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AARYN
E rrol shakes his head, tears glittering in his eyes. His breath hitches, breaking his words up into fragments that cut through my heart like shards of glass.
“Look at you,” It comes out as a hoarse whisper. “Goddamn, Ran, I was so thrilled when you came back into my life. I spent that whole ten years when we weren’t in contact just being proud that I used to know you. Look at who you’ve become,” he waves a hand up and down my body.
“You’re sexy, you’re sophisticated and you’re so fucking smart . And I’m so, so afraid that one day you’re going to wake up, realize all that and want to be with somebody… more like you. Better than me.”
I’m shocked into silence for just a moment before the dam breaks, spilling out all my words in a rush. “You’re right —I did know you. And I was the only one who knew you. Do you know what that felt like? Do you know what that meant to me?”
My voice starts to catch on the growing lump in my throat. “Everybody else just saw me as a weird, klutzy nerd or just looked straight through me like I didn’t exist. And you didn’t let anybody in! You were impenetrable —a fucking fortress. But you let me in. Me!”
I’m getting too choked up to talk without my words coming out all chopped-up and hiccupy, but I keep talking anyway.
“Oh my God —do you have any idea how much that meant to me? That I was the one you trusted, the one you let down your guard for? I felt so special! It was like you’d given me this beautiful gift of yourself.
I felt like you were mine and nobody else’s.
It made me want to make you happy and keep you safe. ”
Fuck. I’m crying again. But I have to get this out.
“The selfish part of me is terrified that if you do wake up one morning, look in the mirror and suddenly see just how valuable you are — how strong, how sexy, how capable and all the other things I love about you — you’re going to realize I don’t deserve you at all, and that you could do so much better. ”
Errol drops his head in his hands, shaking it hard. “Stop it!” he wails. “You’re wrong! I’d never want anybody else. I swear to God, waking up in the morning, looking at you sleeping next to me —it feels like I won the biggest lottery in the universe, knowing you picked me.”
I shake my head. “No, no —you picked me . Way back when we were just kids. You didn’t give two shits about anybody else — I was the one you let in.”
He huffs out a faint laugh. “Well, you just kept at it, didn’t you? Kept trying to be my friend until…” He shakes his head.
“I wore you down?”
“No. Until I realized that I would never forgive myself if you gave up on me.” When he shuts his eyes, tears spill onto his cheeks.
“You saw something in me I didn’t —I don’t, I can’t —see in myself.
But sometimes when I look at you, I think I can see the reflection of how you see me in your eyes. ”
Goddammit. I thought I had a handle on myself, but suddenly I’m choked up again.
“Babydoll, you’re so good to everybody else.
It fucking kills me that you don’t save any of that sweetness for yourself.
I’m sorry I overstepped, but I swear to God, all I was trying to do was get you to see what a beautiful person you are, and believe that you’re worthy of all the love and respect in the world. ”
Errol shakes his head, a faint, strained smile creeping onto his lips. “I don’t think it works like that, though. You know, with the…whaddaya-call-em.”
“Affirmations.” I sigh. “I’m sorry. I thought it might help if you said them.”
His face pulls into a grimace, like even the word gives him discomfort. “I can’t.” He shakes his head. “I don’t believe it. I’m not going to believe it.”
My heart leaps into my throat. “That’s OK,” I say quickly. “I’d be really happy if you just said them.”
“What the hell good would that do?”
“You know how you told me before that when you started working at Finn’s, you sort of put on this other self like the way you’d button up a shirt? And after a while, it started to feel less like a role you were playing and more like you?”
He nods, reluctantly. I take his hand. “I’m hoping if you do this enough times, you won’t have to look at me to see a reflection of who you are. I know it might be a long ways off,baby, but I’m hoping that one day, you’ll be able to see what a wonderful man you are just by looking in the mirror.”
T he next morning, I’m a little afraid that things are going to be awkward between Errol and I.
I’m pondering what to say if he brings it up when I realize: The notebook isn’t on the dresser.
Stepping into the hallway, I hear a low murmuring from behind the closed bathroom door.
I swallow down a lump of emotion in my throat at the thought of Errol reading those affirmations to his reflection.