4 (jaylor) gleaming twilight and an infinite afterglow

chapter nine.

Joe was often left speechless by her, because she was just so strong. And it wasn't the type of strength that you just wake up with one day. It was the type of strength that very few people had, the sort of strength that was found when someone had been pushed to the edge for too long. When terrible things just kept happening and they had no choice but to keep pushing forward. The type of strength that no one else seemed to have - the type of strength that you became from having to pick yourself back up after being pulled apart over and over again. The type of strength that you're forced to become when it seems as if the entire world is against you. Taylor was the type of strong that he wished he was, she was the very definition of strength and persistence.
He looked over at her while she was helping him make lunch, and he just felt so proud. She was the strongest woman he knew and he still often found himself lying awake in the middle of the night wondering how the fuck he deserved her. He would always lie awake and watch her sleeping, asking himself what he'd done in his life to mean he was able to be beside her. She was... she was everything. All at once. She was just... he looked at her and he saw everything he ever wanted, everything he ever needed. He just felt like nothing in comparison. There wasn't a single other person on the planet like her, and there would never, ever be another person like her. Ever.
"I'm so proud of you, Taylor." Joe told her as he watched her start to cut some tomato for their sandwiches.
She turned red, and Joe smiled as she looked up at him. "I'm serious. I look at you and I just... I'm just so proud of the person you've become."
"You're going to make me cry," Taylor put down the knife and washed her hands. "It sucks that we can't see ourselves the way we see each other," she told him with a smile. She padded across the wooden floor, wrapping her arms around him. "Because everything that you say that you see in me, I can see in you too." She leaned in and kissed him, and Joe felt her lips flutter against his. She pulled away ever so slightly, smiling. "I love you to the moon and to Saturn."
Joe cupped her cheeks, kissing her nose. He felt her laugh beneath his fingertips. He loved this woman with everything he was.
"Whatever happens, I'll be with you. Through it all. I don't fucking care what anyone says, I don't care what kind of lies that Adam works to get out. I don't care about the words that they say." He smiled. "Because I love you, and there wouldn't be a single thing that you could ever do that would make me stop loving you. I will love you until the day I die, and then even longer." He wiped away a tear that slipped from her eyes. "And I know that you feel like you've dragged me into this chaotic life, that I've had to sacrifice so much. That you've forced me to walk the tightrope with you," Joe could see that she knew exactly what he was saying, that it was what she truly felt like. "But the truth is, I'd do anything to be with you. I don't care about any of it. The cameras, the paparazzi, the stupid lies that people spin to hurt us. I don't care about any of it. Because at the end of the day, my love, all I want is you. I haven't sacrificed anything. Meeting you, loving you, waking up beside you every morning, watching you kiss our daughter goodnight as you sing her to sleep. It's all I need in the entire world. Having you and loving you was the best thing to ever happen to me, and I would do everything all over again to get to live my life beside you, my hand in yours. I haven't had to sacrifice a single thing, love. You've... you think that you pulled me into the fishbowl with you, but I'd jump, willingly into a glass bottle if it meant that I got to wake up everyday beside you." He paused wiping away another tear. "Because you are the best thing to ever happen to me. You just... everything about you always leaves me speechless. And you know what a crazy feeling that is, because words are supposed to be our thing." He dropped his hands, taking Taylor's hands in his, bringing them to his lips. "When I'm with you, I don't notice any of the crap that's going on outside our home. I don't notice a single word of what they say, I don't notice anything except you. Because I love you. You are the greatest gift, Taylor. And it's just... I can't believe that I'm the one who has gotten to see all of these things with you. Me. Plain old Joe. I'm the one who got to watch as that sparkle returned to your eyes again. I'm the one who got to watch as you stared up at the northern lights while we were in the Lake District for that first time. I'm the one who got to be there when you started to find all of these pieces of yourself that had been taken from you. I'm the one who got to watch as you started to thrive again. I'm the one who gets to be here, with you. I'm the one who gets to take your hand and promise you that I'm never going to let go. I'm the one who gets to see it all with you. I'm the one that gets to walk on the tightrope with you as we face all of these adventures together." Joe felt a tear roll down his own cheek. "And before I met you, if anyone had asked me what was keeping me alive, what was making sure I didn't hurt myself for the last time, take things to far... I wouldn't have been able to tell them anything. Not a single thing. Before I met you... I was already walking my own tightrope. I was living in an hourglass, Taylor. Just waiting for the last grain of sand to slip through the middle and for me to fall down with it." He closed his eyes briefly as Taylor reached up and wiped a tear away. "But then I saw you. I didn't even have to hear your voice. I just... I saw you and you were shining exactly like a disco ball. And I remember asking myself, why isn't everyone looking at you? Because you were breathtaking. And I thought that you couldn't even get more breathtaking than you were in that moment, but every single day you prove me wrong." Joe didn't care that he was emotional, that Taylor was wiping away his stream of tears with the sleeve of her top. "I look at you and I don't ever regret or doubt, not even for a moment, that climbing onto the tightrope with you was the best decision for me. You threw me the rope and in finding my way to you, I found myself."
The two of them were standing there, crying together in the kitchen. And neither of them knew whether they were sad tears, or happy tears, but both of them guessed that they were a little bit of both. "I look at you, and I look at Thea, and I know that everything I ever need is right here in front of me. I don't need anything else. I don't need stable ground or air to breathe. I just... I look at you and I know. I know that I will keep walking the tightrope forever, because there's no way I'm letting go." He leaned in and kissed her, her lips salty with tears.