"I think you manage things reflexively," she said. "And I’m telling you in advance that I’ll notice and I’ll say sothing and I’d rather we establish it now than have the conversation after."
Sothing shifted in Alexander’s face. Not offense. Sothing more honest than offense.
"Your mother says the sa thing," he said quietly.
"She’s known you longer."
"Yes." He looked at his hands briefly. "She has."
Morrison ca at ten. The assessnt was thorough and Aria submitted to it with the patience she’d been practicing, answering questions honestly instead of optimistically, which was a habit Dr. Reeves had specifically asked her to work on.
Afterward, Morrison pulled Damien into the corridor for a separate conversation...protocol, he said, glancing at Alexander in a way that suggested it was not entirely protocol....and Alexander and Aria were left alone for the first ti in several days.
The silence between them was different from the silence between her and Damien. Less settled. Still finding its shape.
"Can I ask you sothing?" Aria said.
"Yes."
"When you were looking for ...the twenty five years....what did you think it would be like? When you found ?"
Alexander was quiet for a mont. He looked at the window. "I had a very specific image," he said finally. "In my head. For years. A version of you that I’d constructed from...from nothing, really. From the two months I knew you existed. From what I knew of i at that age."
"What did she look like? The version in your head?"
"Like i," he said. "With my eyes." A pause. "Quieter than you. Less....less ford, sohow. Soone I could.... " He stopped.
"Soone you could shape," Aria finished.
He looked at her. Not denying it. "Yes," he said. "I think that’s honest."
"And instead you got ."
"Instead I got you." And the way he said it.....the fullness of it, the complicated wonder underneath....made her chest tighten unexpectedly. "Soone who was entirely herself before I arrived. Who didn’t need anything from . Who was...." He searched for the word. "Complete. Already complete."
Aria looked at him for a long mont.
"I do need things from you," she said. "I just don’t need you to fix ."
He absorbed that. "What do you need?"
"I’m still figuring that out," she said honestly. "I’ve never lack the love of a father because my father, the man i grew up to know as my father loved and showed with love. But you are my biological father, I don’t entirely know what the role looks like." She held his gaze. "But I know it’s not Singapore. And it’s not lawyers. And it’s not another therapist."
"What is it?"
She thought about it properly. About what she’d actually wanted, in the quiet honest part of herself, since the first day i had told her who Alexander Wei was.
"Just.....show up," she said. "Regularly. Without an agenda. Let get used to you."
Sothing moved across his face. Clean and simple and entirely unguarded.
"I can do that," he said.
Damien ca back in twenty minutes later. He looked at the two of them....Aria in the bed, Alexander in the chair, a different quality of quiet between them than there’d ever been before....and said nothing. Just settled on the edge of the bed and handed Aria a second cup of tea because hers had gone completely cold.
She took it. Bumped her shoulder against his arm briefly in the way she did when she wanted to say sothing without saying it.
He bumped back. Small. Private.
Alexander watched this exchange with an expression that had stopped trying to be neutral.
"Morrison says discharge is confird," Damien said. "Day after tomorrow. Seven AM."
"Good," Aria said.
"He also says you’re supposed to sleep tonight. Actual sleep. He’s recomnding a mild sedative if the nightmares continue."
"I know. He told ." She looked at her tea. "I told him I’d think about it."
"Aria...."
"I said I’d think about it." She looked up at him. "I will actually think about it. That’s not a deflection."
He studied her face. "Okay."
"I’m getting better at asking for help," she said. "I’m not fully there yet. But I’m getting better."
"I know you are."
"So give the space to do it at my own pace." She said it gently but clearly. "Both of you. That’s all I’m asking."
The room was quiet.
Then Alexander stood, picked up his jacket from the back of the chair.
"I’ll co back this evening," he said. "With dinner. From the Thai place your mother ntioned."
"She’ll love that," Aria said.
He nodded. Looked at Damien briefly....sothing passing between them that wasn’t warmth exactly but was sothing more functional than hostility. Then he left.
The room felt different with just the two of them in it. Easier. More oxygen.
Damien lay down beside her carefully, the narrow hospital bed barely accommodating both of them, and she turned into his chest and let him wrap around her and felt the nightmare from 3 AM finally, fully, release its grip.
"I’m not going to be okay overnight," she said into his shirt.
"I know."
"It’s going to take ti. Real ti. And it’s going to be ssy and nonlinear and there are going to be bad days."
"I know that too."
"And I need you to not look at like I’m broken when it happens."
He pulled back just enough to look at her face. "You are the least broken person I have ever t," he said. "That is never what I see when I look at you."
She held his gaze. "What do you see?"
"Soone who has been through things that would have destroyed most people," he said simply. "And is still here. Still herself. Still making everyone around her better than they were before she arrived." He brushed her hair back from her face. "That’s what I see. Every ti."
She didn’t answer. Just pressed her face back against his chest and closed her eyes.
Outside, the hospital went about its ordinary business.
Inside, Aria let herself be held, and didn’t manage it, and didn’t deflect it, and didn’t perform being okay.
Just let it be what it was.
For now, that was enough.
Reviews
All reviews (0)