Labor Day weekend. A new light. Still, low expectations.
Text messages nearly every day, mainly in the afternoon and evening. She was brilliant. 22. He couldn't see her full light at first.
A week went by. Two. He smiled. Every single day. She invited him for drinks. But it didn't happen.
He wondered if she was inside his mind, sitting next to him. A part of him that had been asleep for years was awakened.
She told him he was positive, encouraging. He'd dreamed of taking his life just 8 weeks before. His only smiles came from her. The episodes still plagued him. But a brightness marked his days.
One day, they met. He'd called her the day before. He'd wanted to see her. Couldn't contain himself. Near-euphoria had come over him as she described her work, her art.
Over coffee, he fell for her. He knew.
Two weeks later, a magic trip. A reality he didn't know was possible. A realization of the light he could hold each day. Of the brightness they could create together.
He didn't deserve this, he thought. Happiness… True happiness. That was for other people. A few. But not him.
He shifted. He did deserve this. He wasn't afraid to win. A bumpy road ahead? Maybe. Likely. But complete happiness.
He told her all of him. The ugly parts.
And she shared hers.
Tears. He cried for the first time in years.
The intimacy they shared .. They shared intimacy. That wasn't for him, either. But he found it. They found it.
He knew inside it wouldn't last. Her star was too bright. His time with her would be short, he saw.
But he tried something new. He showed her all. The dark and the light.
And it stopped.
The months of light turned to a day, two days, three weeks of darkness. The memory of her light burned inside him. He would not forget.
More light than she cared to see.
More love than he'd ever felt.
That brightness, her star… Drove him forward.
The light they had shared… Would sustain him
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