Chapter 31: Same Book, Different Pages

(Luther)

I WOKE up when I felt a soft hand on my cheek. When I opened my eyes, I saw Alexandra sleeping beside me on the grass in the backyard. When I glanced at my wristwatch, it was almost eleven in the evening. She really did stay.

For others, this woman was my poison. And maybe she truly was my poison the same way she was my cure. Only this woman could build me up, break me, and then build me again. Tonight, because she was beside me, I was able to breathe just fine. The whole time without her felt like there was something stuck in my chest that I couldn’t get out.

Things don’t magically become okay just because we are with the ones we love. That bullshit only happens in movies, in books. But I realized that somehow, with Alexandra around, things become a lot less painful, they become… endurable.

And how I wished my mother was able to feel something like this too when she was still alive. But from the day she fell in love until her last breath, love just remained a poison to her.