I'll Kiss Him Like Forever Is An Option, part two
He knows almost everything. He knows how the migraines come in waves, how they paint lightning behind my eyes and leave me curled in corners, whispering nonsense through the static in my head. He knows how my legs give out without warning, how my balance slips like a thread snapping, how my fingers tremble even when I pretend they don’t. He’s held me through it, carried me when the floor turned to water, when the walls moved like a dream I couldn’t wake from. He’s seen me faint, more times than I can count. He never flinches. He just steadies me like it’s instinct.
There’s this softness in the way he speaks to me during the worst of it. Like he’s trying to hold back a storm with his voice alone. He never treats me like I’m fragile, not really, but there’s a carefulness to him, like I’m something he’s trying to keep stitched together. When the pain hits, he wraps his arms around me without asking. He holds my head to his chest, lets me breathe in the rhythm of his heart, as if that could anchor me. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it makes the world stop spinning.
He’s learned my patterns. He can see the shift in my eyes before I fall. He always catches me. Every time. He never asks me to explain what I can’t put into words. He just walks me gently to safety, brushes the hair off my forehead, and waits until my breathing evens out again. He never panics. I think he trained himself not to. He believes I’ll get better. He trusts the doctors, the time. He believes in my future. In our future. We talk about years ahead like they’re waiting for us just around the corner. Like it’s already written in stone. I want this life more than anything, but I won’t live long enough to have it. I nod. I smile. I say things that sound like agreement. I let him believe it, because belief is the only thing I can still give him.
Copyright © Amanda Nolan | Year Posted 2025
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