Older

by Jennifer Hartmann

the same shade of red as his angry face when he’d discovered the mess.

Violet veins had popped in his neck, meaty fists clenching at his sides.

I guess that was why I loved too much. I had a lot of loveless holes to fill.

I couldn’t put my fractured family back together.

Bad day. Bad night. Bad life.

“Anyway, I hope you find your person. Maybe they’re the one who’s lost and they’re waiting for you to find them.”

“Yes. Now she’s just an alcoholic.”

my ambitions are kind of scattered and hard to catch.

People always overcomplicate shit.” “That’s because life is complicated,”

“Life is living. If you’re not living exactly the way you want to live, then what’s the fucking point?”

Everything was hollow. Everything except for my heart. And having an abundant heart in a hollow world was an affliction I was helpless to overcome.

“Relationships are overrated. Love is nothing but a building block for collapse. A stepping stone for tripping and stumbling into a black hole you can’t climb out of it.”

But being jaded doesn’t come with age; it comes with hardship. And hardship can blow through like a stormfront, destroying everything in a blink. Five years old, fifteen, fifty. Doesn’t matter. Once you’re caught in the funnel, you never stop spinning out.”

The invitation shot tiny firecrackers between my ribs. Between my legs.

After all… I would only be getting older.

It was the only gift I received that Christmas.

“You raised me on a diet of beatings and cruelty. If I’m anything like her, it’s because that’s the only example I had. Congratulations.”

He was a monsoon, and I was the unfortunate soul caught in its path.

“Confidence is like a muscle,” I told him. “It needs consistent exercise. The more you practice, the stronger it becomes. It’s not about eliminating self-doubt entirely—it’s about pushing through it.”

just been hard. Being here. Relying on someone else’s family for everything because mine didn’t want me. It’s hard to live,”

“Lost things don’t have to stay lost forever. They can be found.”

It’s not this shadow, this terrified little lamb constantly looking over her shoulder for the big bad wolf to attack. To take another bite out of me.

She was defiance. A force. A kaleidoscope in motion.

my reply more frozen than my fingers. “Fantastic.”

“I would have taken you back to my apartment,” I said darkly, teeth gritted, my fist still tangled in her hair. “And we wouldn’t have made it to the bedroom before I knew what your pussy tasted like.”

I knew that when I left his arms tonight, I would never get them back. These arms would never swoop me backward on an altar as we shared a forever kiss. They would never hold me in the middle of the night when I awoke from a nightmare. They would never cushion our newborn baby as he gazed down at a pink or blue swaddle with love in his eyes.

The sounds he made as he ate me—animalistic, hungry, insatiable.

They glinted with promises he wanted to make but couldn’t keep.

Fairy tales he wanted to weave into happily ever afters.

Me on one side of the waterline, and him on the other.

I was still fucking inside you when you checked out and then bolted from the apartment.”

“Older doesn’t translate to wiser, and age doesn’t guarantee answers.”

“When you’re a parent, you’re consciously aware that these days are ahead, destined to find you. You try to prepare, and you think you’ll be ready, but it’s not possible. These moments always seem so damn far away at the time, and then—bam. No more piggyback rides, no more swimming lessons, no more birthday cake painting the walls. It’s like I blinked and you were older.”

But they can still be beautiful while they’re here.”

“Every moment with you fucking hurts.” His voice was pure grit, words cracking and breaking. “Every moment without you…hurts so much more.”

A beautiful haze of wrong and right, nothing and everything, could be, wouldn’t be, shouldn’t be. Is.

“You can’t pull me from rock bottom and then send me right back.”

“Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to respond to the things you’re setting in motion.”

“Falling for you has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” I confessed through the anguish. “Everything else? Painful. Torturous. Difficult beyond belief. But loving you…” The anger died out, flatlining to a dead pulse. “Effortless.”

Fight. Fight for you, for your future. Not with fists and kicks, but with what you’ve always fought best with: love.

All I could do was wait. Reed had given me a lifeline. But I wanted a lifetime.

Imperfections are what bind us together.

“You keep answering my questions with questions.” “That’s how we find answers.”