Page 77 of An Overdue Match
“Whatever makes you the most comfortable, Angel. Wig or no wig, you’re beautiful and my parents are going to love you either way simply because I—”
He cuts himself off and doesn’t finish the sentence.
Because you what, Tai?I want to scream. I’m hanging by a thread that’s about to snap, a dark unknown waiting to swallow me whole if I plummet into its abyss.
I know how I want him to finish his sentence. It’s as clearas a mountain stream and as scary as a raging river. He’s given me every indication what the next two words out of his mouth would’ve been. While I may have tried to convince myself of a different narrative about his intentions from the very beginning, he’s made me a liar at every turn.
So why am I so afraid to hope? Why am I more willing to believe Brett’s lies than Tai’s truths?
I swallow hard and cling to the thread rooting me to the spot. Ground myself to Tai’s dark eyes, to the way he sees me ... No one has ever looked at me the way Tai does. His look gives me strength, emboldens me.
“Because you what?” I breathe out the question.
The movement is infinitesimal, but Tai shakes his head. His lips thin, as if he’s biting back what he wants to say.
I lift my hand and set my palm above his beating heart. “Because you what, Tai?”
It’s unfair of me to ask. Especially considering I’m unsure whether I’m ready to say the words to him. But my need to hear them has made me selfish. Desperate. Ineedto know that it’s possible for someone to have these feelings for me. ForTaito have these feelings for me.
His face softens. “Are you sure you’re ready to believe it, my Angel?”
It’s my turn to shake my head. “No. I’m pretty unsure about everything right now.” My fingers fan over his pectoral muscles. “But tell me anyway,” I whisper.
Tai’s gaze brands my soul. “My parents will love you, Evangeline.” His voice, his touch, the look in his eyes—all are an invitation to accept what he’s offering to me. “BecauseIlove you.”
I’d hoped he’d say it. I’d known, hadn’t I, that those would be the next words to come out of his mouth.I love you. I should have been prepared.
But nothing would have made me ready for the overwhelmingsurge of emotions that hearing those three little words would bring forth from the core of my being.I love youmight as well have been a sledgehammer to the protective shell around my heart, cracking it open and releasing every hurt feeling, every doubt, every suppressed longing and quashed hope. Each bubble to the surface comes in suffocating waves, forcing me to feel all the things all at once that I refused to acknowledge until now.
I gasp as a deep, silent sob sticks in my throat, my shoulders shuddering and my eyes welling. There’s no blinking back these tears. They’re marching forward with reinforcements right behind them, an onslaught against my defenses.
Tai’s own eyes widen in alarm. “Angel?”
What must the poor man think? He tells me he loves me and instead of answering with a sane response ofI love you too—what he was probably hoping for and what I’m pretty sure is somewhere within this whirlpool of feelings currently creating a vortex in my chest cavity—he gets a blubbering mess of a woman who can’t even squeak out a coherent word past the choking sobs caught in her throat.
I’ve done nothing but push Tai away. What if he thinks my reaction—my snotty nose and leaking eyes and uncontrollable crying—is another rejection?
My hands shoot out, and I grab fistfuls of his shirt in a death grip. He’ll have to pry the cotton out of each of my fingers if he wants to get away. Once I can catch my breath, I’ll tell him ... tell him...
“Ah, sweetheart.” His voice nearly breaks. He gathers me to his chest and hugs me tight. “Shh. It’s okay. You are loved. Let it out. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
It hurts. To face the image of myself I’ve let develop in my mind. My insecurities and vulnerabilities. To grieve what I thought I’d lost. It hurts, but the tears are cleansing. The sharp, stabbing pain lessens to a dull ache. I’m able to shudder indeeper breaths. With each exhale, the voices in my head—Brett’s, society’s—grow fainter. Now that they aren’t shouting at me, drowning everything else out, I hear something else. Faint but familiar. A steady beat like my own heart.
You are loved. You are loved.
Tai said the same thing, but this is different. Deeper. Ancient. Not a romantic love, but a never-ending, never fading, eternal, supernatural type of love.
“God has never stopped wooing you, Evangeline. He is the lover and romancer of your soul.”
Tears course down my cheeks. Not in grief or sadness but in healing. The weight that has crushed me for so long has lifted, and I’m floating. I’m like a phoenix rising from the ashes of my past pain, ready to fly again with hope and renewed strength.
And I know just where to start my flight.
I pull away from Tai’s chest, his arms loosening their hold to allow my movement. A wet patch darkens his shirt where the material absorbed my tears. I’ll apologize for that later. Right now, there are more important things to say.
Tai’s brows are drawn down in concern.
“Tai.” Emotion still clogs my throat, but I croak past it.
