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You aren't sure how you got so lucky. Everything in your life before her had started precariously and ended up as rubble. You still hold your breath some days, waiting, expecting a crack to form, marring the beauty that has grown up between you, expecting it to widen, extending until it is as big as the fissures themselves and then crumble, leaving you where you have always expected to end up. Alone again.
She terrified you at first – she was kind and warm. She was sincere and open and naive, she was the complete opposite of you from the instant she was born. At the same time you complemented each other, fit together almost like she was a missing piece of your soul and it scared the shit out of you. That hole in your heart, in your being, wasn't meant to be filled, you knew that. That emptiness, that was simply the price that you deserved to pay. It was your penance for the wrong you had done, the mistakes you had made, the hurt and pain you had caused.
Later, so much later, she would tell you that she felt like meeting you had unlocked the gilded cage she had been kept in and let her fly, free for the first time in her life. You were also someone who fit perfectly into her heart, it was just that she hadn't realized that there was an empty space there to begin with.
However, you were intimately familiar with the black chasm that filled you. And you were convinced she couldn't fit into that empty space, because then you might have to come to terms with the possibility that it wasn't all your fault, that this wasn't punishment for your failings.
You fought it at first, you pushed her away but she was insistent. You couldn't keep your walls up against her. Every touch, every look, every time she sat so quietly and just listened to you, letting you open up as little or as much as you were ready to. The way she took your words like they were gifts when you did open up, holding them close like they were some sort of treasure. Holding you close like you were some sort of treasure, fragile and precious.
You know better, but you don't argue with her about it anymore. Maybe if she tells you enough you'll start to believe that you deserve her love, that you are enough, but for now you have both settled for you accepting the love she gives you, and loving her back with all that you can.
You have come to terms with giving her the love you have freely, although there are still the occasional nightmares where you wake in a cold sweat, chest tightened to where you can hardly breathe, the afterimages of visions of her destruction as the price of accepting your love fading as you open your eyes. But those nights are infrequent now, each week, month, year that passes allowing a little more of that worry to slip away from you.
She deserves so much more than you can offer, so much more than you are, but you have finally decided that you are selfish enough that you want to keep her and her love for yourself. She laughs gently when you tell her of your selfishness, declaring that she is the selfish one because she has claimed you. You scoff, but she puts her arms around you and you see the truth in her eyes. It is her truth, you are her truth.
Your chest tightens, but this time it is only with love, no fear. You share a soft, tender kiss and you pull her close to you, tightening your embrace until you can feel her heart beating through your own chest. The feeling echoes through your rib cage, bouncing, reverberating until it unites into a single heartbeat, one that belongs to you both.
You feel her lips curl into a smile against your neck as she holds on to you as well. You hold her close, enjoying the ease of having her with you, savoring the sweet, gentle present of just being, and in that instant you realize that she is your truth as well, the only truth that matters to you, and has been since the moment you allowed her to slip underneath your skin and fill the hole in your heart.
She draws back and uses her thumb to brush a stray tear off your cheek. She looks into your eyes and sees your revelation reflected back at her. She smiles at you, soft, kind, beautiful and knowing. She pulls you close again, whispering against your mouth, “I just want you to be able to see the truth in yourself as well,” before pressing your lips together and kissing you with all of her love. And for what feels like the first time, you are able to give all of yourself, to truly give all that you are back in return.