I slip out from under her. Never looking away I pull her into my chest. She doesn’t fight me, instead I feel her melt against me. I hold her for what feels like an eternity before I speak.
“I want to show you something.” I grab her hand and guide her into the bedroom. She’s nervous, her palm is damp as we stand in the doorway.
“This is our bedroom. Yes, our bedroom. Our bed, our closet and our dresser. The space saved just for you and me. You’re the only woman I want here, sharing this with me.”
Her eyes widen when she sees the picture of us on the dresser, her chin quivering, her body shaking, as she drags her fingers across the bed. “When you decide to close this door, our pasts don’t exist. Whatever was, stays was. Whatever becomes . . . is. I’ve spent the last seven months discovering who I am, and I discovered that I’m deeply and madly in love with a woman who isn’t defined by her past.” I wrap my arms around her. “It’s only you and me, no past, no future, we only exist in the moment right now. I love you Rose Newton, more than I’ve loved anyone in my life. I won’t leave you. I’ll do everything in my power to convince you that you’re worthy of being loved by me as much as I am worthy of being loved by you.”
“Just stop it! Just . . . stop.” She sniffles, wiping the tears from her cheeks and nudges her lips up under my chin before I lower my mouth against hers. “It won’t be easy. I’ve got a lot of baggage,” she whispers against my flesh.
“I promise you, I’ll carry each and every bag you have,” I answer. Dragging my hands up to either side of her face, I look into her beautiful earthy eyes.
“I complicate things, make them unbearable sometimes.” She makes an excuse before she swallows hard.
“I can handle complicated things. I’m persistent, remember?” Every excuse she flings at me, I counter with the perfect answer. I drag my thumbs across her lips, asking without the wasted words to kiss her. I lean down and brush my lips against hers, she shivers and that’s when I know she’s run out of excuses.
“I love you, my Complicated Rose.”
“I love you, Persistent Shane.”
“Will you stay here with me tonight . . . and every night after that?” She looks up at me, her eyes beaming as a silence rolls between us. Tears prick and clutter her eyelashes as I pull her into my chest.
“It’s up to you, only you,” I add.
She leans back in my embrace, just enough to look at me. I watch as peace floods her expression, her eyes vacillate back and forth before forever passes between us. She pitches me a slight smile just as she gives me a delicate nod, reaches behind her and closes our bedroom door. My mind responding before my body, I believe the most beautiful woman in the entire world just told me she’s found what she’s been looking for her entire life . . . home.
A Moment of Reflection and Thanks . . .
WRITING A BOOK isn’t a solitary journey. There are so many hands, that touch it. This book was touched by so many beautiful people. People who gave me their hearts, their talent and their time. Nothing is work if you decide to approach it from your creative process. But, man, oh, man, there were parts of BROKEN GIRL that nearly killed me and yet others that made me fall back in love with the process of writing again.
BROKEN GIRL is my quantum leap into understanding how intimate, personal, damaging and healing writing truly is. Parts of this book pull from the personal wounds that scar my soul and other parts of this book are experiences I’ve plucked from the fray of humanity. I dove deep into the good, bad and ugly, splaying myself open while letting the world take a gander.
I can never dance on the outside edge of my creative writing abyss again. Surging with love and sadness, hate and compassion, fear and strength, I had to learn how to surrender to my vulnerability in order to find out who I was as a writer. Through writing BROKEN GIRL, I learned that I must be completely invested. No more teetering back and forth on the edge of the creative process and my own personal fear.
To My Family, Ed, Jared, Kyle, Nate and Mom, this year was a tough one. Maybe it was the point of where I never figured out balance, maybe it was the point where I discovered vulnerability is something that showed up when I didn’t really want to deal with it. Either way, I know the sacrifices you’ve made so I could follow my dream. Long days where a ghost of who I was would show up when you needed me fully present. I’m just so glad you still love me. Tough, torn apart and rebuilt, I hope that as my journey changes you’ll still see the value in following your heart, no matter where it leads you. The fact that the whole family sacrificed even when there was no guarantee BROKEN GIRL would lead to anything more than a pile of words shoved in a drawer. Your support has been my fueling cell to continue. I love you all with everything I am.