Page 37 of Angel
I stop again. Breathing shallow. Tears drip onto the screen. I wipe them away with my thumb.
I think we need space. Not forever. Just enough to figure out who we are outside of this pain.
I stare at the words for a long time. Then add the hardest part.
I don’t want a divorce. I want a chance to come back to each other without all this anger and fear.
My thumb trembles. I hit send. And immediately wish I could unsend it. The waiting after is its own kind of torture. I pace the living room. Wrap the blanket tighter around myself like it might protect me from the ache blooming in my chest.
I stare at the phone until my eyes hurt. The seconds crawl. My stomach twists. My mind conjures worst-case scenarios like it always does.
What if he thinks I’m giving up and he shuts down?
What if I just destroyed us?
The phone buzzes. My heart lurches so hard it feels like it hits my throat. I pick it up with shaking hands. His reply is immediate.
If that’s what you need, I’ll respect it.
Tears flood my eyes.
I hate this. But I love you more than I hate the distance.
That line breaks something in me. Because that’s Angel.Hard edges. Soft heart.The tears come then, hot, and relentless. I press the phone to my chest like it’s a lifeline. Because this is what loving each other looks like when things get ugly.
My sister comes home an hour later and finds me curled on the couch, blanket wrapped tight, eyes swollen. She doesn’t ask what happened right away, just sets her bag down, kicks off her shoes, and sits beside me.
Then she just opens her arms. I crawl into them like I’m twelve years old again. Like I didn’t just make the hardest decision of my life.
“I didn’t leave him,” I whisper into her shoulder. “I just… stepped back.”
“I know,” she murmurs, rubbing my back. “Sometimes that’s what you have to do to keep from falling apart.”
“I’m scared,” I confess.
“Of what?”
“That I’ll never come back to myself,” I say. “That this… need will swallow me whole.”
My sister holds my face between her hands and looks at me.
“You’re already coming back,” she says firmly. “You just don’t see it yet.”
I swallow.
“What if he stops loving me while we’re apart?”
She snorts softly.
“That man looks at you like you hung the damn moon.”
A broken laugh escapes me.
“He’s stubborn.”
“Yeah,” she says. “So are you.”
She stands and pulls me up gently.
