Chapter 168: The quiet dawn and lavender scent
The dawn crept in, the kind that poured like honey over hours. Light seeped through behind gauzy drapes, depositing gold warmth on the bed floor. I'd long ago rolled onto my side before the sun had reached its zenith, legs curled around the length of Caspian's body, breathing as one like the soft tune of a song.
I didn't want to come up. Quiet was a luxury.
Caspian moved in behind me, his arm around my waist tightening. "You awake?" he murmured, voice abrasive from sleep.
"Mm-hmm." I rolled far enough to glance at his face, inches from my own—hair tousled, lashes casting soft shadows on his cheeks. "But not ready to let go of this."
He grinned, slowly and wide, and came closer to nuzzle the end of my nose. "Then don't."
We hung there, arms wrapped around each other, as the world went on serenely outside the barriers. The scent of lavender lightly clung to me from the spray linen I had sprayed the night before, blended with Caspian's smell—far but still unmistakably him.
It was strange that peace could be strange. As if I'd forgotten the memory of love.
Sooner than later, the appeal of coffee called us out from under the blankets. Caspian slipped into the kitchen barefoot and I slipped behind him, in one of his shirts, the hem on my thighs. He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes dancing down my legs before ascending again to mine.
"You're distracting," he told me bluntly.
"You say that like it's a bad thing," I said.
"It is," he responded, "because now I'm going to burn the toast."
He didn't, of course. Caspian had that effortless cool that made it look so easy to just stroll through life. But it wasn't the way he strolled or the way he made a fantastic cup of coffee—it was the way he gazed at me, sipping it. As if he were enjoying the sight of me slumped against the kitchen counter, my hair disheveled, my eyes half-closed.
"You alright?" he asked, standing too near.
I nodded, wrapping my fingers around the searing mug. "Yeah. Just. letting it sink in."
"What?"
"That we're here," I puffed. "That there isn't a fire to douse or a door that we won't push open in fear."
His eyes hardened—soft, fierce. "We earned this."
"I know." My voice trembled, nearly. "But part of me still waits for it to be taken away.".
Caspian closed the space between us and loomed over me, his hand resting against my chin. "Lily," he whispered, as if it were a vow. "No one is going to steal this from you. Not again."
The ensuing silence wasn't stifling. It was weighted.
He kissed me then—slow and deliberate. Not desperate. Not starving. Just. whole. As if he meant every. single. word.
We had our breakfast out on the balcony, cross-legged on patio cushions, soaking up the sun. The city buzzed beneath us—cars driving by, sounds in the distance, a far-off howl of a dog. But here, above it all, we seemed to be floating in mid-air.
"I detested the silence," I said to him after a while. "I'd strangle it in noise. In music. In movement. Anything so I'd not be stuck hearing myself think."
Caspian observed me. "And now?"
"Now," I said, the smile I gave myself only an existence, "it's the sole reminder that I'm safe."
He did not say a word, but leaned and placed my hand in his. His thumb traced lazy patterns over the center of my palm, keeping me pressed to that insistent heartbeat.
We spent most of the morning like this—talking about nothing and everything. Books we had not yet read from start to finish, films we were going to see again, where we wanted to go. It was not epic, or mythic. It was something else.
Clouds had begun gathering again in early afternoon—sleepy and feathery, as if cotton had been tossed over the sky. I draped a blanket over my legs, and Caspian emerged from the house with a second cup of tea for me, his own having been left on the counter somewhere.
"Lavender chamomile," he put down in front of me.
"You actually pay attention."
"Always."
When I sat beside him again, I had my head resting on his shoulder without even thinking. We just sat and let clouds drift by and change, both of us staying motionless for a very long time. Just breathing.
"I don't think I ever really knew what it was to feel safe," I said softly after some time.
"You do now."
"I think I'm still working out how to let myself have it."
"Okay," Caspian panted, his fists knotted in my hair. "You don't have to do it all at once. There is time."
Time. The word settled into my chest.
It wasn't Nathaniel's missing letters that were torture. It wasn't even bodily protection. It was space for my feelings. It was freedom from the unspoken weight that had hung on my shoulders all these years.
I gazed up at Caspian. His facelessness was unyielding, but his eyes were on mine. His unflinching black eyes uttered nothing but being. No hope.
"Do you ever stop and think," I panted, "how unlikely it all was?"
"Always," he answered, never flinching. "And I'd do it again. Every time."
A muscle in the middle of my chest tightened—but not fear. A raw, unuttered thanks. For him. For us. For this battle-won, most improbable of peace.
"I love you," I said to him, because he needed to know.
He spun so he stood with his face to mine, folding my hand back towards me to deposit a kiss in the middle of my palm. "And I love you. So damn much I rewired the way I breathe."
I breathed softly, a gasp of awe. "You're absurd."
"I'm yours," he whispered.
That strangled laughter to death in its tracks—because it was true. Because it mattered.
The rest of the day was as a poem—every second light, measured, full of air and being. We spent the day slowly, every glance, every skin touch colored with purpose. And when at last the sky was darkening towards night, and the lights within threw warm amber glows, I couldn't help but speculate:
Perhaps healing really does look like this.
Not proclamations or fireworks. Not painlessness. But presence. But a choice to keep choosing one another over and over again.
Even when there is no danger.
Especially then.