Care

Her: Do you wanna have a warm bath to help your muscle pain? I could give the tub a good scrub and get it ready for ya.

Me: That’s so sweet, but you don’t have to go to the trouble.

Her: It’s no trouble at all, you know I’m good with the elbow grease. I’ve got Epsom salts too.

(There was an absolute conversation between us through eye contact alone, a long silence but so much back and forth in our body language. “I want to but it’s hard...” “Let me take care of you, baby.”)

Me: Are you sure?

Her: Yeah, absolutely. I’d like to run you a bath.

And she told me to smoke a joint while she got it ready. And she put Lana Del Rey on the surround sound speakers. And she lit candles for me. And she asked “Do you wanna have some quiet time to yourself, or should I sit with you?”

“You’d sit with me?” I smiled.

And she did.

She sat beside the bath tub and held my hand, and leaned over to kiss my forehead once in a while. She kept me company in her calm and steady manner, leaving lots of space for me to sigh and close my eyes and sink into the water. She held up a big fluffy towel and wrapped it around me when I was done, and left me to cool off while she started supper.

“How ya feelin?” she asked when I finally emerged. She kissed my pink cheeks and wrapped her arms around me, I breathed her in and let my body go limp against hers. I dreamily whispered a string of grateful loving words as I melted into a puddle. She scooped me up and carried me to bed where she made me feel even more wonderful.

We had dinner and curled up to watch Fried Green Tomatoes (which she had never seen!!!) And then, after all of this, she praised me for doing a really good job letting her do nice things for me.

In light of all the hard things the last few weeks have brought, I feel so lucky to have someone so good looking out for me.