it's just a little white lie, adna

[bethlehem]

I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.

He knows that she’s right.
Were he a romantic he might have thought it some kind of magic.
That the two of them had found each other and, instead of subscribing to the natural order of things, forged their own way, simply made it up as they went along.
But he is a simple man who understands that that specific kind of magic does not exist in the world. Love is not a song or a poem or any other number of romantic things.

He understands now that love is hard but it is worth it in the quiet moments like these. When she presses her mouth against his skin and fills him with heat. When he lays his head to rest along the length of her rocky spine and feels her move beneath it. When they breathe in tandem, long and slow and even. When she is not threatening to rip his throat out or leave. When he is not being willfully ignorant or obtuse.

He laughs, buoyed by the light in her. “It’s going to be hard,” he warns, though he knows she is just as acutely aware of this as he is. He draws back then, kisses her forehead. “But I wouldn’t want to figure it out with anyone else.”

BETHLEHEM

I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.