Love Song (LGBTQ+) (COMPLETED)

60. Surrender

"Hey, stranger." she soothingly spoke. "Are you done?"

Even after being allowed to leave the courtroom with the judge's permission, my right hand still trembled like it was trying to tear itself off of my arm while my legs seemed like they wanted to do the same. I now stood just several long steps away from that courtroom, unsure of where to go and what to do with myself, as the one person I needed at that moment was sitting across from me. Just like she promised before I had gone into the courtroom, she was going to be there waiting for me when I finished. And I couldn't have been more happy that she was.

As I took another few steps forward, Grace finally seemed to notice the shaking of my right hand as she stood up and closed the distance herself. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, my hands immediately went after her and latched onto the sleeves that belonged to her bright yellow hoodie as my forehead met the soft, warm crevice that lied in between her neck and shoulder. All I was able to do in that moment of thoughtlessness was put my weight and feelings into her in hopes that she was able to absorb some of them for me.

"It's okay."

At least in the back of my mind, the cause of the shaking was obvious. It'd been the pressure of everything I put myself through and experienced on that stand. It was the buildup of all the things I held back to avoid troubling the people who had helped me this far. Every person and feeling that I tried to bury, all the the pressure I fooled myself into believing didn't exist, they all caught up with me and were trying their damnedest to escape me in any shape or form. Just as I was beginning to melt and crumble all at once, a pair of supple, soothing hands rejoined behind my back as they slowly forced me closer to the woman in front of me.

Just like she'd always done before, whether it was crying over something at home or something she did, she always held me in place and didn't let me go until she was sure I was done. That was all I needed right then, a place to let go of everything that built up inside, and she was giving it to me. All I needed was someone strong enough to hold me up while I let go of the hate I held towards Devin and Courtney, while I let go of every wrong choice made that night and throughout my life. She gave me the support I needed as I relinquished myself of my past.

After experiencing so many wrongs, it felt like some things had begun to go right. Devin was finally being held accountable for the destruction he caused in my life, and what was a broken relationship with my mom was slowly but surely being mended. I met another incredible person in Jay, but that wasn't the highlight. Grace was that highlight and nothing stood even marginally close. Grace waking up and looking at me the same way she always had was the only thing I had ever wished for, and it happened. Everything was beginning to go my way, but that was the problem.

It scared me.

With so many rights, there was bound to be a destructive wrong. The same type of destruction that used to follow me everywhere while spreading to all of the things I loved like an STD. That's what scared me more than anything, all of the goods were going to be followed with something equally bad. That much was common sense. If someone won a large amount of money in the lottery, something just as bad was going to happen to that person. All of the bad in life is always what makes the good feel as good as it does.

Buried deep into her shoulder, I was able to hear her every silken breath escaping her divine lips as her cheek lightly pressed itself against my ear with the slow turning of her head. She hadn't said but two words to me since I latched onto her after coming out of the courtroom, but that was all I needed. I just needed to hear her voice, I needed to hear her say that everything was okay. I, more than anything else, selfishly felt the need to hold onto Grace at all costs.

"You're so strong." Grace whispered, her voice like an ocean's breeze. "Anyone else would've fallen apart in your shoes."

For so long, I was alone and holding on by the tips of my fingers. For so long, I was so afraid of the fall and what lied at the bottom. For so long, I missed the answers that were sitting right in front of me the whole time. I always had places to go and I always had someone to talk to, but I was scared. Not of how I would've been looked at, or how I would've been seen or judged, but of how much I may have changed because of just one night, because of just one horrible event that I didn't have any control over. I was scared of looking into the mirror and seeing what was reflected within it.