a perfect contradiction • lrh

Luke's epilogue

Luke’s Journal
March 3rd — San Francisco

She still doesn’t know I kept every voicemail she ever left me.

Even the ones where she just said, “Hey, it’s me,” and hung up.

Sometimes I play them when she’s out on the balcony, humming to herself or talking to Abbey on the phone. Sometimes I play them when the nights feel too long, and I can’t sleep because I’m terrified I’ll wake up and she’ll be gone again.

But she always comes back. She always finds her way back to me now. And I’m still learning how to believe I deserve that.

We’re building something- slow, quiet, careful. But real. God, it’s real.

I catch her tracing the scars on her arm sometimes. When she’s lost in thought. She doesn’t cry when she does it anymore. She doesn’t flinch when I reach out to touch them. I don’t say anything when I do. I just let my fingers rest there, gently, like I’m holding time.

She started singing again. It’s soft. Like a secret. But when she thinks no one’s listening, her voice is the closest thing to heaven I’ve ever heard.

I’d follow that voice across the world if I had to.

Some nights we fall asleep holding hands like kids at a sleepover. Some mornings I wake up with her nose tucked into my chest and her feet cold against mine. Every now and then she’ll laugh in her sleep, and I swear it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.

I think the thing I’ve learned is… love isn’t loud. It’s not fireworks or grand gestures. It’s staying. It’s choosing someone even when everything’s tried to break you both apart. It’s sitting through the silence and still being there when the words come back.

She still calls herself broken sometimes.

I still want to punch a wall when I hear it.

But then I look at her- this woman who has clawed her way back from hell, who has learned to love again, to trust again, to live again- and I think, no.

She’s not broken.

She’s a miracle.

And I get to love her.

That’s all I’ll ever need.

— Luke