Dizzy on the Comedown

X.

Cause I can still remember

when you were afraid of the dark.

And I told you to come;

and you followed where I asked you to go.

Naura came from a hurt place.

She was broken, battered, traumatized. And he understood that very well.

But he didn't try to fix her, didn't try to fight her battles, didn't try to do what she has to do herself, because he knew she was perfectly capable of doing so on her own. He knew she was strong. How else should you define a girl who endured the same pain over and over again for years?

So he stood by, watching her. At first from afar, and now by her side. She has made so much progress. She used to cry herself to sleep, but she mumbles looking for him now. She used to be afraid of trying out new things because she didn't want to disappoint the person who constantly disappointed her, but she tells him what she tried out today to him with excitement glinting in her eyes. She used to not let him do her favors, but she makes up tasks just to do it with him now.

And he was proud. Beyond that, really. There was no way to describe the joy, the relief, the happiness that he gets from seeing her happy, seeing her lose the burden her old self inflicted upon her current life.

It grows a certain fear in him, though. After all that they've been through, what if she finds him suffocating? What if the freedom she has regained eventually makes her realize that he was holding her back?

It's a stupid thought, he tells himself. But he couldn't help it.

So one night, intoxicated more than he had ever been before after a night out drinking with his friends, he asked her:

"Can I keep you for myself?"

She looked at him weird, like he had grown a second head.

"I'm already yours?"

That put a smile in his face. "You are?"

"Yes," she said surely, looking down at him who was laying on her lap. "Yes, I am."

Silence filled the space between them, her humming along to the song she had played on her turnover in his apartment that they've grown to make theirs. He closed his eyes, shifting himself so that he could hug her waist.

"What's wrong?" she asks, concern filling her voice. Maybe she found him weird. Maybe she sensed that he was thinking about something, so hard that it weighs him. She was always like that, so caring, noticing the little things. "You can tell me."

"Are you happy?"

"Yes," she ran her hand through his hair, feeling him let out a content sigh.

"With me?"

"More than ever."

Again, that put a smile in his face. It seems that everything she says always does.

"Do you not want to explore the world?" he asks, the smile fading. "See what it has to offer."

She didn't answer, waiting for him to elaborate his question further. So he turned to sleep on his back, staring up to her questioning eyes.

"Naura," he began, reaching out to grab one of her hand and intertwining his fingers with hers. "When you told me that day in 2019 you're going to take the chance to go to UCLA and move to USA, I was the happiest man alive. I wouldn't've gotten mad even if you chose to say good bye to that and wait for UI, but you didn't and I'm forever grateful for that. Because it led to this; to us.

But even the United States is huge. California to New York alone is so far apart, and yet here we are. Me and you, together. Just like what I've always wanted. It just... It makes me question things. You could've met someone else, you could've experienced a lot more than just being stuck with the person you've known from high school. But again, here we are."

She stared at him, emotions unreadable. It took her a long time before she finally decided to speak.

"I could've met someone else who I hadn't known since I was in high school, huh?" she started her answer with a rhetorical question. "Someone from that time of my life is exactly what I need, though."

This time, it was him who waited for her to continue.

"You know what I experienced in high school. It was so fucked up and traumatizing that it still scars me to this day. It took me a long time to recover, and I couldn't have done it without you.

No, you're not the one who fixed me, or changed me. But you were the one who was there throughout all of my turning points, Je. You showed me that I deserve to be loved, and you didn't even demand anything from me. You rewrote everything I know about love, both receiving and giving. That's all I ever need."

"Okay."

The short answer he lets out was apparently enough for her.

"I want to explore the world, I want to see what it has to offer," she squeezed his hand. "With you."

This time, the smile that her words put into his lips didn't fade. It lasted a long time that his cheeks started to hurt.

He closed his eyes. "Van road trip to California for your birthday present starts tomorrow."

She jumped on her seat, knocking his head and making the headache he had from all the alcohol he consumed hit him again. "You're serious?"

"When have I ever been not serious when it's about you?" He sat up, ignoring his headache.

"Je, tapi aku beneran ga ada planning... oh my god, the trip's gonna be what, a week? I haven't prepare anything!"

"I've got it covered," he assured her. He knew she was over the clouds with the idea. She had been proposing an across-the-country road trip with a van ever since their first arrival in the country. Now, on the summer break of their second year together, he finally had the time to grant that wish, driving her through all the states before her new term starts. "You just have to trust me."

"Trust you?" she repeated, and looked at him as if she was about to put her whole life into his hands. "I can do that."

She placed herself closer to him in that sofa, slipping her hands around his waist and laying her head on his chest. He placed his hand on top of her head to play with her hair.

They stayed in that position for a long time, throughout the night, chattering random things. The thoughts that he previously had was gone, replaced by the content feeling of having her right beside him.

Like how he had always wanted her to be.