Page 130 of The Catch

I know better. I remember.

The rest of the interview goes ignored. I check my text chain with him. It takes several swipes, but I go back far enough to find the right message. The one where he told me that would be his sign to show his love.

I go back to videos I found of him on social media. In a few of them, he does the same gesture. Every time, he's talking about getting through the hard times by putting effort in.

Warmth imbues my face. I tear up.

He's been sending me messages. Not by text. By his sign. The one he told me about when I asked a few weeks ago.

The bed turns into a prison. I pace the room, seeking the space to process, looking for some extra air.

When I was old enough to think about romance, I told myself I would be different from my parents. I said I would work hard at relationships, becausefixing them can be the bravest thing. The part I got wrong was thinking that meant I needed to bend myself into whatever shapes my partner needed from me.

Even back when I discovered Aidan's cheating and parachuted to Saint's condo, I wondered what true love felt like. What it looks like. Once upon a time, I thought I'd find it with artists. Someone creative would be in touch with their feelings, right? I would get to feelwiththem. They would have the emotional intelligence to talk about the important things in love, too. Art and love are the same at their core. They birth connection. Among people and us and life. Someone in touch with that would surely crave life-long love, right?

Wrong. I found it in an athlete who opened his heart to me and asked me to do the same. What I sought came in a different package than I expected, that's all.

I thought what I had with Aidan is what people call love. It felt good enough to be comfortable. Peaceful. I could see myself living that life until my last day. What I feel for Saint is…fire, compared to that.

I'm in the hotel bathroom, unaware of how I made it here. I sit on the edge of the tub. Elbows on the stone counter in front of me, I hold my head. Puzzle pieces are all up in the air, but I can see them clearly now. I pick each oddly-shaped cutout and re-arrange them to find a whole new landscape.

I met my new friends thanks to Saint, but they're my friends because I opened up to them. I'm in LA because the producer believes in me, or he wouldn't have offered a show without a mention of Saint being there as well. I follow football because it's Saint's world, but he's in my world as well. If our territories overlap, it's because we're living life together. We're more than the sum of our parts. We push each other to grow in our own right.

Now things with Saint aren't really broken, they're being… adjusted. And we're fixing it anyway. He's being clear about what he wants. He wants to discover who he'll be with me, and asks me to do the same. He said these few days could be proof of what he does when things get hard. He said he wouldn't give up.

What a show of his commitment to this with me. We're not at our best, and we're making a huge decision about our future. But we're not broken up. We're not each going our own direction. We're working through it.

Saint is showing me what he does when things get hard. He's fixing everything he didn't break, and he wants to do it with me.

I stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is wild, and my makeup mostly in place. A small black patch smears a corner of my eye, and my foundation doesn't fully hide my blush. The bright ceiling light puts heavy shadows under my eyes. Clicking the lights on immediately turns on the fan, and its burr fills the space.

Caught without warning, someone might think I'm forlorn. It couldn't be further from the truth. I straighten up. Lift my chin until all shadows disappear. Square my shoulders.

I finally know the truth. What's happening with Saint is right.

The conversation, the challenge, the process makes it right. That's why this is different from any relationship I've had before. He's in thiswithme. It's not a take it or leave it situation, where I'm the one bending backwards without help or compromise. He's not here because he likes me enough to stick around. He sticks around because he cares about me and it makes him want to work through things when we need to.

Mind blown.

In the past, I went above and beyond thinking it would do the trick and make things work. I took responsibility for things that didn't belong to me. But compromise is only fair if it's mutual.

All I have to do is be myself and meet him halfway. Doing hard things for each other, back and forth, to build something good side by side.

Hold my hand so we can walk through the twists and turns of life together, he said.

We will both lead the way.

I will show him. Go into the maze and find him, and hold his hand so tight he knows I will never lethim go.

Ames: Hi friends. I need help.

Pen: Whatever you need

Ames: I need to go to San José tomorrow. Can someone sneak me into the stadium somehow?

Evie: this is my time to shine

Chapter 39