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Married to Henrik Karlsson, and I didn’t even get a kiss. This was a big fucking mistake.
Henrik would just stay in Sweden, they’d approve the emergency custody order.
As a CPS worker, all this talk about Childrens services and now even an ECO being mentioned is simply too much for me… my smutty books and my job should not cross paths in this manner
The question is whether I can trust him not to crush my heart. Because he has it in his hands in more ways than one. As surely as it now pulses under his palm, I know it beats only for him. Can I really trust him not to break it? God help me, I know the answer is no. But I pick up the pen anyway. And I sign the form.
“Gentlemen, the homophobia in this country is a river that runs deep.
I may have never met Petra Karlsson, but I feel her absence too. I stand now in the gaping hole she left behind, arms outstretched, just trying to keep this cosmic wound from growing larger for the two people who remain.
I made this bed, and now I’m gonna lie in it. Or cry in it. Both.
When you’re generous, people take from you. They fucking drain you dry. And you’re too goddamn nice to stop them. You would let the life drain from your own eyes if it meant you were seen by others as a good person.
Outside that door, chaos swirls. But in here? In Teddy’s arms? There is only peace. I want to chase this feeling.
Lord knows he’s done enough for me already. Whatever my husband wants, he gets.
“How will I know if I can give you everything you want, if you won’t let me try?”
Teddy is the truth I never saw coming. The truth that I could want more from life, deserve more.
I am forever changed by the people in my life who made changing feel not only possible, but desirable.”
This is for Teddy O’Connor, my husband, min kärlek, mitt allt . . .
Their thirst for bloodlust knows no bounds. Not for the first time, I feel like a gladiator in the Colosseum. This is a dangerous sport and accidents happen. Would they even care if we died? Is that how I might meet my end? To their thunderous applause?
“Du är så vacker.”
This man came crashing into my life with all the subtly of an earthquake. He shook me to my very foundation. In the span of weeks, I’ve been remade. There was the Henrik Karlsson before Teddy. And there will be the Henrik Karlsson after.
He ought to drive me crazy. He does drive me crazy. And yet, I can’t seem to get enough. With Teddy, I fear there is no enough.
This beautiful man is in my arms, and he loves me. With all my faults, all my fears and over-rationalizations. He’s been biding his time for years, just waiting for me to notice him. I see him now. I can’t look away.
“Du är min nu,” I say with a smile. “Du betyder allt för mig.”
“Jag är kär i dig.”
You’re my kryptonite, Henrik. You’re my fucking sun.”
“If I am the sun, you are the sea.” “What?” “In the story,” he presses, “Icarus is warned not to fly too close to sun or sea. It’s not the sun that kills him, Teddy. It’s the sea. Both are wild and untamed. Both are strong. You’re not a victim of the forces that surround you. You are the force. Depthless, endless, ever reaching. You’re not Icarus. You’re the sea.”
He does this to me. He twists me up, leaving me breathless and voiceless, completely incapable of thought. To go from feeling all but numb to life to this vibrancy? It’s almost more than I can bear.
But with Henrik, this doesn’t feel like a risk. God help me, it feels like coming home.
“Min Teddy . . . jag är din och du är min.”
He was a dream. Now he’s my home.
“I kept putting pieces of myself in boxes. Too loud? Put it in a box. Too emotional? In another box. I tried to be whatever people around me needed me to be. I did it so much, I think I forgot who I really was.”
Teddy, the man who is my heart’s fire, mate of my soul .
In the end, it’s all about preserving human dignity. In their rush to print stories, the press seems to forget about the people behind them. These are very human lives they hold in their hands, and they have the power to crush us into dust with a few pointed words.
“Mitt livs kärlek . . . mitt allt.”
I will love Teddy until the end, until there is nothing left of me but ash.
“But those are just things, habits and patterns, the little routines you live by. I know more now. I know the rhythm of your breathing when you sleep. I know the catch of your breath when you hear something that surprises you. I know the furrow of your brow when you don’t get your way. I think I could chart the pattern of the freckles on your cheeks with my eyes closed. They’re more precious to me now than the stars in the sky. They are the constellation that guides me home. To you. Always to you. Only to you. My life and my love, my only one.”
I was drowning, and he saved me. I was lonely, and he brought joy and laughter into my life. I was lost, set adrift, and he found me. He reeled me in and moored me to him. We are bound now. Irrevocably. Teddy is my life and my love. To the end of my days, he is my home.
