Page 47

HARPER

I don't really know where to start. It's late—maybe two, maybe three.

The city's asleep, but I'm not. I'm sitting out on Millie's balcony with a blanket wrapped around me, rain soaking the air and the concrete and everything in between.

It's cold, but I haven't moved. I think I like the cold.

I should probably go back inside, but it's quiet out here.

The kind of quiet that doesn't ask anything of me.

The kind you liked. The kind I hated when I was younger and now crave like it's air.

She's asleep just behind the glass doors.

My girl. Her face is buried in my pillow and she's drooling a little.

You'd laugh. You'd say she looks like trouble, and you'd be right.

But you'd love her. You already did, didn't you?

God, I hope so. I hope you knew. I hope you saw what I was too afraid to name yet, even as you were slipping away.

I miss you so much I can't breathe sometimes.

I didn't understand what missing someone really meant until I called you and you weren't there.

I miss saying 'Mom' out loud, knowing you'll answer with 'yes, sweetheart?

'. I tried to remember your voice and couldn't. Just static.

Just flashes. I hate myself for not recording it.

I hate that I never thought I'd need to.

How do I live in a world where you don't exist in it anymore?

Everything feels wrong. I walk around in a life that still moves, but slower now. Numb around the edges. Like my whole body is underwater, but I'm expected to function like I'm dry. I'm scared of forgetting you.

It's only been a month, but every day since you left has felt like I'm learning how to walk again—with a limp. With half of me gone.

And maybe that's why I'm writing now.

Because I can't capture this in a photo.

I've tried. I've pointed my camera at sunsets and city streets and Millie's laugh, but none of it comes close to this hollow ache.

This storm in my chest. There's no lens for grief.

No shutter speed that can freeze a moment long enough to bring you back.

So I'm writing. Even though I don't write.

Even though the words feel clumsy and crooked and not enough. Because I need you to know,

I'm in love.

And it hurts in a way that feels good. Like breaking open instead of breaking down. Like becoming someone I thought I wasn't allowed to be.

Millie is... she's everything. I don't know how else to say it.

She's fire and ice and steadiness all in one.

She's loud where I go quiet, brave where I shake, and she teases me like it's her second language.

But when I fall apart, she knows how to hold the pieces without cutting herself.

You would've seen that immediately. You always saw people for who they were underneath.

I think you saw her clearly, even when I couldn't. You called her my person before I did.

You said she made me glow. I didn't believe it then, but I do now.

I don't know how she did it, but she made room for me.

For all my mess. All my noise. All the ways I am still learning how to stay in a life that feels safe. And she's still here.

I spent so long thinking I was too much.

Too needy. Too sad. Too heavy to hold. I thought I'd have to make myself small just to be loved.

I thought I'd have to earn it. Beg for it.

Be grateful for scraps. But she never makes me feel like a burden.

Never makes me feel like I need to apologize for existing.

She looks at me like I'm enough. She's the kind of love I thought people like me didn't get.

And it terrifies me. Because what if I lose her, too?

What if I mess it up? What if I let myself want this—really want it—and it disappears?

Where are you now that I need answers? I wished I had asked more.

I wish more than anything that you were here to see it.

To see me. Not just surviving. But learning how to live again.

You'd love the life I'm building. It's not perfect—far from it—but it's mine.

I cook now, badly. I sing in the car again.

I laugh so hard sometimes I cry. And I cry so hard sometimes I can't breathe.

But it's different now. Because someone holds me through it. Because someone stays.

Millie's family—Mom, you'd cry if you met them.

They're the kind of people who overwhelm you with love.

The Bennetts are loud and ridiculous and nosy in a way that feels like home.

They feed me even when I say I'm full. They ask questions no one's ever cared to ask.

They hug me without warning and sit next to me when I'm sad without saying a word.

It's... it's beautiful. And unfamiliar. And it makes me ache with how much I needed it and never had it.

They've taken me in. Not out of pity. Not as Millie's girlfriend. Just as me. And sometimes I think that's what you wanted for me. A place. A love. A feeling that I didn't have to fight for.

I hope you're proud of me. I hope you know I'm trying. I'm trying to show up. I'm trying to let the world in again, piece by piece. I'm still scared all the time. But I'm learning it's okay to be scared and still love anyway.

There are days I still hate that you're not here.

That you didn't get to stay. That you're missing it.

That I can't call you and tell you about the way Millie looks at me like I'm the only person in a room, or how I slipped on the ice six times this week and she only laughed the first four.

That I made it through an entire week without breaking down in the shower.

That I'm building something beautiful. That I'm healing, even if I don't always feel like I am.

I didn't think I'd ever get here. But I'm here. And I think you'd be happy to know that.

I love you. I miss you so much it physically hurts.

Some days it knocks the breath out of me.

Some days I don't know how I get through.

But I do. Because you taught me how. Because somewhere in all the wreckage, I know you're still here.

In my bones. In the rain. In the way Millie brushes my hair back like you used to. In the quiet. In the warmth.

I'll never stop loving you. I'll never stop wishing for one more day. But I think I'm going to be okay now.

Are you proud of me, Mom? I'm still scared, but I'm showing up. I'm choosing love. I'm letting myself stay. And I think you'd be happy to know that.

Thank you for every second you gave me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for seeing me, even when I didn't.

Thank you for every bit of you I carry.

And if you did send her to me— thank you for that, too.

Happy birthday, Mommy. I hope there's a beach and karaoke up there. I'll sing loud for you.

I love you.

I miss you.

Always.

Yours, Harper.

The door slides open behind me. I don't turn around. I know it's her. I hear the soft creak of the frame, the whisper of bare feet against the floor.

"Harps?"

Her voice is low, sleep-rough and concerned, and something in my chest pulls tighter and looser at the same time.

I keep my eyes on the city lights blinking behind the fog, blurred from rain and the sting in my eyes. I press the letter tighter to my chest like it's a life raft. Like if I let go, I'll sink.

Millie doesn't say anything else. She just walks around me, barefoot and quiet, and kneels right in front of me.

Her wild red hair is a mess from sleep, curling around her face.

Her blue eyes catch the faint light and they're so clear, so impossibly alive that my throat closes up. God, I love those eyes. I love her.

She looks at me—really looks—and then her gaze drops to the letter I'm holding before bouncing back to my face.

She doesn't ask what it says. She doesn't rush me.

She just reaches up, soft and slow, and tucks a piece of damp hair behind my ear.

Her fingers linger against my skin like she knows I need to feel anchored to something. To someone.

"You okay, baby?" she whispers.

I let out a long breath. It shakes on the way out, but it feels like something loosens too. Like something heavy I've been dragging behind me has finally fallen away.

I nod. "I'm okay," I say, and I mean it. Not fully. Not forever. But right now, in this breath, with her in front of me—I think I am.

"You're freezing," she murmurs, sliding closer, rubbing warmth into my arms. Her hands are warm, gentle. She always touches me like she's making a promise. "Why didn't you come to bed?"

"I like this view," I murmur, my voice hoarse from not using it in too many hours and thick with the knot still lodged in my throat. "Did you choose this apartment?"

She shakes her head, brushing her thumb along my sleeve. "My sisters used to live here when they were in uni. I sublet it after they left."

"It's beautiful," I say simply. My throat tightens. I clear it, then glance down at the letter in my hands and fold it once, then again. "I was... writing."

"A letter?"

I nod. "You'll think it's silly."

"Why would I think that?" she asks, tilting her head.

"I was writing to my mom."

Millie doesn't flinch. She doesn't freeze or fumble or try to talk over the silence that follows. She just shifts closer and lifts her hand to my cheek, brushing her thumb there so gently it almost breaks me.

"That's beautiful, love," she says.

And something inside me crumbles.

"I didn't know what else to do," I whisper. "It's been a month and I still wake up thinking I should call her. And then I remember. And then I forget. And then I remember again and it hurts all over."

Millie wraps her arms around me without hesitation and pulls me into her. I let her. I fold into her lap, my knees to my chest, and she holds me like I'm not too much, like this pain isn't too big, like I'm not wrong for still aching.

"It doesn't go away," I say into her shoulder. "The missing. It just... changes shape."

"She told me she was proud of me," I say. "In the hospital. It was the last thing she said before she got too tired. And I didn't even know what she meant. I didn't feel like someone to be proud of."

"You are," Millie says fiercely, pulling back to look at me. Her hands frame my face, her eyes burning into mine. "You are. You've survived things most people can't imagine. And you still find a way to love. You're the bravest person I've ever met."

I blink hard. "I didn't think I'd get this," I say. "Any of it. Not you. Not this feeling. Not this... this life."

Her lips find my forehead. A kiss. Then my nose. Then my mouth. It's soft and steady and full of every word we've already said and all the ones we haven't yet.

When she pulls back, I whisper, "I love you," like it's the most natural thing in the world. Because it is now—I love her.

I love this person with everything in me.

With every breath. With every beat of the heart that's still broken in places, but somehow still has room for her.

And sometimes I feel like I might actually explode from it, because I feel everything all at once.

The grief, the ache, the tenderness, the joy.

Missing my mom so deeply it makes my bones hurt, while loving Millie with a kind of certainty that feels holy.

I don't always know how to hold both at the same time.

Some days it feels like too much. Others, not nearly enough.

Like I'm failing at one when I try to feel the other.

But Millie—she's never asked me to choose.

She just holds space. She lets me feel all of it. And the best thing I can do, the truest thing I know how to do, is to let it out.

Her smile softens, and her eyes—God, her eyes—go impossibly bright, even in the foggy night light.

"I love you, Harper," she whispers, like it's a promise she's been keeping in her chest, waiting for the moment it was safe to say out loud.

I feel the words settle into me like something I've always been waiting to hear.

And I believe her.

The world spent years trying to tear her down, molding her into someone more palatable.

Someone quieter, smaller, easier to digest. And for so long, she believed them.

Believed she wasn't meant for this kind of love.

Not the soft, unconditional, hold-you-through-your-broken-days kind.

Not the kind her moms and sisters give so freely, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

I understand that.

I spent years with someone who made me think love meant being small. Love meant apologizing first. Love meant giving everything and getting just enough back to keep hoping. I let myself believe that was the right way. That I wasn't built for anything else.

But here, behind the cameras, in the quiet hours, with Millie.

.. It's different. With her, love doesn't ask me to shrink.

It doesn't punish me for feeling too much or not enough.

She takes the chaos, the sharp corners, the grief, the softness, the pieces I still don't know what to do with—and she stays.

She stays with this version of me, even on the nights I cry too hard to speak.

Even when I can't explain why I feel like I'm unraveling.

With her, I don't have to perform. I don't have to be shiny or composed or quiet or clever. I just get to be.

Messy. Loud. Quiet. Numb. Whole. Broken. All of it.

And somehow, she still looks at me like I'm worth loving.

I blink down at her hands on my knees—gentle, grounding. The rain outside has softened into a hush, just a whisper against the glass, and Millie's fingers are tracing idle shapes against my skin, like she's memorizing me even now, even after all this time.

"I used to think love was something you had to earn," I say, barely above a whisper. "Like it was a prize at the end of a race, and if I just worked hard enough or changed enough, I'd deserve it. But with you... I don't feel like I'm trying anymore. I just... I feel like I've already won."

Millie's lips twitch into something small and tender, but she doesn't smile all the way.

Her throat bobs like she's swallowing emotion too big to name, and she leans in, brushing her nose against mine.

"You didn't have to win anything," she whispers.

"You just had to let yourself be seen. I see you, Harps. I always have."

My breath shudders out of me.

She presses a kiss to my forehead. One to my cheek. One to the tip of my nose. And then, finally, one to my lips—slow and reverent, like she's not trying to ignite anything but remind me I'm here, and she's here, and it's okay now.

I melt into it, letting myself fall. Letting myself be held.

When she pulls back, I blink at her. "Come inside with me," she murmurs, voice thick with something like hope. "Let me keep you warm."

I nod.

We move slow. She takes my hand, helps me up like I'm something delicate—not fragile, just precious.

Her thumb brushes the inside of my wrist like she's soothing something only she can feel.

I let her guide me back inside, the balcony door sliding shut behind us with a soft click that seals the outside world away.

The bedroom is dim, cozy, still full of her.

She pulls back the covers and I crawl in first, folding the letter gently and slipping it under my pillow like a secret.

Millie slides in behind me, wraps herself around me like we've done this a thousand times, and maybe we have.

In dreams. In quiet wishes. In all the ways my soul had been waiting.

Her arms are strong around my middle. Her breath is steady at the back of my neck.

I let the weight of the night press into the mattress. I let the ache live beside the comfort. I let the loss and the love curl up together inside my chest.

And when I fall asleep, it's the first time in weeks that I don't wake up gasping.

Because I'm held.

Because I'm loved.

Because she stays.