Things I've Stopped Apologising For (Lily)

A list, so future Lily remembers this summer exactly as it was and does not file it down into something she can say at brunch.

1. Wanting it in daylight. I used to need the lights off and a reason. He looked at me at two in the afternoon, sawdust on his arms, completely unbothered, and I forgot I had ever needed either.

2. The noise I make. I am loud. I spent a decade apologising for it. The first night he said do not be quiet on my account, and he was not asking, and I have not apologised since.

3. Saying the actual thing out loud. He does not guess and he will not let me be vague about it. I said exactly what I wanted, in plain words, and he held my eyes and did it, which should not take a person apart as thoroughly as it takes me apart.

4. Texting a grown man the word now, with no preamble. I thought you lost the right to do that somewhere around thirty. You do not. You just need the right one to text it to.

5. Crying after, the good kind. The first time, I started to explain it, and he put one hand flat on my back and said I know and did not make it weird. That is the one that actually got me. Not the rest of it. That.