Borderline Love

CH 15

My heart was pounding. "What...what is all this?" I whispered barely able to breathe let alone talk.Rachel grabbed me by the hand and twirled me to face her. "I fell in love with you the first time I saw you at the bar. And each day my love for you grows stronger and stronger. I fall in love with you over and over again every second of the day. I have wrote a letter and practiced this speech for weeks now but none of it seems to go together. So, Rose the love of my life. My baby girl. Will you do the honors and marry me?"Her eyes glimmered in the candle light. The aroma of jasmine filled the air. How could I say no. I have thought about marrying her since the beginning of time. Never did I think it would actually happen. I always figured I would mess it up. But no...I stood there in front my beautiful girl as she proposed to me. So all I could do was grab her by her hips and bring her body to mine. I planted my lips into hers and whispered I do. Sean came in and started cheering. Rachel and I both giggled at his enthusiasm. "But wait...how.. You're married." I questioned."We would do a hand-fasting. It's a marriage just without the legal documents of the government." "Oh okay. So when?""We can talk about the how later. Now I have other plans for you." She grinned.We made love till the mist of the morning worked it's way against the glass of the windows. Showing the heat of the room the windows became foggy. I woke up the next day with a pep in my step. I was so happy and excited but still seemed to be numb. I did swirls in the hallway and giggled my way into the bathroom where I found Rachel steaming in the large porcelain tub."Mind if I join you?" I asked.She nodded a yes and reached a hand out to me. I stripped quickly and took her hand. Letting her lead me into the tub so I didn't fall. I sat in front of her as she held me. She took a wash cloth and started pouring water down my chest. It was bittersweet. I sat there as she held me just in a heaven like state. We eventually got out of the bathtub about an hour later and made our way to the livingroom after getting dressed."I think I need to find a job." I uttered to Rachel."Are you sure you want that? What about college?""I don't know in all honesty. I just need to feel like I am contributing somehow."Sean peaked in."If I may interrupt..." he interrupted, "You contribute simply by being here. You give off the emotional aroma that we desperately needed in our lives. If you want to work that's your choice. Just know it's not necessary.""Okay...""Rose what he is trying to say is we just need you to be you. If you think working will make you feel fuller then so be it but we are happy just as we are.""Okay..." I trailed off again.They left the livingroom to have their own time together. I sat there contemplating their words. Could I really go back to work? Am I mentally cable of working again? All good questions I asked myself. I guess I could try to go back to college and finish my degree in writing. I haven't worked on my book in ages. I'd love to get it published some day. The thought of that cheered me up. I went to my laptop and opened up my story. She ran across the yard as fast as she could. She couldn't dare slay her true love even though she was part dragon. I had to save her no matter the cost. Even if that cost was my life.Something in me lit up. I think I'm going to go back to college. I googled West Blanchard college. I was in luck, enrollment just started. I quickly dotted down the things I needed to enroll. I began to feel animate. Full of life I thought. Wouldn't that be nice. I had been suffering mentally for sometime and did not have the courage to pursue anything in my life. That was until Rachel came along. She really changed my life in more ways than I could ever count. "Not to interrupt your thinking but we decided we were going to head out for dinner. Do you want to come?""Sure. I need to throw on something outside of my pjs though.""Then go get changed silly girl." I wandered my way to the bedroom and got changed into some bluejeans and a tank top showing off my tattoos. We made it the restaurant. This little place called Jimmy's BBQ. It was the best BBQ place in the state. Owned and ran by a family of four. We were seated promptly. Rachel sat next to me letting Sean sit in front of us. He never minded when she wanted to be near me and I appreciated him for that fact. Food came sooner than usual. BBQ ribs lined the plate with potatoes and corn on the cob. You could smell the fiery, honey sauce throughout the whole place.We ate our plates, ordered some beers and started talking."So I have some news. Both good and bad.""What is it?" Rachel looked at me with a questionable face. "First the bad news. I was scrolling through Facebook and saw Sasha had died by overdose.""Oh no," they both said in unison. "I wish she had gotten more help with her addictions. We all knew she had some mental problems but no one ever knows how close someone is to suicide until it happens. I feel near guilty that I didn't try harder to get her in to seek help. But I know there was nothing I could do more than just support her and try my best to encourage her to do so.""You did what you could," Rachel said nearly in tears."It just sucks you know?" I said with tears starting to form, "no one deserves to die like that. Apparently she was alone to.""My heart goes out to her family." They both said.I nodded and started to switch subjects but not before Rachel leaned into kiss me. Rachel leaned over the table and kissed Sean too but not being unnoticed by a couple sitting next to us."You three need Jesus," the couple exclaimed. Rachel gave both of us two long kisses again in despite."So what's the good news?" Sean asked curiously."I decided to go back to college for my writing degree, I'm nearly done already. I just need about two years to go." "That's wonderful news love." Rachel said hugging me getting some BBQ on my shirt. Not that I would notice until later that evening.We finished our dinner after talking about me enrolling this semester and headed home. I was so tired. "Oh we have a surprise for you too." Rachel said dragging me to their bedroom. "We got a king bed so you can sleep next to me." "Oh. Wont that be awkward for Sean?"We already discussed it. He is fine as long as I'm in the middle.""Oh...okay.""You can still use the spare room as yours or you could move it into here, your choice but I hate not sleeping next to you.""It'll be an adjustment but I miss sleeping next to you too." We all started our nightly routine and made our way into the king size pillow top bed. I curled up next to Rachel wrapping my arm around her. I hit Seans. "Oh I'm sorry."He laughed, "Do you want the top or the bottom of her." I laughed, "I guess I'll take her boobs then."We all three laughed in one moment. And in that moment the awkwardness faded. I quickly drifted to sleep. The next morning came and Rachel had already gone to work. After grabbing some toast and coffee I headed to the college to start my enrollment process. To my surprise it was a fairly easy process since I had all the documents from the last time I attended there. A couple hours went by getting everything set up. I made my way back to the house. I was super excited to attend college. With all my mental health, I didn't believe that I could but with my therapist help and support system, I was finally doing it. I was finally taking the reins of my life. A few weeks later, it was time for school. I decided to go with online classes instead of going in person. I just knew sitting in the room of strangers would overwhelm me. I opened up my laptop and logged on to the college blackboard. There was a welcome message and list of first weeks assignments. The first assignment was to journal. Easy enough I thought. I already do it for therapy why not now.I managed to get the assignment done and turned in. I looked up week twos assignment in eagerness. This time I was to pick a book and summarize the first three chapters. We could pick any book. So I decided to go with Abbadon. A depressed immortal necromancer who once fought for the freedom of non-humans discovers new purpose upon finding out that contrary to what he believe, his soul is not demon, but angelic. It was one of my favorite fictions that I read the previous year. Before I knew it, I was sitting in my therapist waiting room awaiting my torture of an appointment. To be honest, it really wasn't that bad. I had someone to talk to that was neutral and gave decent advice even if I didn't always use it."Hi Rose," The doctor called out. "Hey," I got up and walked to the door. Today the waiting room was quiet, barely anyone in there.Like usual I followed him down the empty hall. Passing other rooms, some open some not. I caught a glimpse of a girl leaving with tears filled in her eyes. You could tell she had a hard session by the way she could barely breath. I hope todays session doesn't go like that. I then realized I hadn't heard the voices in sometime. I wonder where they are. We finally made it to his office. I sat down in the rocker instead of the yellow couch. I needed to be more comfortable for this session for some reason.He started off like usual asking about my week. I explained that I got engaged and started school. He was thrilled for me but then he asked, "So what's really been the biggest bother this week?" "To be honest, I don't think anything.""Rose, I got to call the reverse card.""Fine. I guess I have been struggling with dealing with my hopelessness. I should be excited to be engaged to such an amazing woman. Don't get me wrong I am but I also feel numb to the situation.""That's understandable. Your emotions are in heightened state and in your past when something big happened it was usually not a good thing, so naturally your body went into survival mode not letting your emotions out. Remember it's okay to feel your emotions. To feel them, accept them as they are.""How do I do that when half the time I can't even place a word to what I'm feeling?""Try to imagine them. For an example, say you're out shopping and you see your ex abuser. You would be scared, maybe even angry. Stop and try to see what you are feeling. Are you feeling happy? Of course not. So narrow it done if you have to.""Oh okay, I see."We talked about negative and unhealthy relationships vs positive and healthy relationships. Then went down trapped emotional buttons. Like triggers but further down. The ones at the core. For an example because I was alone as a kid now my button is I get upset when my friends don't come over or text me. We did a lot of coping skills this session too. Needless to say I came out of the session tired. So I made it home and crashed right on the couch. I woke up just in time for Rachel to get home. "Hey sweetheart, how was therapy?"Long, tough but enlightening." "Well that's good at least." Rose planted a kiss and whispered I love you into my mouth. Several weeks later, with plenty of therapy sessions, I found myself rampaging articles about hand-fasting. I found several that were pagan based but all of them were pretty. I briefly understood that it meant tying two together as one. Similar like a wedding but this included two or more cords wrapping each others hands together to symbolize the trinity knot. Trying not to get over-worked or over emotional I closed the laptop and just sat back on the couch. I began to think about the last few years. How things were so different now. There was love, support, non-toxic environment, and lots of healing from the past. I've done so much work in therapy. I'm finally starting to feel normal. While I still have a lot of healing to go, I know I'm on the right track. The next day was supposed to be fine but I found myself in a situation none of us could have seen.