The Night I Was Saved

Chapter Twenty-Two

"I love you, Jo. I love you."

All the wind is knocked out of my lungs and the sobs that crashed my body just moments ago have miraculously disappeared. My whole body is frozen, not even my eyelids blink as his words stand on replay in my head.

I love you, Jo. I love you.

I've never heard those words spoken to me, let alone as raw and directly as he's saying them now. There's not a trace of doubt behind his voice; if I didn't know any better, I'd even say he sounds determined and forceful.

I love you, Jo. I love you.

His arms keep the pressure on his embrace, and his nose is still buried in my hair. It is all signs that tell me he isn't backing out. That he is saying those words while he is fully aware of it. That he is not ashamed of saying these three words to me, and that he is aware of how huge and loaded they are.

I love you, Jo. I love you.

And even though the rational and sensible voice in my head questions if this isn't an emotional flap-out as a reaction to what I've just told him, my heart knows it's not. I feel that it's not. I know he means it.

I've never felt like this around anyone in my life before, not even during those early memories when everything was still normal. Not even when I was just a little Australian girl that loved making daisy-chains.

For the first time in my life, I feel loved. And maybe even more important; I feel worth to be loved. Somehow, he manages to get all the good, unbroken sides out of me. He sees more than the broken and scarred girl that I am. He digs deeper and breaks down my walls until he finds me; Josephine. And he makes me feel loved.

With every smile he gives me, with every touch he offers, he injects it. Love. It's a magical feeling, one that I -up until this very moment- have no idea how to react to, but is wholeheartedly nonetheless.

Right now, as I'm laying in his strong arms that have trapped me against his chest, the heavy feeling of telling him my story fades and is replaced by relief.

Relief, because he didn't lie and kept his promise to me. He promised he wouldn't look at me any differently, and he kept his promise. He loves me.

I want to tell him I love him too. I want to tell him I love how he is with Daisy. I want to tell him that I love how the three of us seem to become this unit more and more with each passing day, but as I open my mouth I can't seem to find my voice. Not a single tone comes out, while all I want is to tell him I feel it too.

"Breathe, Jo." His voice -soft and laced with patience- pulls me out of my thoughts, and on cue, I let out the breath I was holding. His lips press into my hair once more before he whispers a soothing, "there you go, in and out. Just breathe."

I nod my head which is still pressed against his chest, my nose buried in his -now tear-stained- shirt. I focus on his breathing and try to match mine to it. In and out. He takes bigger tugs of air, but eventually, I'm able to get my breathing under control and in sync with his.

He feels it because he moves one hand flat in between my shoulder blades to follow the movements. "That's it," he whispers, his voice relaxing me to the core.

It's remarkable how I -in such a short time- have connected his voice and tone to the feeling of safety. The moment he talks, my body seems to let go of the constant standby mode, as if I unconsciously know that he is there to take the reigns and watch over me.

Whenever he is close, I feel a weight lifting from my shoulders. Looking back on it now, I know I felt it from the very first moment I met him. I felt it when he helped me deliver Daisy. I felt it when I gave her to him because I slipt away. And I felt it when he came back with Daisy in his arms when I'd woken up.