Free Damaged, The Romance of Nick and Layla (Part 4) by Crystal Cierlak

beyond the horizon of the Pacific to ignite the other side of the world in daylight, and his arms are the very support I need to keep me standing upright.
    After some time he pulls back to look at me, and I can see the depth of his own sorrow truly for the first time. It ages him, but he’s still handsome, even despite his red eyes and tear streaked cheeks.
    My own crying has subsided, the quaking shoulders have calmed, and I can feel my melancholy lessening by the moment.
    “I miss him terribly,” I confess, and Nick smiles and nods back at me. He understands, and for the first time I really get it that he understands. “I think I’ve missed you terribly, too.” The words are out before I’ve had time to consider them fully, but they sound honest even to my own ears.
    Something lights his eyes from within and they grow infinitesimally. He’s looking at me like he’s taking in my face for the first time in forever. My eyes and nose, cheeks and mouth. He puts his hands on either side of my face and drinks me in and I feel wholly cherished. I can see him leaning in to me and I close my eyes just as his lips touch mine. He kisses them and then takes my top and bottom lip each in succession between his own, tugging the bottom one out with a gentle ease. It’s worlds apart from last night’s invasive kiss when he was trying to get me to say something - anything - to him for the first time.
    I open my eyes to see him staring down at me, and his hands are still on my face like he’s holding something with great care. That muscle memory is still alive and open and I think I’m looking at him with a renewed perspective. I don’t hate him. Not at all actually. And I think I realize that part of the mourning I have gone through, the torment of seeing his name and his face, has been because I, too, have been grieving for the death of our love.
    It feels in the moment like everything has changed. The wall has been broken down and finally everything is out in the open. There are no truths to run from or lies to hide behind, and I think it’s taken us ten years to finally come to a moment of absolute clarity and honesty.
    “I don’t know if I could have survived the death of you, too,” I whisper to him. His face is momentarily flushed with what I at first think is pain, but realize is utter realization, like he is also seeing me with a fresh perspective.
    “You were the reason I didn’t go through with it, Layla,” he whispers hoarsely back, and his eyes are starting to well up with tears again. My heart is bursting. Nick.
    “I have something for you.” His hands leave my face and he’s pulling something out from his back pocket. It’s a small blue Tiffany’s box with a signature white ribbon. My bursting heart skips a beat and it takes a minute to realize the box is a flatter square, nothing resembling a ring box.
    Sigh. For a moment there…
    “Happy birthday, Layla,” he says as he hands me the beautiful box. I unwrap the bow and lift the top up, handling the iconic packaging with care.
    Oh my . It’s a locket in the shape of a heart, made out of 18k rose gold on a rose gold chain. It’s stunning.
    “Open it,” he whispers.
    I do, and gasp. On the left side of the open heart is a photo of me, Nick and Tyler. Tyler’s still a newborn, and Nick and I are on either side of him kissing his cheeks as he sleeps. The right side is my favorite photo: Tyler on his first birthday, laughing and covered in frosting.
    My heart is bursting once more, and this time when I cry the tears are happy ones.
    “It’s beautiful!” I exclaim through my quiet tears.
    “Turn it over,” Nick instructs, and as I do I see three letters hand engraved in French script. N. L. T. Nick. Layla. And Tyler. I barely know what to say. It’s unexpected and lovely and so incredibly warm hearted.
    “Will you help me put it on?” I ask, and take the delicate chain from the box to hold out to him. I turn my back to Nick and pull my hair to