No More Graveyards
“No more graveyards, mon amour. Just gardens. Let’s go.”
— Jasmine
The morning opened soft and grey, the kind that slipped in under the doors before you could remember the weight of yesterday. Light filtered through the kitchen windows in low, silvery streaks—gentle, like it knew better than to startle me. I didn’t bother with the switch. I liked it like this. Quiet. Dim. Real.
My feet made no sound across the cool kitchen tiles. Just the slow, barefoot rhythm of a girl walking through a space that already felt like memory. His shirt hung off my frame, oversized and rumpled, sleeves dangling past my fingers like they were trying to hold something together. The hem brushed my thighs with the kind of ease that made me ache a little.
I set the jug on. Pressed the button. That soft little click and rising hum felt sacred. Like the ritual of ordinary things meant something now. I was making hot chocolate. Always had. But I flicked the coffee machine on, too, without even thinking.
He’d want it. The moment he woke, he’d come looking for me, hair wild, sleep still tangled in his voice, and that look in his eyes—that look. Like I was gravity. Like I was the thing that kept the ground beneath him from giving way.
And I was. Just like he was for me.
I stirred the cocoa slowly, the spoon tracing slow spirals. Watching powder dissolve into heat, into something rich and sweet and dark. My body ached, but not from anything as simple as tension or bruises. It was deeper. Heavier. Release. Exhaustion. Resurrection. Pick your poison.
But today wasn’t about hiding. Not anymore. Not from him.
I folded myself onto one of the kitchen stools, knees tucked up beneath the hem of his shirt, mug cradled in both hands like I was trying to trap warmth and nerve in one go. The air still smelled like us—salt and skin and that lavender detergent I swore I hated but always threw in the basket anyway because it reminded me of the kind of nights that rewired you. I could still feel him on me, around me, beneath every inch of my skin. A phantom imprint of fingertips down my spine. A mouth at my throat. That growl he made when he lost the last of his restraint. The echo of his name between my legs and my ribs. I took a sip, slow, letting the chocolate burn its way down into somewhere that had been cold for too long.
Today wasn’t about performance. Not the kind they taught you to survive with. I wasn’t going to smile through fear or tilt my words into something soft and digestible for someone else’s comfort. No more shrinking. No more neat, clinical fragments to make everyone else feel safe around my truth.
I needed to talk. Really talk. Tell him what I remembered. What I buried. What still wakes me at four in the morning with my fist clenched in a dream I can’t explain. The fear that still crept in, even here. Even now. And the guilt I’d duct-taped to the corners of my heart because I thought maybe I deserved it.
He deserved to hear it. All of it.
And for once, I deserved to be honest without fearing that honesty would cost me love.
The floorboards creaked upstairs.
I stilled. Not out of fear. Just anticipation. I sat there—wrapped in his shirt, breathing in hot chocolate and memory—waiting for him to find me like he always did. Drawn by the scent. By the silence. By me.
I felt him before I heard him. The way the air shifted in the hallway. The soft hush of bare feet on wood. That almost imperceptible charge that always came right before he stepped into a room — like the world had been holding its breath just to let him walk through it.
And then… him. He turned the corner, slow and deliberate, as if even the gods needed a moment to catch up. Sweatpants slung low on his hips, chest bare, hair tousled like sleep had tried to tame him and failed spectacularly.
And fuck, I felt it everywhere. That low, familiar ache blooming between my legs and higher — in my ribs, my throat, the backs of my eyes.
He didn’t speak. Just looked at me. Like I was the kind of sight that deserved reverence. Like this little kitchen moment — cocoa and silence and the hem of his shirt brushing my thighs — was sacred. And then he moved. Crossed the floor like a man stepping into ritual. Arms wrapped around me from behind, warm and certain, tugging me gently against him.
I melted back like I’d been waiting for it. Because I had.
His hands slipped under the shirt. Bare palms meeting bare skin. Settling low on my stomach — over the place that had become too many things. A battlefield. A prayer. A maybe. A memory. His touch didn’t ask. Didn’t press. Just held.
I let my head fall back against his shoulder, eyes closing as his warmth curled around me like armour I didn’t have to hold up on my own. The scent of him hit me—sleep and skin and something still laced with last night’s desperation. I could’ve stayed there forever.
Then he kissed my temple.
“Talk to me, kitten,” he murmured, voice still rasped and heavy from sleep — the kind of sound that lived under my skin long after it faded. “I’m listening.”
His hands never left my body. His presence didn’t flinch. And maybe that was what broke me open the most — not the touch, not the heat, but the stillness. The knowing. Whatever I said next — however messy or jagged or impossibly me it was — he wouldn’t run. The scent of cocoa still clung to the rim of my mug, sweet and familiar, but it was the feel of him—bare skin against mine, quiet breath ghosting over my shoulder—that held me steady while the rest of me trembled.
I twisted slowly on the stool, the cotton of his shirt pulling warm and soft over my thighs. I set the mug down with both hands, the ceramic clinking against the bench like punctuation.
“I won’t pretend I’m not scared about the future,” I said quietly, my gaze locked on his. No flinching. No flight. “Not anymore. Not to protect you. Not to convince myself I’m braver than I am.”
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. And thank God for that. Because if he’d tried to reassure me too soon, I might’ve shattered right there. But he didn’t. He waited. Steady as the damn sunrise. And that gave me enough to go on.
“I used to know what to say,” I admitted, voice low and bitter with old habit. “To doctors. To therapists. Anyone with a clipboard and an exit plan. I could recite the script in my sleep. Smile here. Nod there. Drop a line about journaling or yoga or whatever the fuck they wanted to hear. I knew exactly what they needed to check their boxes and send me home.”
I let out a breath.
“But this time?” My fingers tightened slightly on his. “It didn’t work.”
There it was. No polish. No performance. Just the truth, dropped like a stone between us.
“I get it now,” I said. “I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t pretending just to fool them. I think I was trying to fool myself, too. Because if I let it in—really let it in—what happened to us, what I lost, what we almost became…It would’ve broken me. Then I thought about you. About me. About what we still have. What we’re still building—even if we’re doing it barefoot in the rubble.”
I reached up, letting my fingertips skim along the sharp line of his jaw.
“We both needed healing, mon amour. Not just me. We’re getting there. One heartbeat at a time. But, mon amour…”
He looked at me.
“I think we should see someone. Together.”
I felt his breath catch. Saw the flicker of conflict in his eyes—the part of him that always shouldered, always protected, always carried the weight in silence.
“Not because I don’t trust us,” I added, fingers brushing down to his wrist. “But because I do. And I want us to stay honest. Even with the parts that scare us. Even with the parts that still bleed. It doesn’t make us weak. Or broken. It makes us smart. Prepared. Strong enough to do whatever it takes to protect this—”
I tapped my chest. Then his.
“—us. You said you’d carry it all with me. But maybe it’s okay to let someone else carry a little of it too. Just enough that we’re not dragging it behind us for the rest of our lives. I want our children—if we have them—to see what love looks like when it’s healed. Not just when it’s survived.”
And I meant it. All of it. Because this was the beginning. Of something real. Of something whole. Of something worth every scar it took to get here.
He didn’t resist. Didn’t hesitate. Didn’t roll the words around like something he’d promise later and quietly forget. He just said it.
“Then we do.”
And my heart… God, it felt like it remembered how to live again. Like it had been bracing for the usual soft let-down and instead got handed something wild and tender and true. That steady, aching beat behind my ribs thudded harder, like it was trying to carve those words into bone.
I leaned into him. Just a little. Just enough that his forehead brushed the side of my temple. That quiet, unspoken kind of touch that didn’t demand anything—it just existed. Warm. Steady. Mine. I breathed him in. Morning skin. Cocoa. That undercurrent of strength he carried so quietly, like the world had never broken him even when it tried.
“I think I’m done with Amalfi,” I said softly, voice muffled slightly by the closeness. “Too much happened here. Too many shadows in corners that are meant for sun.”
I didn’t have to say which corners.
He knew.
The hospital. The overdose. The room I couldn’t walk past without tasting salt and metal at the back of my throat.
I turned toward him, enough to catch his eyes.
“It was beautiful once,” I whispered. “You made it beautiful. But now? It’s a graveyard with room service.”
His inhale was sharp. Not surprised. Just… hit. And hard. But he didn’t let go.
“I want to leave,” I said clearly. “Not run. Just… move forward. Japan, maybe? We talked about it once. You said you spoke fluent Japanese—smug bastard.”
The words were half-laugh, half-confession. A soft smile curled at the edges of my mouth before I could stop it.
“I never forgot. It’s peaceful there, right?” I tilted my head, voice lowering. “All I want right now is to breathe. With you.”
His hand tightened around mine, just slightly. Permission. Solidarity. Yes.
“And maybe,” I added, voice gentling, “we find someone there. A therapist. A professional who’ll talk to both of us. Someone who doesn’t already have a file thick with what other people decided we were. Just… someone who listens. From scratch.”
My fingers brushed through his hair, the way he had done for me a hundred quiet times when I’d needed to remember I was still here.
“I don’t want to be dissected again. I want to be heard.” My voice caught, but didn’t break. “And I want you to be heard too.”
He looked at me then like I was the one dragging him out of the fire this time, barefoot and defiant, daring the smoke to chase me.
“Let’s make Japan our new page,” I whispered. “Not a hiding place. A beginning.”
And I meant it. Not clean-slate perfection. Not forgetting. Just something new. Something not haunted. I leaned in and kissed him—slow, deep, steady. When I pulled back, I didn’t tremble. I just held his gaze, voice steady as stone.
“No more graveyards, mon amour. Just gardens. Let’s go.”
