receive.
“You don’t have to earn your coffee,” he said.
I laughed, unsteadily.
I had spent my whole life earning every small kindness.
Somewhere between the tea, the curtains, and a Tuesday in October when he reached for my hand at a red light, I stopped pretending.
Maybe I had accepted because I was exhausted from drowning, but I stayed because I loved him.
After that, love began arriving in ordinary forms.
Russell learned which bus stop I used before I admitted I still rode the bus whenever the driver
