Page 78 of Fearlessly Us

I help her situate herself against the pillows then grab the glass of ice water I refilled for her, holding it to her lips so she can take a couple sips. When I go to set it back down, I feel her reach out and take my hand, winding her fingers through mine. Turning back, I see her studying me intently. “Will you…stay with me?” she asks tentatively, like she thinks I might say no. She doesn’t understand there is no force on earth strong enough to make me leave her. Right now, and, I think, possibly ever.

For the first time in my life, I think I understand what it means to stay, if she’s the one I’m staying for. Only her.

“Always,” I say simply, feeling that word deeply in my soul.

I pull my shirt over my head and shove my sweatpants down, sliding into bed next to her. Slowly, she curls herself around me, settling her head into the spot on my chest that belongs only to her, letting out a sigh that sounds like relief as her body relaxes into me. I wind an arm around her back, holding her close to me and setting my hand low on her hip, careful to keep it away from her incisions, stroking her hair with my other hand.

“You never touch my stomach,” she says, her voice thick with sleep.

It’s a statement, not a question, but I answer it anyway. “You don’t like to be touched there.” I press a kiss to her hair, my eyes dropping closed as I breathe her in.

“How do you know?” she asks. “I never told you. I never told anyone.”

“I pay attention to you,” I murmur, trailing my lips over her forehead and watching as her eyes flutter shut. “I care about what you need. How you feel matters to me.”

Caitlin sighs, shifting closer to me, her breathing starting to even out. “I think I might love you,” she says, her words so quiet they’re barely audible, but I hear them like she’s yelling into a megaphone, and my heart thrashes wildly in my chest even as everything inside me quiets. Stills. Calms in a way it never has before. She’s mostly asleep and definitely has no idea what she’s saying, but somehow that makes the words even more potent. A window into her innermost thoughts. Ones maybe even she doesn’t know are in that beautiful, brilliant brain.

That feels like a precious gift too.

Caitlin sleeps, head on my chest and one hand splayed across my heart, and I stay awake for hours, watching over her, knowing without a single doubt there is nowhere in the world I would rather be than here.

That she might think she loves me, but I am one hundred percent certain I love her too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CAITLIN

“She’s here!” Maya yells when I push open the door to Maddy’s house and walk inside. “You’re here!” she grabs one of the reusable grocery bags I’m carrying and links her arm though mine. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“I’m twenty minutes early.” I kick off my shoes and let Maya lead me to the kitchen. “How long could you possibly have been waiting?”

“Maya came over as soon as school was over.” Maddy meets us halfway between the entryway and the kitchen, leaning in and kissing my cheek, taking the bag from my hand. “Something about mean fifth-grade girls and saving her from doing something drastic.”

“I swear to god, they’re going to be the end of me.” Maya flops down at the kitchen island with a huff and turns her attention to me. “Apparently there’s a fifth-grade girls group chat, and four of the girls in the grade decided it would be hilarious to choose a different girl every night, and they send a message to the chat listing all the reasons no one should be friends with her.” Maya shakes her head, hands clenching into fists. “It was some of the meanest shit I’ve ever seen, and it went on for two weeks before anyone caught on. Don’t even ask me where all the parents are and why no one is monitoring these chats because I couldn’t fucking tell you, but one parent figured it out when her daughter refused to come to school yesterday and came clean about it. Shits and fans and all that, and I had to come straight here because I was thirty seconds away from quitting my job. Or giving myself bangs.”

Sliding my eyes to Maya, I see it immediately. The uncharacteristic exhaustion. The barely contained rage. She’s an incredible educator and usually approaches the complicated social dynamics of her fifth-grade students with understanding and humor, so something else is going on here.

Reaching out, I lay a hand over hers. “There isn’t anything you could have done to stop this, Maya.”

When she sighs, her entire body deflating, I know I got it right. “I should’ve seen it,” she mutters. “It’s my job to see it. Those four girls are toxic as fuck. I know they are. I’ve spent weeks making sure their behavior doesn’t infect the whole class, but this one got away from me. It shouldn’t have. I’m a better teacher than that.”

I open my mouth to speak, my brain ticking through plans. Solutions. Ways to help. But something has me holding back, squeezing Maya’s hand instead. “Do you want help, or do you just want to vent so we can bitch about it with you?”

Maddy and Maya turn to me in unison and stare, wide-eyed and unspeaking. “What?” I ask, looking between the two of them.

“Did she just…ask if you needed help?” Maddy asks Maya, wonder in her voice. “Like, no launching into a ten-point plan about how we can make the mean girls pay or giving you a list of twenty reasons why you shouldn’t quit your job and ten more why bangs are still a terrible idea? Just, what do you need?”

“She sure did.” Maya studies me, mouth curving into a wicked grin. “I think she’s dickmatized. Like maybe our resident wide receiver fucked that take charge, fix all the things attitude right out of her.”

“Are we talking about fucking already?” Sophie comes barging into the kitchen, Emmy and Sarah on her heels.

“You didn’t wait for us for the good stuff?” Sarah practically pouts. “We’re not even late.”

Emmy points to me with an accusatory finger, flopping into the chair next to me. “I’m going to need you to repeat everything you already told them. I’ve been waiting for this all day. I can’t believe you didn’t spill one little secret, even after you came back to the office.”

When I told Drew I was only going to work from home for the week of the surgery, I underestimated how draining the recovery would be. There was the soreness and pain, but even more than that was the down to my bones exhaustion. Even though I dragged myself back to the office two days ago, I still didn’t feel one hundred percent. It took all the energy I had left to pretend I was feeling fine so none of the women in my life would catch on to the fact that I was, in fact, so completely not fine. I almost cancelled tonight, but the fact that I have two major things happening my friends don’t know about has been weighing on me. I feel ready to tell them now, and I’m afraid if I wait any longer, I’ll lose my brave.

I glance at Maddy, reaching into one of the grocery bags I brought and pulling out the tiny cooler of pebble ice I took from home. “Can you grab me a Sprite and a glass?”