Things We Don’t Ask For

CW: Implied domestic abuse

You knelt in the dirt to brush grass from my skirt, and I hadn’t even needed to ask. You looked up at me with bright eyes, usually so full of mischief, but at that moment, they were soft with something I couldn’t name. I giggled when you stood, a nervous thank you falling from my lips and my stuttering heart falling over a cliff, praying for a soft landing. I thought maybe I found it when the smirk that I was used to seeing cause trouble caused only butterflies instead. You didn’t say “you’re welcome,” you only let the smirk soften and whispered, so this is what it feels like. I hadn’t had the courage to ask what you meant, so I merely took your outstretched hand and we walked barefoot through the grass.

I straightened your bow tie before you walked down the aisle at your best friend’s wedding, smiling at the nervous way your hands shook. You were normally so confident, cavalier, and self-assured, but dressed in a suit and carrying wedding bands you became a wreck because, I can’t mess this up for them, I mess everything up. I kissed your shaking, sweaty hands and reminded you that there were so many things you hadn’t messed up, and so many things that were made better by your messes. I was made better by your messes. The smile that lit your face had choked me up, so I waved you off with a kiss to the cheek and laughed at the salute you gave me before straightening up and taking the rehearsed steps over the white carpet. You didn’t stumble once, but my heart did. I thought maybe yours did too when I saw tears in your eyes as they met mine during the vows. The world melted away and I knew then that I’d never need a white dress, those tears were sacred enough on their own.

You barreled through the hospital doors with a kind of desperation I’d never seen in real life the night I was hit by a drunk driver. You were shouting my name so loud I could hear it through the haze of drugs and pain, begging someone to tell you if I was alright. When I woke later, it was to your sleeping form, slumped over in the chair next to the bed- mismatched, rumpled clothing buttoned incorrectly. I hadn’t been able to speak, but within moments, like you could feel my eyes on you, you jolted awake and started crying when you saw me. Over the next two weeks, you came every single day, bringing flowers for joy and gossip for laughter- they were better medicine than the morphine. When I was cleared to go home, you dropped me off, then showed back up an hour later with a duffel bag telling me you would sleep on the couch, the floor, or in the bathtub if it meant I would let you care for me. You slept in my bed. You stopped drinking. You never left. Now, when a new friend comes for dinner, we say, “welcome to our home.”

I said it didn’t make you a bad person when you got the news your father died and you didn’t shed a tear. You wanted to cry, you said, you really did. But each time tears pricked the back of your eyes all you could think about were your mother’s cries and the pain of scars you still carried. Tears turned to relief, and you worried I would think you were a monster. I said the only monster in the scenario was the one being laid to rest in a funeral we didn’t have to go to. If you had wanted to, I would have gone with you just to hold your hand and whisper into the grave that I hoped he rotted in Hell. In the end, instead of attending the funeral, we dressed in black and sang karaoke at a dive bar with your mother and sister. You sang “Another One Bites the Dust,” in an off-key rendition that had all of us dissolving in drunken giggles. When we got home you broke down and I held you as you whispered that you were finally free.

You sat cross-legged on the concrete floor, one hand outstretched and your eyes scrunched shut to let the skinny mutt at the shelter sniff you. I couldn’t tell who was more frightened, you or the traumatized fighting dog that had captured my heart. You’d always said you didn’t want dogs, the responsibility was too much and (though you’d never admit it) they scared you a little bit. I had made peace with it, but I suppose I couldn’t keep the longing out of my voice when I was on the phone with every friend and family member I could think of trying desperately to find a home for the mutt on the euthanasia list. I hadn’t known you were paying attention, but when I got off the phone with my third failed attempt, you simply stopped me from dialing a fourth time, determination steeled in your eyes, and grabbed your keys. I thought maybe you saw yourself in the scared dog, lashing out at people because all it knew was hurt, or maybe you just couldn’t stand to see me sad; either way, the dog eventually climbed into your lap and he went home with us that night. Now he sleeps at the foot of the bed between us and every time you leave our home without me, you hug him and whisper take care of our girl. You claim he can understand you and that you feel better knowing our best boy is with me. It makes my chest ache seeing you play and cuddle with him.

I drove an hour and a half in the snow so I could be there when you accepted a well-deserved achievement award for the non-profit you’d painstakingly built from the ground up. It was the first time I’d driven since the accident, and you had told me you didn’t want me to have to do that when you knew it still scared me, so you understood I wouldn’t make it and that you’d have someone film your speech for me. I’d played along, but you should have known I’d never miss that for the world. When I made it, and walked in the room, you found me almost instantly, and I’ll never forget the way your eyes misted when you realized what I’d done. The kiss you gave me then could have sustained my soul for centuries. In your acceptance speech, you talked more about me than yourself and, though my cheeks burned at the attention, whatever parts of my heart I’d kept for myself I gave over to you that night. After the event, when we lay together in a beautiful room, you told me, I would face every fear I’ve ever had for you. I whispered back that there was nobody else I would ever be as brave for, just you.

We never married. We never had children. We wiled away our years growing gardens and arguing over paint colors. It took years for people to stop asking for a wedding, and years after that for them to stop asking about kids. They didn’t understand that we didn’t need any of it. No legal status or joint bank account would ever be able to adequately describe what we were to each other. There was no place for us at a PTA meeting or an early-morning weekend sports tournament. That was a beautiful life for some, but our life was ours. Maybe we were selfish, enough people certainly told us we were. Maybe we were naive, many people said we’d regret it one day when there was nobody to look after us when we were old. Or maybe it was just that our happy ending was the two of us, old and gray, with friends and family to fill our days with belonging, and solace to cool our nights. We built some dreams into reality, and lost others to failure or circumstance, and whatever hardships we faced, our hands intertwined never became one. When we left this world, decades into a future we couldn’t see when you first offered me your hand, we left it minutes apart.

You kneel in the dirt to brush grass off my skirt, I smile because it feels like coming home.

I straighten your bow tie to fix the mess you’d made of it, you grin because it feels like old dreams coming true.

We walk barefoot through an eternity neither of us believed we’d ever get, we laugh because it feels like ours.