His Queen (18+)

Chapter XLIV

THE COMMITMENT

It's right now, right now.
I ain't got the time to fuck around now.
Everybody told me settle down but,
It's right now, right now.

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CHAPTER XLIV

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THREE MONTHS HAD seemed to fly by faster than I could blink. I had been so busy with Teo as well as building my business and attending regular therapy sessions that the day I realised that Teo's second birthday was only in a week, I almost freaked out. The realisation that the world continued to turn hit me like a truck of bricks.

Now, a week past that, it was safe to say that what I had planned for Teo's birthday had gone exactly as I had expected it to go; utter chaos. It was expected for any toddler birthday party so I didn't pay any mind to it. Instead, I appreciated how much he had seemed to laugh and allowed myself to tick it off as a success. Yet, that wasn't all that Teo's birthday meant to me. As I thought back to the conversation Pablo and I had had around this time, three months ago, I couldn't help the immense pride I felt for myself.

I had made Pablo the promise that I would at least let him help me up until this date, yet there I was helping myself. I knew I was nowhere near completely healed yet, but I also was miles away from where I had been three months ago and that felt phenomenal. All the times I had hurt myself in the past and attempted to end it all, when I finally 'recovered' from it, it had never left me feeling this healthy and happy, yet now, I was noticing a world of difference.

My healing was never a linear pathway. It wasn't always guaranteed that the next day, I would feel better than the last. Perhaps I wouldn't ever even be fully healed. There was always going to be bumps in the road for everyone. Eyra instead helped me discover things to do and ways to help me cope through the bad times instead of turning to bad habits that only hurt me in the long run. She helped validate my feelings and also helped me understand that there was nothing at all wrong with the way I was. It took a lot of therapy sessions and a lot of hard questions from her, usually along the lines of "why do you think that?" but eventually her words settled. Eyra helped me rebuild the foundations of myself and for that, I was grateful to her.

“Araceli?” Pablo called for me as he poked his head into my room to look at me over where I sat by the window. I looked over to him, silently letting him know he had my attention. “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

“I don't talk to losers,” I snapped, making him roll his eyes and let himself in anyway. As he walked past Teo, he playfully nudged him with his leg which only made Teo wack him in the leg with his stuffed toy.

“Vicious; like your mom,” Pablo said, narrowing his eyes at Teo who only looked up to him with a guilty smile on his face. Pablo nudged him again, quickly dodging his next wack before finally making his way up to me. He took a seat opposite me on the windowsill, pulling his legs up to his chest as I had done so we could both fit before finally speaking. “How are you?”

“I'm doing fine,” I answered nonchalantly despite knowing what it was exactly he was getting at. I could have made things easier for him, but then where was the fun in that?

“How do you feel now?” he asked instead of picking at my playfulness.

I pursed my lips and turned away from him, not feeling the need for the tension that was beginning to form between the two of us. I knew he was worried for me and was still scared that I might've wanted to kill myself. “I feel better, Pablo,” I said, letting a small smile stretch across my face to ease his worries. “I'm fine. I promise.”