.
“No singing,partner, but I’ll give you plenty of kisses instead,” he said.
And something about the way he said it made it feel like a promise, as if he wasn’t going anywhere.
I could be annoying, or quiet, or broken, or even…happy, and he’d still be sitting here.
He leaned back just a little, still on the floor in front of me. Still holding my gaze like he didn’t want to miss a single expression, like he knew I’d retreat the second he blinked.
And I wanted to. I wanted to run from it, fromhim, from this soft version of reality that I didn’t believe I had the right to live in.
But I didn’t move.
Because for the first time in forever, I didn’t feel like I had to earn it.
I just had to sit there, and let someoneseeme.
Reallyseeme.
And that was somehow the hardest part of all.
“I mean it,” he said, voice low. “You don’t have to earn any of it. Not the meals. Not the braids. Not the quiet nights.” My throat tightened. “And if you wanna be a kid sometimes, I’ll let you. You can cry, you can be mad, you can eat cereal at 2AM and wear stupid long socks, or the cat ears from Halloween. I won’t ask why.”
I blinked hard, because something inside me was splintering again, but gently this time. Like maybe he was pulling out all the rotten parts and not making me look away.
He rested his chin on my knee, eyes softer than I’ve ever seen them. “You were never too much, Azra. You were just a child.And you deserved a world that didn’t try to break you for simply existing.”
And this time, I did cry.Silently. The way I’d learned to do it when I was too small to take up space. But his hands were on mine now, and they were steady, they were safe.
“I don’t need you to fix me,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said. “I just wanna be a part of the reason you don’t feel so broken anymore.”
“I just… I just don’t want to feel alone again.” Alone, worthless,never enough. “Please just for once be the one who stays.”
A hug, soft and warm and a promise sealed the conversation. “I’ll forever be here,partner.”
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