Lean On Me #Wattys2016

Part 39

Mateo

The toughest part of my recovery has not been from the wounds to my leg. It's been the battle my mind has been waging with itself. In the beginning it was flashbacks—my experience loading the stapler today while being transported to filling my magazine in a place far away, but never forgotten. From the ashes of this battle came a fierce hyper-vigilance that left me tense and drained of my energy. When I learned to distinguish what was happening in real-time from what was happening in the recesses of my memory, a new battle emerged. The grief of what I've lost—who I've lost—fought along side an abundance of crippling guilt and anxiety against my soul's need to be healed. I'm convinced there will never be a clear victor in that campaign.

Now that I'm almost a year out of my trauma, I fully grasp that the conflict should be over. Sometimes I feel I've won and sometimes I know I have not, because even in victory there was a price to be paid. I'm a veteran of war returning home, picking up my pieces and trying to make a life with them. So when Ashlyn's words fill the space between us, I have to take a minute to run them through all the mental filters I've created. I need to check for validity and then examine the present to make sure they don't speak of something in the past.

She's here right now, sitting in front of me, the girl who has no idea how important she's been in my recovery. Not just for what she's done directly by helping my stretches and pushing my limits, but by how she found within me the parts of my character that I was sure had spilled from my body like the blood from my wound—persistence and motivation. I got better not just for her, but also because of her.

I feel the emotion clogging my throat, the joy of what she's just confessed hitting my heart like pure adrenaline. I've known for a while now that she is my one. The one woman I'd compare all others to, the one who seemed to know me better than I've ever known myself, and the one who I'd never get over if she walked away. I just had never imagined that I'd be worthy of her. I don't mean in that sappy way that men tease about how women are naturally better and men are forever unworthy. I mean it with sincerity. Ashlyn is sunshine and perseverance personified and even on my best day, I couldn't come close to making the impact she does on the people around her. And yet, with my war-torn body and battle weary mind, she still chooses me.

"I'll never let you regret it," I tell her, my voice raspy as it pushes out past the knot in my heart and lump in my throat. Her head tilts in question and I realize that she's just told me of this horrible crash and the loss of a friend and I'm speaking in a conversation in my head she hasn't really been I apart of. I smile, "I'll never let you regret loving me," I clarify. "I won't give you the chance," I say with conviction. "Monday through Sunday, twenty-four seven, through every glorious good time and of course all of the bad—I'm going to love you like you're the sun in my sky. Every part of me will revolve around you because I'm certain that's the way God intended."

The waiter approaches with our dinner, but Ashlyn keeps her eyes one me. Joy is a beautiful emotion. The way her cheeks lift and her lips curl, the melodic sound that floats from her mouth as she chuckles. Relief is a worthy contender, the soft sigh on her lips and the way her shoulders relax. But neither emotion can hold a candle to acceptance. It doesn't matter what her shoulders are doing, or the way her lips move—I'm only watching her eyes. They say without words that she trusts me and that all the outside shit in our lives—the big staircases and stiff muscles, the bad dreams and torn flesh—none of it matters because it can't stop what we have. Nothing can stop forever, and if anyone can conquer future downfalls and setbacks it's us. We've already learned to walk again thus proving that nothing can hold us back.

"I don't need your life to revolve around mine," she says after the waiter has left us alone again. "I just want someone to walk beside me."

I know this is serious and I shouldn't tease, but that's just not who I am with her. "Even if my limp might slow us down?" I lean in a little closer and take her hand.

"What can I say?" she asks with a small shrug of her shoulder and a smile that makes my heart explode, "You're sexy walk kind of does it for me."

A laugh bubbles up from my chest and I squeeze her hand in mine. "Should I make a quick lap around this place to make sure you'll want to let me take you home?" I feign being curious, using my fist and thumb to point over my shoulder in the direction I'd leave so she could watch. This time, she tugs my hand and pulls me closer, leaning over the table and kissing my lips as she giggles.

"Honey, you sealed that deal when you bought me flowers." And that right there is the reason I'm going to love her for the rest of my life. 

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