I wonder if Connor would have had enough warmth to sustain all of us. Me and a child and himself. He is stronger than I could ever imagine, more in tune with his heart, so changed and grown up. I look back at the cold years of our relationship when we were more like roommates than lovers.

He told me he would get off in the shower, and that was fine. I would get off under the covers after he left for work.

We couldn't find anything in each other worth desiring. I hate telling people that, writing it.

I kept the secrets of us, our relationship and our marriage, under wraps. Best not to let anyone see the cracks, the fissures.

I live my life like a beautiful painting, a beautiful lie. I put the pretty on social media, hide the ugliest of truths.

What good is all of this thick skin if all I do is hide from the world? Can't I walk into the sunlight and hold my head high? Mean it when I say that I don't care what other people think of me? Put my money where my mouth is?

I look at Connor's hands on the chain of the swing. I need Connor to hold my hand. I am not too proud to feel that.

He was a crutch, a warm place to land and it’s so strange to me that we can go through so many waves, so many changes, with another soul.

So many truths and questions have been answered here in the dark, in this park.

We are not what we once were and our history is riddled with lies, deceit.

"Are you ready to tell the truth?" he asks me, because he knows I am. He knows why I came here, why I confess, why I write. He knows even when I tell him he doesn't. My rage and rebellion from love can't change his truth.

"How do we make this clean now? How do we make this our own version of perfect?" I want to be the wife I always hoped I would be. With him, the constant, unwavering husband I never thought I would get. The other men who got close, they wouldn't be able to hold me the way he does. Hold me up and keep me from drowning. One of the hardest things to live through is knowing someone doesn't want you anymore after you've shown them every ugly crack in your soul. Avery, years ago, saw mine and left me. Logan saw them and lied the way I lied. I was young and foolish then, to think I could spend my lives with them. Maybe that's why I cringe when young people say they want to get married. I want them to get out there and live their lives. To take the time and care to find someone who will change with them. I know it happens early for some, but it didn’t for me. I was a different woman then and we couldn't have grown together, those men and I. I was twenty-five when I met Connor and still so raw and unlearned, so foolish and naïve about the world. I have never seen someone transform themselves completely.

Maybe I can? I have I guess, just not in the right direction.

I've regressed since I learned about my abuse. I opened up and I told the world, yet it placed more bars on my heart. Each level of secrets revealed has built more walls. I was failing. That's why I have to tell it this way.

I look down at my hand, at the truth. “I brought everything here. The pictures and the notebooks and this pain in my chest. I want to bury it, to burn it, for you to take it, I don't care. Whatever you think is best. Whatever you want me to do with it, I'll do it."

He finally stands, moved by the change in my voice. He knows what it means. He knows me.

"I want to move on from this, from this beginning and ending and the middle. All of it.” My voice cracks and I clench my eyes. Everything is gone, the things I made up and the lies. Logan, my perfect life, my perfect lie. "I want to know something beautiful can grow from this. That opening up doesn't have to be the end of everything. That someone will see all of this ugly in me, and tell me where the beauty is."

When he reaches me, he kisses me like he means it, and he always has. Even when he hated me, he kissed me with the kind of honesty I let die in my throat.

He is beauty and life and I am alive because he believes in me, for some reason.

The fairytales don't compare to the work he does. To the day in and the day out.

He endures.

My love is poison. His kisses are mine. They always have been. He doesn't steal life from me, he breathes it back into me.

How does anyone survive without this kind of love? How does he see me the same way, every day? I know he loved me even when he hated me. Even when I was killing him. When I left him. When I lost myself. We’re more than this story or the way people see it. When he pulls away, he stares into my eyes. He always said they looked nearly black in the night, my dark blue melted away.

"I'll pick you up when you're done."

I feel a dissolve, the slow melt of my story, our story. I blink and I am not alone, I am looking into warm eyes.