Part of Your World

I realized, almost in that moment, that I really didn’t want him to see other people either. Even the thought of him hugging someone else launched me into an internal fit of jealousy so sudden it shocked me.

If I’d shown up here and he’d been with another woman, it would have devastated me. I didn’t even realize it until just now. Looking at his open face, feeling his warm arms around me, something inside of me screamed MINE.

But it wasn’t fair to make him mine. Because I could never be his.

He didn’t skip a beat. He gathered me into him and leaned down and kissed me, and it was like a part of my brain shut off. The part that was stressed and worried and angry.

I wanted to see Daniel.

I wanted his muddy dog to jump on me and I wanted to play with a baby goat and I wanted to be in a place with warm, soft furniture and let someone easy and good hold me in a town that asked me for nothing.

Something in me had shifted in the last few weeks. It was like the more distance I got from this relationship, the stronger I became, and standing up to him was getting easier and easier. I was perfectly willing to put up with his presence and hold my ground in exchange for the chance to finally show him I could.

I wanted more.

I wanted to see her world with my own eyes, not just these glimpses behind the curtain. I wanted to be a part of it.

But it was by invite only. And I doubted she’d ever ask me.

Alexis tapped me into a different world. She was this incredible woman, working in a hospital two hours away, treating a patient whose friend was singing in Latin. Just in her normal routine, Alexis was living a life a thousand times more interesting and cultured than mine—and she wanted to include me in it.

This gesture made me grateful in a way I couldn’t explain. She was giving me more of herself, even if it was just a peek into a moment of her day.

She never made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for her, but she didn’t have to. It was obvious. I’d accepted this with a resigned understanding of my position and decided that I wasn’t going to dwell on it, especially because there was nothing I could do to change the situation. I couldn’t snap my fingers and be a damn surgeon. I couldn’t be anything other than what I was.

Alexis made me want to be better.

I was floating around in some universe that I was beginning to realize most people didn’t live in. Daniel certainly didn’t.

We were loading our bags in the car to go home, and I had the saddest feeling.

I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to go back to the real world and my crappy situation with Neil.