Chapter 211 The spring garden - Cole

Chapter 211 The spring garden - Cole
It's been three days since we've been home. I know Monet sometimes still hates me, or hate what I've done. I catch it in the way she sometimes looks at me. I know I deserve it, and I know that us having sex in the truck was a major setback from me trying to win her back, especially when she broke down crying. It was a classic moment of me thinking with my dick.
I'm trying to be better for the both of us, give her the space I know I need to give her.
She hasn't asked me about the year I was gone again, but I know the conversation will come up time and time again, and I want to be as transparent as possible, even though it still somethimes hurt when I look in the mirror. More often than not, I need to remind myself I'm not a monster, and that I deserve everything good that happens to me.
What would she think of me when she finds out I agreed to Electroconvulsive Therapy after I talked through what happened on the day my mother died? I fell into such a deep depressive state that my doctors thought that was a good treatment since I refused medication from the start.
I know she wouldn't judge me. Shit, she accepted me before when I was definitely much worse.
All I want is for her not to worry that I might spiral out of control and that she has to freeze everything in her life to fix me.
I kissed her in the apartment, but I didn't do it again. I'm staying in my own, old bedroom, and she's staying in hers, and we have fell into some sort of a routine. Every morning when I hear her door opens, I make her coffee and we sit quietly in the garden with the different flowers and plants blooming all over.
She cried yesterday morning, and she let me hold her hand.
"Tell me what's wrong?" I asked gently.
"Nothing's wrong." She smiles through the tears. "I can just feel her here."
She was right.
Kamila is in the light breeze that blows through the colorful petals, in the whisper of the leaves and the birds finding a home in the garden.
This morning, Monet is sitting with her legs pulled up on the chair, and her chin on her knees listening to the different chirps, and of all the colors present, she's still the most beautiful.
"You're not sad letting the house go?" I ask, knowing I will miss my childhood haven, but happy that it can become a reprieve for someone else who needs it like I needed it.
"We're not letting it go." Monet smiles softly, letting her fingers travel through a leafy potplant next to her chair. "We're just passing it on, so that other sad people might find happiness in here again."
"That's what you gave me." I tell her, before I lose my nerves. She turns her face to me with a frown in-between her brows, her golden eyes shining. "Even through all the darkness that lived inside of me, you were my light, and the only reason I decided to fight against it."
We hold each other's gazes, the need to touch her overwhelming, but I just keep looking at her, letting her see that I'm being honest.
Amy comes to visit Luke and his family, and we drink Kamila's favorite wine that night, laughing and joking like old times, and I think everyone is a little tipsy when they leave. I can't sleep, though, lying awake and looking up at the ceiling, wondering what Monet is doing when my door opens, and I'm surprised when she walks inside wearing those damn fuck-me shorts and a tight tank top and crawling in next to me.
I'm too scared to move, scared that she will think this is another mistake and leave, so I just offer her my arm and she snuggles her head into my shoulder, her arm coming over my middle and gripping me tightly.
"I still love you, Cole Smith." She whispers into the night. "Even after everything, I still love you."
I have never been more elated, and I don't want to spoil this moment by saying or doing anything, so I just hold her through the night, grateful that she's letting me touch her one way or the other.
I must have slept like a baby, because when I wake up, she's no longer there, and I jump up in a panic, searching the house frantically, but coming up empty. I'm about to call Amy and Luke to ask if they have heard anything from her, but when I step through the front door, there she is, looking breathtaking with her hair all over the place and watering the plants.
I know then, more definitive than I've ever known in the past.
And it might be too soon, and she might say no, but the next morning while her fingers are brushing through the potplant with her legs drawn up and her chin resting on her knees, I kneel in front of her in her mother's chaotic garden with all the flowers in full bloom.
Her golden eyes are surprised when I hold the ring out to her, a ring I bought the same day I bought the promise ring, knowing that one day there will a perfect time to ask this question.
"I know I hurt you." My eyes burn with tears, my heart beating so fast in my chest that I might pass out. "And I know you might resent me for it forever, but there is not a day that I want to go on in this world knowing you're not mine, because I've always been yours. You've loved me through the worst of who I could be, and I love you because you've always held me with empathy even when I didn't deserve it. I love you because you see the good in people even when nobody else sees it. I know I don't deserve you, and I probably never will, but I want to try for as long as we live. I beg you, please, would you marry me?"