It Won’t Be the Way You Imagined (But It Will Be Better)
They won’t look the way you thought they would look, or talk the way you thought they would talk. They won’t stroll out of your fantasy, edges sanded and knuckles smoothed, only born the moment you meet.
She cares too much for her tomato plants, insists on naming each and every fern in her garden. When she cooks she apologizes to the potted herbs on the windowsill as she pulls off leaves and sprigs.
She doesn’t sleep well. Sometimes you wake to her shaking in the bed next to you, crying. She’s quiet, breath catching when she inhales, terrified to make a sound. All you can do is pull her into the curl of your arms and hold her together. There are no words in this moment, nothing you can offer as long hours pass, dawn spreading across your sheets until it is finally time to rise.
She does not talk of it afterwards so neither do you, not when she is making coffee or pulling on boots, not when she kisses you softly at the door.
“I love you,” she says instead.
Sometimes you swear you can still see the weight of his hands on her. But like her beloved plants she too is growing towards the sun. She smiles more now, and when she does it is slow and steady, a flower in bloom.
