Celadon

Epilogue

I've come to an understanding. At the time that Phil and I met, we weren't a perfect fit. Phil, experienced, bitter by life, a distinct utilizer of biting words as a sole defense mechanism, we made no sense. He was just another warm body. But the events that have taken place, I don't think anyone could have taken the brunt of it with me better than Phil has. His existence, as a whole, has caused me to question my previous disbelief in a god. The way his past woes work perfectly to understand my fresh tragedies seems so convenient, predetermined, who's to say there isn't someone out there looking out for me? Now, this isn't to say I'm prepared to join the Catholic Church and say my Hail Mary's. It's more just a compliment to Phil.

Phil's apartment has become home. It's bright and it's open and it's warm and it's home.  

Maybe it's not the building itself that brings a sense of peace, but Phil, the way he returns home from managing the shop and collapses into me with tired smiles and kisses and "I had a long day but I'm happy now."

The way he smiles wide when I agree to watch an obscure movie he's recently found, then rambles on about the details and continuity and tone and all the things I'm uneducated about through the credits while I blink and hold him and listen.

The way he abandons the mainstream movies I suggest to place kisses to my skin and make my breathing heavy, or the way we cook together as an unspoken routine, pressing me against the counter in between opening and closing the oven with soft kisses, laughing when we fail and raising a glass when we succeed.

Sometimes we'll talk about leaving again. When job opportunity after job opportunity fails for me, we talk about leaving. He lets me watch his short films one at a time, never two in one night, and each time I tell him he should start over in L.A. I would go with him. There's nothing left for either of us here, but he won't believe it, no matter how many times I reassure him, that I'm ready to leave this city, even England, behind.

I think Phil still clings to the hope that maybe my family situation won't end up like his. But it's been two months now, two months of silence, and I kept my promise, they haven't had to see my face again.

Aaron told me to come at a certain time to pick my things up, so I rented an SUV to carry everything and left Phil at home just in case my father actually was there and found my things neatly boxed up ready to go at the front door. Aaron was there to help me. And we worked in silence before we pulled each other into a tight hug and he whispered "I'm sorry" about 47 times and I whispered "So am I" an equal amount of times. Then he explained that after he had texted me when to come our father had made him delete and block my number, which stung, and that our mother had tried to change his mind and reason with him but he simply wouldn't listen and mum loves him too much to go against him. I told Aaron that that's all right, that if I'm dead to dad, dad's dead to me. And he told me once he's old enough and dad no longer controls what he does he'll find me and he promised that we at least will reconcile and I told him there's nothing to reconcile but that he should come find me anyway. So he promised he would and that was enough for me to feel closure.

I think Phil doesn't want to move because of work, too. He says he's paid well at his current job, and he's not ready to give up that security we have. I apologize again and again that I can't seem to find work, but he just smiles and kisses my dimples and tells me that I'm not a burden.

So I stay home and I clean and I think and I breathe and I write. I've found myself writing a lot. It's probably not very good writing, but thoughts constantly race through my brain, and the only way to relieve them is with a pen. Sometimes I show Phil what I write and he tells me I'm actually very talented and that maybe I should pursue writing and I usually just brush it off with a blush and a smile but lately I've begun to take his words more seriously. I haven't told him but I've been researching online courses for degrees in writing. I feel like if I tell him he'll expect it to happen, be too excited, it will be too final, and I don't even know if we can afford for me to go to university right now.

Some nights are hard. I toss and turn because my mind's eye is filled with sights of Charlie and something inside me reminds me that I killed her and I'm terrified that if I sleep I'll have the worst kind of nightmares. But then Phil wakes up and turns over and sometimes he asks me what's wrong and other times he just knows and he kisses my hair and pulls me close.

He never gets angry when I talk about Charlie, because I think he feels the same burden that I do, and he's mature enough to know that my sadness for Charlie and my feelings for him are entirely separate. But really, I only talk about Charlie on the bad nights. It's on the good nights that I smile into his skin and consider telling him that I love him but think that maybe it's just as apparent in the way I whisper about our future until one of us falls asleep.

But I'm starting to think maybe I should say it explicitly, because I'm starting to feel it explicitly. I feel the pang and rush of my heart when he does the littlest things, like when he tries hard to be quiet when he wakes up for work, unaware that I've been awake tracing his jaw for ten minutes already. When he's watering our growing collection of succulents that I only love because Phil does, as I can't even see their gentle green, with the light of the window softly flooding across his iridescent features. When he smiles wide when I visit him at work, kissing my knuckles with tired eyes and sipping sweetened coffee between quiet words.

The coffee shop has become home, too, but just like our apartment it's only because of Phil.

I think back sometimes to the night Phil told me he doesn't understand us and that he thinks we're a mistake and it makes me nervous. And that's why, as I sit at the small table in our bright kitchen, watching as he flips an omelet with messy morning hair and crumpled boxers and black glasses, I sip my coffee black and build up enough courage to say it softly, casually.

"Hey, I love you," I say into my mug. Phil dumps the omelet onto a plate and carries it the short distance to place it in front of me, bending down to kiss my head with the clink of the white ceramic.

"Hey, I love you, too," he answers, returning to the stove to cook his own omelet. I only answer with a sleepy smile.

We aren't much. We aren't a family with three kids and two dogs. We aren't a newly married couple on their honeymoon, or an old married couple on their deathbed.

But we're happy. And that's enough.