Captive - FourTris

Seventeen

APRIL 25
7 MONTHS, 26 DAYS

Tobias is in the kind of mood I rarely see him in. The kind where he smiles and cracks jokes. The kind that give me hope that someday he'll be whole again. I know if we can make a life for ourselves, away from all the drama of his old life, he could be like this all the time.

People don't understand us. They don't understand me. They think it's so black and white, that he makes me miserable and that I should be with someone else and that I deserve something else.

But it's not black and white at all. It's gray. It's a never-ending world of gray.

They don't understand that there is so much to him that they'll never see. That he only shows to me. They don't understand that late at night, he tells me how beautiful I am. He tells me all the things he will give me one day, when our problems are over. They don't understand that he would die for me.

We are going sailing today. After last week, when he missed our appointment, he used his own money to rent the boat again. Even though I know he can't afford it. Even though I know it means he isn't going to pay the light bill so that we can do this.

I don't care, because this moment is all I need to get through the darkness.

He's holding my hand and talking about sleeping on the boat. He wants to tie it to a buoy out in the bay and stay there overnight, listening to the water and forgetting about everything but the moment and the night.

I think it's the best thing I've ever heard.

Tobias knows exactly what to do and he shows me how to untie the boat from the dock and flip the bumpers over the edge of the little railing. He motors out of the marina and then I hold on to the little rudder and he starts tugging on nylon lines and whipping things around and in seconds the boat picks up speed and we are gliding, and he kills the engine.

The silence is beautiful. All I hear is the water and the way it splashes the bow, and the sound of the sail as it slaps around if he turns the boat out of the wind.

He's concentrating, so I lean back on the bench and let the sun warm my face, and I relax. For the first time in weeks, I let the tension leave my body and let myself dream of life like this, when Tobias is always happy and things are just ... easy.
We sail for nearly an hour before Tobias speaks.

"You look cute on this boat. It suits you."

I open my eyes and look at him, still in my dreamlike state. "You look cute sailing."

He grins at me, one of his genuine smiles. "I love you," he says.

"I know. I love you too."

He tilts his head and stares at me, his blue eyes sparkling with such genuine happiness it brings tears to my eyes, happy tears for once, and I have to slide over and get closer to him. He keeps one hand on the rudder and wraps his free one around me. The wind is whipping my hair around, making it dance, and it gets in his face but he doesn't move away from me.

"I'm so glad I found you. You're everything to me. I couldn't do this without you. I would have given up a long time ago."

I know that he doesn't mean it figuratively; I know it's literal. I know there were nights he wanted to find a bridge and jump right off.

But he knew I would be there for him. He knew that together, we could do anything, and life could be good for him. For us.
I try to get closer to him, though it's not possible.

"I wish we could do this every single day," he says. "I wish this was our life."

I nod. "It will be, some day. We'll get a boat and we'll fill it with food and fishing poles and we'll sail the world. And we won't give anyone our phone number or anything, and no one will be able to touch us."

He sighs and rests his lips against my temple, and I close my eyes. There are no shooting stars or wishbones or magic dust, but I make a wish anyway.

I wish that we both last long enough for it to happen.