Page 151 of The True Garza
“I do.” He hugs me even tighter, as if he thinks I’ll evaporate from his arms. “And two years from now, I’ll be saying that again.”
“Saying what again?”
“I do.”
CHAPTER Thirty-Seven
“We’re here.”
True
Thirty-One Months Later…
Resplendent.
Don’t ask me what that word means. I read it in the subtitles in one of Lexi’s Spanish TV shows once.
The dude who said it, with a dazed expression, was watching his wife descend a flight of stairs, and the wife had looked hot as fuck. So I assumed it meant hot as fuck.
Now, as I watch my woman walk down the aisle, wrapped in pristine white, looking like an angel about to ascend into the clouds, that’s the word that comes to mind. But I know for sure now that “hot as fuck” isn’t what it means.
Divine.
Glorious.
Pure.
Worthy.
Innocence.
Mine.
That’s it. London Bridge is fucking resplendent.
And my heart? Shit. My heart feels as if it’s about to explode in my chest.
Mine.
This moment has been alongtime coming. It took us a while to get here.
Our first year of being official was hard. Even with Sonya there helping us along.
We had thought that my propensity to cheat would be the biggest struggle, but it turned out that it was nothing compared to all the other small things we’d initially glossed over. I’d been wholly unaware of how much of a pain in the ass I was to the people in my life. To Trent and Lexi especially. Until London and I embarked on a relationship, and I witnessed her buckle under the weight of my issues. My forgetfulness frustrated her. So did my constant failure to follow through on, well, anything, which made it hard for her to rely on me. My recklessness scared her. My impatience, irritability, and impulsiveness angered her.
There werea lotof fights in that first year. A lot of yelling. A lot of her getting physical with me. And while the make-up sex was always epic, we knew things weren’t healthy.
Our biggest obstacle was my constant desire for reassurance and praise. Something Sonya later diagnosed as Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Yet another thing marking me as a shit candidate for a boyfriend. It meant I needed London’s attention, all the time. I had irrational resentment toward everything that took her attention away from me. Her job, her video games, her phone….
The diagnosis scared me, and it exhausted her. I’d pick random fights with her when shit didn’t go my way, and she’d leave and refuse to see me until I “got my shit together.” Shut me out completely.
During those times, I’d have urges to go out to bars and talk to women. Not because I had a desire for anyone else, but because I missed the praise and validation women used to shower me with when I was single. The rush I used to get from women throwing themselves at me, willing to do anything just to get a piece of me, was a high stronger than cocaine. And when London shut me out, it felt like going through withdrawal. It was brutal. There were times when I would go as far as driving to a familiar bar, knowing I could just walk in and pick someone up in ten minutes and get the “hit” my fucked-up brain needed. But I could never make myself get out of the car. Because while my brain tried to convince me I wanted one thing, my heart wanted something else. Her.
“What’s the one thing you’re not willing to forgive?”
“Infidelity.”
At the height of indignation, with the craving for praise and reassurance clawing under my skin, I’d remember that word.
