Chapter 7 - Deliberate Trust
Trust had not returned to what it was before.
That was the unexpected gift.
Before, my trust had been careless.
Automatic.
I assumed love made honesty inevitable.
Now our trust was deliberate.
We discussed money every month.
Separate accounts remained separate.
Shared expenses were visible to both of us.
Neither signed documents for the other.
Financial decisions above an agreed amount required two conversations, not one.
It sounded unromantic.
I found it deeply romantic.
Respect often looks ordinary from the outside.
At dinner that New Year’s Eve, three years after the first one, Lily sat in a booster seat between Ryan and me wearing a paper crown.
Brooke raised her glass.
“To surviving another year of life without instructions.”
We all toasted.
Even Grant lifted his glass of sparkling cider.
After dinner, while the others talked in the living room, Ryan and I stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes.
He washed.
I dried.
“Remember our first New Year’s Eve in this house?” he asked quietly.
“Vividly.”
“I thought I was protecting everything.”
“You were protecting your position.”
He paused, a plate in his soapy hands, and looked down at the water.
“Yeah. I was.”
He set the plate in the rack and dried his hands on a towel.
Then he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder.
“Thank you for not giving up on the person under all that mess.”
I turned slightly in his arms.
“I didn’t do it for the mess, Ryan. I did it because you stopped pretending the mess wasn’t yours.”
He pressed his forehead against mine.
May you like
“Deal?”
“Deal.”
