Page 123 of Delirium
“Oh you fucker.” She sniffed. “You’re going to make me cry.”
I laughed as she tried to keep the tears at bay, but I wouldn’t lie—I liked seeing the emotions so freely flowing off her.
When I first met her, she was a closed book, careful not to show any of her emotions to anyone, least of all me. And now… now we were able to communicate, to tell each other things, to show our emotions without the fear that the other person would use them against the other.
“Phee,” I murmured, pulling her closer to me. “I want you to be happy, to have a place you can call your own.”
“Ours,” she cried quietly. “Our place, Storm. I don’t want it if it doesn’t come with you.”
“Oh, trust me. Where you go, I’ll follow, darling. There’s nowhere I would rather be than right here, with you in my arms.”
“Stop making me cry,” she wailed, burrowing her head in my chest. “I don’t like it, all these emotions.”
“But they’re good, Sunshine.” I smiled, feeling myself tear up as well. “It means you’re allowing yourself to feel, and that’s more important than hiding yourself from the rest of the world.”
“I know,” she whimpered. “But I still hate it.”
“I get it, I really do, but do you mind if we maybe go inside the house so that I can show you around? My balls are about to fall off from this cold.”
The laughter that erupted from her was music to my ears. As she stepped back, taking a hold of my hand as I led her inside the house, everything felt right. Everything was as it was always supposed to be.
I pulled out a key from my back pocket and unlocked the door, letting her enter first with me following shortly after. I turned on the master light, illuminating the entire place. She slowly walked to the center of the living room, which was the first room as soon as we entered the place, looking around, taking it all in.
“This is so spacious,” she whispered. “And it’s so bright.”
The white couches were arranged neatly in the center of the room, facing the opposite wall where the seventy-inch television was placed. There were still no items that could show this house really belonged to us, but I planned to fill it with love, photographs—all the little things that made our family.
I came behind her, wrapping my arms around her belly, placing my chin on top of her shoulder. “Do you like it?”
“Yes,” she breathed out. “This is… I have no words.”
“On the right,” I pointed toward the right side, where the entrance to the other three bedrooms were, “are the other bedrooms.”
“Bedrooms?” she asked. “How many kids are you planning to have, mister?”
“A small basketball team?” I grinned, earning a soft swat of her hand over mine.
“If you’re going to carry them, then we can definitely do it.”
“Come.” I laughed, taking her to the left, where the dining room was located. A long mahogany table with ten chairs surrounding it stood in the middle of the room. Soft brown and beige tones decorated the room, and I could feel her excitement as we walked through it.
“This is a big table.”
“We have a lot of friends, don’t we?” I said. “But this is the best part,” I murmured, taking her away from the dining room and into the kitchen.
“The kitchen is the best part?” She huffed. “Seriously?”
“No, silly. This is.” I pushed open the door leading to the covered back porch, overlooking the forest and the pool centered right behind the house.
“Holy moly,” she murmured, taking it in.
“It looks amazing during the day. All this greenery, the pool, and that small jacuzzi over there.” I pointed toward the elevated structure, right next to the pool.
“This is amazing.” She oohed and aahed over it all, walking away from me toward the currently empty pool. “This is…” she trailed off, turning toward me. Her eyes were full of tears, the happiness shining through them. “This is everything, Storm.”
Walking toward her, I had a hard time keeping my own emotions at bay. Having her here, standing in the backyard of our house—our home—illuminated by the fairy lights hanging above us, she looked like an angel looking at me as if I hung the moon.
The tips of our shoes touched the moment I came to her, while her belly pressed into my stomach, while her eyes shone with the unshed tears, mirroring my own.
