I fell deeper in love with him...

I wake up before he does and sit up in the darkness of his bedroom. I watch him asleep beside me, peaceful. His mouth falls open. His presence alone gives me security and he smells of cinnamon pretzels. His dark blonde hair drapes across the pillow in its natural curly state... He will later iron each curl out with wax and hairspray, so it will be impossible to run my fingers through it.

I remember us lying on a picnic blanket in Mote Park, watching his younger sister, Holly, play on the climbing frame. My head lay on his lap while we laughed at his attempts to braid my hair.

In the distance, his sister tries valiantly to run up the slide, annoying the other children. It wasn’t until she grazed her knee that she gave up and decided to terrorize the kids on the roundabout instead.

‘I can see us here in ten years time doing this exact same thing. The same blanket, the same park only we’ll be watching our own kids terrorizing the innocent.’ The sun had sprinkled freckles over his cheeks and he smiled with his eyes squinting in the sunlight.

 His black skinny jeans felt hot and rough against my cheeks but I didn’t want to move. I wanted the same thing just not yet... I wasn’t ready. Truthfully I was struggling to take care of myself let alone another actual person. But he was born ready to be a father. His eyes were kind but his arms were supportive, with his veins protruding from his forearms. He had experienced pain, you could see it in the redness of his skin and he was sensitive. He understood that you needed to work for things so that you can appreciate them.

I could feel his gaze fleeting from watching me read to watching his sister play.  

‘Read to me’ he said after minutes of silence. I told him I’m half way through the book and he won’t have a clue what’s going on but he insisted. He wasn’t much of a reader himself. He failed most of his GCSEs ended up in college doing the only course he could qualify for. The tragic thing was that when he tried he was amazing but he struggled to find the motivation. His parents divorced soon after we met, his mother was selfish and his father a desperate drunk. Nowadays he watches cartoons, drinks tea and dunks digestives; at least that way he doesn’t have to face the real world.

We laid there in that park until even the sunlight began to look crimson and exhausted. I read Catcher in the Rye to him. I have never been happier than I was on that day.

The morning sun is beginning to creep through his black curtains highlighting the Valentine’s Day card I had got him three months ago. I vividly remember the scratchy handwritten message he wrote on the left side of my own card, instead of the right.

His eyes slowly open and his eyebrows crinkle the way they always do before he asks a question. ‘You alright?’

‘Yeah’ I speak softly not wanting to disturb the silence. He pulls me in closer so that I can feel his warm, stale breath on my neck. I adjust my breathing to match his own and fall into a light sleep for the next ten minutes before I untangle myself from his arms and delicately make my way into his kitchen.

Twenty minutes later the smell of toast and honey coax him downstairs.

‘Morning’ I smiled.

‘Morning’ he said. ‘So what’s the plan for today then?’

‘Who says I have a plan for today?’

‘Well you’re up making toast instead of lying in bed with me, which usually means you have something planned for today!’ He smiled and I followed his gaze to the heap in the corner of the kitchen: a bag full of chocolate, sweets and ham sandwiches; a picnic blanket and my notebook.

‘I was thinking that we could go to Mote Park.’

‘Okay, sounds good! Ill just have a shower and I’ll be down in a minute’

I hear him scramble upstairs as if someone was chasing him.

An hour later we’re in the car listening to the radio. I laugh at his impression of Adele’s ‘Someone like you’. His hand rests on my knee as he drove, occasionally lifting it to change gear with force. There is a constant clamour in the back of the car, a humming he denies is anything serious because he can’t afford to fix it. Regardless, I felt myself falling deeper in love with him just as a smile turns into a giggle-A giggle that turns into the sort of laughter that makes your cheeks burn and your abs ache. The sort of laughter that makes you realise what it’s like to feel alive.