Just Let It Be

Thirty Six

Seeing her ex-husband heading towards her, Stef began to feel as though a familiar burden had regained her shoulders. At an instant, the painstaking memories of their shared romance crept into her mind.
Searching for comfort, she turned toward Lena, gaining the urge to simply exit the store.
"Can we please just leave? I—I want to go home."

"Leave?" Lena wasn't exactly surprised that the woman wanted to remove herself from what could possibly occur. She knew Stef very well and knew that at any moment, she could impulsively fly off the handle. "No, no. I think we should stay. That you should talk to him." But she also knew that at some point, Stef needed to confront the man. To speak to him directly from her heart.

Immediately, the blonde's eyes widened, growing with astonishment.  "Stay?! Lena I am not staying here. I don't want to see him and I don't want him seeing me. Let's just go. Please." She tried to move forward, toward the store's exit.

But, before she could go any further, Lena extended her arms, preventing her from doing so. "Hey, now wait a minute here. Just a moment ago you were two seconds away from chopping the sales associate's head off for what she said to me." The mentor motioned toward herself, then at the ex-husband's direction. "But as soon as you see him, you shut down?"

Stef shifted her eyes to the floor beneath them, trying to forget all that she had remembered. She too knew that she needed to be honest with the very soul that crushed her own, but she did not know if she was ready to just yet.
"Lena you don't understand. I have a lot of anger built up because of him, okay? And I know that you have been here, helping me release it and I thank you for that, I do." She placed her pupils back upon her lover. "But this is the first time I've seen him in a long time and I...I don't even know what to say to him...I probably can't even look him in his eyes."

"But you can," Lena replied back, grabbing onto the woman's nearing hands.

If there was one thing she knew about Stef, it was her passion. Her passion in fighting for what was right, her passion for love. She just wanted the woman to see in herself what she saw in her. "You most definitely can, babe. And you're right. I may not understand all that you went through, everything he did to you. But, honey, you've been holding on for so long. And I do know what that's like. Holding on for so long that you forget how to let go."

"Yeah," the blonde allowed her pupils to roam the area of which they stood. She just wanted the moment to be over. "But learning to let go takes time. It's not an overnight thing, Lena."

"That's true," The other lover said back, still holding onto her woman. "And I don't want you to feel forced or anything of the sort. If you are sure about not wanting to be in his presence, then we can certainly leave." She held onto Stef a little bit tighter, wanting to ensure her encouragement was coming from a place of love. "But, honey, if you really want to start feeling whole again, then at some point you will have to stand up to what broke you in the first place."