Page 91 of Lighting the Lamp
“Okay. This is officially too emotionally raw to continue without snacks.” Michele leans forward suddenly, pointing dramatically toward the kitchen. “I’m invoking the sacredsisterhood clause: No hard conversations without cinnamon rolls.”
“We have a sacred sisterhood clause?”
“We do now.” Ramona nods her head in agreement before pointing toward the kitchen. “There are cinnamon rolls in the kitchen. Make sure to warm them and put the icing on.”
Michele pushes to her feet and disappears around the corner, calling back, “Ramona made you crisis carbs, making her the responsible one. I’m just the emotional support.”
“You’re allowed to want something good, you know,” Ramona whispers, nudging my knee.
“I don’t know if I know how.” The words come out quieter than I expect, almost small. “Every time I think maybe this time is different, that I’m different—better, healthier, stronger—it’s like my brain goes on red alert and starts clocking every exit. Scanning for signs he’s about to vanish so I can brace for impact.”
“Classic hypervigilance. Love that for you. Not really, but I respect the strategy,” Michele shouts from the kitchen, followed by the beeping of the microwave and the clicking of plates.
“You don’t have to brace for impact just because you’re falling. Sometimes falling means flying.”
“I don’t know how to tell the difference.”
Michele returns with a plate piled high with cinnamon rolls—three slightly squashed, over-microwaved blobs of icing-drenched sugar chaos and drops onto the couch beside me with the reverence of someone handing over a peace offering.
“Eat. This is the emotional support of our people.” She hands me one like she’s giving me a communion wafer. “Your trauma response is showing, babe.”
“My trauma response is always showing. It’s like an emotional sunburn. Everything rubs it the wrong way.” I crack a smile and take a bite, frosting sticking to my fingers.
And it is. That’s the thing people don’t get. This isn’t a one-time freakout; it’s been years of trying to keep myself safe. From people. From disappointment. From that slow, aching sting when someone you let in decides they’ve had enough of you.
Ramona just watches me, quiet and steady, while Michele wipes icing off her pinky with a napkin and says, “Then let him see the burn. If he can’t handle it, he’s not for you.”
“You know what pisses me off the most? He’s been so kind. It would almost be easier if he were an asshole, then I could walk away and convince myself it didn’t matter.”
“But he’s not,” Ramona says gently.
“No. He’s the guy who remembers I hate pulp in my orange juice and always gets me the pulp-free kind without asking. He checks the thermostat before I walk into a room because he knows it might be too cold sometimes, and it makes my skin feel like needles. He notices when I’m overstimulated and adjusts without making me feel like I’m an inconvenience for needing something different. And that should feel good, right?”
“It should, and it does,” Michele says, licking icing off her thumb. “But it also makes you feel exposed.”
“Like I’m holding up a neon sign that says,here is where I break, aim carefully,but that’s stupid because a part of me is already picturing what it would be like to wake up next to him. To be chosen, not just tolerated or dealt with, but wanted.”
Ramona reaches over, lifts the half-eaten cinnamon roll out of my hand, and replaces it with her fingers instead. “You are wanted.”
“You don’t get it. What if I let myself fall, and whatever he’s keeping locked up is something that changes everything? I don’t know whether I can come back from that. I don’t want to be the girl who misreads things again.”
“Then don’t let him in all the way,” Ramona says. “Not yet, just open the door a crack. Enough to let him see the light’s still on.”
“You guys always make it sound so easy.” I stare down at the smear of icing on my palm.
“Nothing about this is easy, but it’s worth it. If it isn’t and breaks your heart?” Michele leans over and swipes her finger through the frosting on my half-finished roll. “Then we’ll make you more cinnamon rolls and key his car.”
“Metaphorically.” Ramona sighs.
“Sure.” Michele shrugs, “Plausible deniability for Ramona, it is.”
“What would happen if you let yourself believe it was real?”
“I’d want everything. I’d stop holding back. I’d love him like I mean it, and then if he leaves, I’d break.”
“And what if he doesn’t?” Ramona squeezes my fingers.
That’s the problem. I don’t know how to picture the version of this where he stays. I’m not waiting for the moment it all crumbles because I’ve never had a relationship where that wasn’t the outcome. I’ve been left by boyfriends before who said I was too much, who looked at me like I was a puzzle they didn’t have the patience to solve. Friends who swore they’d stick around, then stopped calling when I needed them most. Every time, the pattern was the same: the shift. The distance. The eventual goodbye, and after a while, I stopped trying, convinced it was safer to build walls than to watch another person walk away.
