Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

My throat is bone dry. I grab the counter and hoist myself upright, fumbling
for a glass from the cabinet, filling it with filtered water, and draining it. Setting
down the tumbler, I’m met with my reflection in the window above the sink. I
hold her gaze, staring at her shocked features.
She’s never felt so many conflicting emotions at once, and it shows on her
face. Hope. Terror. Joy.
It’s been so long since I embraced the part of myself that aches to come to
life when Ren’s near. The one that laughs and jokes, that hugs hard and kisses
deeply. The one that cries at sappy movies and throws open her heart for those
she loves. The one that believes someone could love her without one day
resenting her, without seeing her laundry list of needs and hurdles as burdens but
rather as beautiful parts of what make her her.
Because I know that having arthritis, being autistic, does not make me less
whole or human. It doesn’t make me wrong or broken. It makes some things in
my life more challenging in ways, yes, and maybe I don’t represent the “norm,”
but I can be someone who surmounts obstacles without it meaning there’s
something fundamentally lacking in my makeup.
Problem is, that truth has been harder to hold on to when I let people in.
Because then my sensory limits, my unexpected emotions, my easily tired body,
my unfiltered mouth, are part of the package deal with me, and apparently, they
wear out their welcome. Everyone—my family and childhood friends, my one
college boyfriend—everyone, except for Annie and Lo, who I have loved and let
in, has ultimately come to resent me.
So, when I moved away and started my life fresh, I told myself I simply
wouldn’t love or be loved that way, not anymore. Because each time I let
someone in and they show me I’m not worth the work, it’s become more painful,
more difficult to bounce back.
“What are you going to do?” I ask my reflection.
For so long, my way of life has worked for me. It’s comforted me to guard
my emotions, be sensible with my heart, practical with my actions, controlled
and ordered. Being safe allowed me to move beyond the pain of my past.
Silence fills my home. A weighty emptiness spills into its corners, as stark
and illuminating as the moon outside. An uncomfortable question burrows deep
in my chest and pricks my heart.
What if the life I’ve built, the one that was supposed to free me, has turned
into a prison after all?