I am loved, He is here.

I sat down at the small table, the brown wood soft and worn from the many who had sat there before me. Hands folded I waited. As I waited, my eyes wandered the little room. Open windows with gauzy curtains let in filtered sunbeams and a cool breeze. No one else was there, only me and this little table in the center. With an inhale I noted the smell of pine trees and sun-warmed wood.

My eyes found their way to the intricate grain of the table and when I looked up, there he was—sitting across from me, smiling. I don’t remember what I said, or maybe he said something first but it doesn’t matter. We talked for a long time. Me and him. Him and me. Nothing else existed anymore. I talked about how often I was just sad. Days on end. He nodded, and with that, I knew. Not only had he known I was sad, but he had been right there, feeling it with me, only his sorrow, was over mine. Tears fell from my eyes. And tears fell from his. He loved me so much it hurt me to know even just the fraction of it that I felt in his eyes. I told him of my loneliness and how often I lived in my head. I told him that sometimes my mind went places it shouldn’t go, places that scared me. I told him of the times I had wanted to die. And about how I had beat myself in anger, and shame, and guilt. I told him things I had never told anyone before. I told him about all the things I wished I had done differently and of all the things I wanted to still do. I told him of the hours I had wasted and had been selfish and had been the worst kinds of cruel. I talked until I had nothing more to say and then just sat and cried for a long while. Gently, my tears were wiped away by his fingers, the fingers of one who knew my face so well. His hands took my own and that was all. And I knew I was loved and that it was going to be okay because he was here.

The room faded away and I no longer felt his hands holding mine. I sat there in the dark and even though my eyes and my ears, my hands and my mind, no longer claimed his being, my soul quietly told me again, I am loved and he is here.

I am loved, He is here.

-Annelise

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