I scan the radio stations in search of a song I can sing to. I’m in the mood to sing. My windows are down, the weather is gorgeous, and it occurred to me on my way home from work that I haven’t been in the mood to sing at the top of my lungs in my car in a long time. I don’t know if it’s because of the trajectory my life took over the past year, or if it’s college, or a combination of both. But something shifted this past week. It’s as if my life was a roller coaster, speeding through dark tunnels and spinning through loops with my entire body being jerked left to right and front to back and then…whoosh. The emotional roller coaster is coming to a smooth, slow, comforting part of the ride where I can just release a breath and know that I’m safe and everything inside of me is beginning to settle.
That’s what this feels like. My life is finally beginning to feel settled.
After helping move Maggie in on Sunday, we were all exhausted. We sprawled out on her living room furniture, me and Ridge on one couch, Maggie and Bridgette on the other, and Warren on the floor. We all watched the season finale of The Bachelor—a show none of us has seen a single episode of all season, but we couldn’t find the remote and no one felt like changing the channel. Warren got really into it and started arguing with the TV when he felt the guy picked the girl Warren would have bet against if Warren had money.
When it was over, Ridge and I walked back to his apartment and crashed for the night. I was too exhausted to drive home, and we were both too exhausted to even shower. We walked straight to the bed and fell on top of it. We must have fallen asleep right away without even removing our clothes, because I woke up in the middle of the night to him slipping off my shoes and pulling the covers over me.
It’s been three days since then, and it’s all just felt so right. So good. It’s strange how I don’t even have my shit together yet, being a college student living paycheck to paycheck. But I feel like I would be happy with my life if it stayed this way forever. It goes to show that a person really doesn’t need much if they’re surrounded by the right people. Loved by the right people.
If I could bottle up the love I have for my life today, I would. It’s a love
worth saving.
I pull into my complex and grab my phone to check it as I exit my car. There’s still no text from Ridge. He told me he’d text when he finished up with work today, but it’s after seven and I haven’t heard from him.
Me: You coming over tonight? Ridge: Do you want me to?
Me: I always want you to.
I insert my key into the lock and open my apartment door. I’m staring down at my phone, waiting for Ridge to text me back, when someone grabs me from behind. I scream, but realize almost immediately that it’s Ridge, just by the feel of his arms wrapped around me. I spin in his arms, and he’s smiling down at me.
“I’m glad you didn’t say no, because I’m already here.”
I laugh. My heartbeat is erratic. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here, but I couldn’t be happier to see him right now. He kisses me, and it somehow makes this day even better.
I can’t even stand myself right now. I don’t recall ever being this in love with my life before today, and I don’t know how to get used to this new version of myself. I got so used to being so full of gloom for so long, it’s like I’m discovering a part of me that didn’t exist before this month.
Or maybe it always existed…I just never had anyone who could pull out the best parts of me like Ridge does.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him. His hands cradle my cheeks and he kisses me back, walking me until my back meets the counter. We kiss for a good minute before I recognize that my entire apartment smells like a restaurant. I pull away from him and turn around to find dinner prepared on the stove. When I look back at Ridge, he’s smiling at me. “Surprise. I cooked.”
“What’s the special occasion?”
“There doesn’t need to be a special occasion for me to want to make you happy. I’ll be treating you like this for the rest of your life.”
I like the sound of that.
Ridge leans in and plants quick kisses down my neck before pulling away and walking to the stove. “It’ll be ready in five minutes if you want to change.”
I smile on my way to my bedroom. He knows me too well. He knows that no matter what time of day it is, as soon as I walk through the door, I like to be comfortable. That means getting rid of my bra the minute I get home. It means getting out of my jeans and pulling on a pair of pajama pants and one
of his T-shirts. It means pulling my hair up in a knot and having absolutely zero care about anything but being as comfortable as I can possibly be.
I love that he loves that about me.
When I walk back into the kitchen, he’s setting the table. He made baked chicken and vegetables with a side of risotto. I honestly don’t know that my kitchen has ever experienced this kind of meal before. I rarely cook full meals because it’s just me. Sometimes Ridge and me. But it’s rare that we go all out and do something as drastic as use the oven. Microwave, sure. Stovetop, maybe. But oven means a serious meal, and we haven’t had much time for that. I sign and tell him it looks delicious, and then proceed to eat half of it without stopping. It tastes even better than it looks.
“Seriously, Ridge. It’s delicious.” “Thank you.”
“I can’t cook like this.”
“Yes, you can. It just tastes better to you because you didn’t make it.
That’s how cooking works.”
I laugh. Hopefully that’s true. “How was work today?”
He shrugs. “Played catch-up. But Brennan texted and said he needs me to play a show with him because they’re short a guitarist next weekend.”
“Where at?”
“Dallas. You want to come? Make a weekend of it?”
I nod. Watching Ridge on stage is my favorite thing. “Absolutely. Will Sadie be there?”
Ridge gives me a look to let me know he doesn’t know who I’m talking about.
“Sadie the singer,” I clarify. “The girl who started opening for Brennan. I think he likes her.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure she will be.” He grins. “That should be interesting.”
From what I’ve learned about Brennan, he doesn’t get crushes on girls very often, which makes me invested in seeing how this turns out. I hope I get to meet her.
That thought leads me to my next thought. I can’t visit Dallas without stopping to see my parents. “Since we’ll be in Dallas…do you want to have dinner with my parents?”
Ridge answers immediately. “I would love to meet your parents, Sydney.”
I don’t know why, but that sentence made my heart melt a little. I smile and take a drink.
“Have you told your parents about me?” he asks.
“I told my mother I have a boyfriend. She asked me twenty questions.” He grins. “Only twenty?”
“Maybe twenty-five.”
“What did you say? How did you describe me?”
“I said you’re very talented. And very cute. And good at pranks. And good in bed.”
Ridge laughs. “I’m sure you did.” He leans back in his chair, casually bumping my knee with his. He’s staring at his plate, scooting around the rest of his risotto. “Did you tell them I’m deaf?”
I didn’t tell them, but for no other reason than it just didn’t come up, and I honestly didn’t think about it. “Should I have?”
Ridge shrugs. “Might be worth mentioning. I don’t like to catch people off guard if I can avoid it. I like for them to have a heads up.”
“You didn’t give me a heads up.” “It was different with you.” “How?”
He tilts his head and contemplates his answer. Then he picks up his phone, which means he wants to explain something that he feels he can get across better in text than if he were to verbalize.
Ridge: In most cases, I like to warn people before we meet. It makes for less of an uncomfortable moment when they find out. I didn’t warn you because it felt like…I don’t know. It was just different with you.
Sydney: A good different?
Ridge: The best kind of different there can possibly be. My whole life I’ve been the deaf guy. It comes first with every person I ever meet. Being deaf and how a person will react to that is my first thought in every new conversation I have. It’s most likely the first thought of the person I’m having the conversation with. It defines how they treat me, how they react to me, and how I react to them. But with you, I sometimes forget that part of myself. With you, I forget the one thing that defines me to everyone else. With you…I’m just me.
I’m glad he texted all that, because it’s one more thing he’s said to me that I want to keep track of and remember forever.
“My parents are going to love you just as much as I do.”
Ridge smiles for a moment, but the smile is fleeting. He tries to hide it as he reaches for his drink, but I saw the split-second conflict in his eyes. It makes me wonder if he’s only agreeing to meet them to appease me. What if he isn’t ready to take that step? It’s not like we’ve been dating long at all.
“You okay?” I sign.
He nods, reaching for my hand. He rests his on top of it on the table, brushing his thumb across it. “I’m good,” he says. “It’s just that sometimes you make me wish I had better parents. Parents who could meet you and know you’re perfect for me. Parents who could love you.”
His words make my heart ache for him. “You have Brennan. He loves that you’re happy.”
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “And Warren.” “And Bridgette.”
Ridge makes a face. “Oddly enough.”
“Right? I really like her,” I say with a laugh. “If someone would have told me six months ago that me and Bridgette would eventually be good friends, I would have bet my life savings against it. It’s only five hundred dollars, but still.”
Ridge laughs. “If you would have told me six months ago that me and you would be dating and spending an entire day helping Maggie move into my complex, I would have bet your life savings against it, too.”
“Life is strange, isn’t it?”
Ridge nods. “Beautifully strange.”
I smile at him, and we finish eating in comfortable silence. I clear the table and load the dishes into the dishwasher. Ridge hooks his phone up to the Bluetooth on my stereo and turns on one of my Spotify playlists.
This is how I know he truly loves me. He does things that don’t have an impact on him at all, like making sure there’s always music playing, even though he can’t hear it. He knows I like it, so he does it to make me happy. It reminds me of the first time he did this. We were in his car, driving home from the club, and he turned on his car radio for me.
It’s the small things people do for others that define the largest parts of them.
Ridge folds his arms over the bar and leans forward, smiling at me. “I got you a present.”
I grin as I turn on the dishwasher. “You did?”
He reaches out for my hand. “It’s in your bedroom.”
I have no idea what it is, but I grab his hand with both of mine and pull him to the bedroom because I’m excited. He pulls me back so he can walk through the door first. He lets go of my hands so he can sign what he’s speaking. “We were writing a song together once when you mentioned how you wish you had one of these.”
He pushes open the door and walks to my bed, then pulls a huge box out from beneath it. It’s an electric keyboard, complete with a stand and a stool. I recognize the brand immediately. It’s the same ones we use in my music classes, so I know exactly how much he spent on this gift, and I immediately want to tell him I can’t accept it. But at the same time, I’m so excited about it, I rush over to it and run my hand over the box.
I throw my arms around him and kiss him all over his face. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
He laughs, knowing how happy he just made me. “Is it the right one?” I nod. “It’s perfect.”
I had a piano growing up at my parent’s house, but it’s too big to travel
with. I grew up playing it, which started my love for music. I’ve slowly been integrating other instruments, but the piano is where my heart is. Ridge sets the keyboard up against the wall. I sit down and start playing a song, and Ridge sits down on the bed. He watches my hands with the same appreciation as someone who would be able to hear what they’re creating.
When I finish playing the song, I run my hand appreciatively over the keys. I can’t believe he remembered one comment I made a long time ago about wishing I had a piano like the ones we use at school. “Why did you get me this?”
“Because. You’re good at songwriting, Syd. Really good. You deserve an instrument that can help you create music.”
I crinkle up my nose at him because he knows I’m weird with compliments. Just like he is, I guess. I crawl onto the bed with him and wrap my arms around him, looking him in the eyes. “Thank you.”
He brushes my hair back, sliding his hand to the side of my head. “You’re welcome.”
I’m inspired. By him, by his gift, by the feeling I had on my way home when the windows were down and the music was blaring. “Let’s write a song right now. I got an idea on the way home from work.” I lean over to the nightstand and grab the pad of paper and pens. We both sit up against my headboard, but the guitar he leaves here is against the wall. He doesn’t retrieve it, and instead, we decide to start with lyrics first.
On the way home, I had the thought that I wanted things to feel this way forever. I wanted to bottle up his love and save it forever. As soon as I had that thought, I knew I wanted to write a song that revolved around that feeling. At the top of the page, I write the potential title, “Love Worth Saving.” I write the first few lines of lyrics as they come to me.
Got a little money Enough to get us by
Our house ain’t pretty honey But baby it keeps us dry
Our friends ain’t rich or famous But we pretend on the weekend
I tap the page as I move my fingers across the lyrics to give Ridge an idea of the pacing of the song. He pats his hand on his knee in time with mine and then reaches for the pen and writes, “Chorus,” then follows that up with a few lines of his own.
Even if our clothes are fading
They’ll always look new on you Even when the times are changing
Nothing’s gonna change my view on you You know we got a love worth saving
As soon as I see the lines, “Even if our clothes are fading, they’ll always look new on you,” I smile. Last week we were having a conversation about my possibly changing degree paths. I still don’t know what I want to do, but he was supportive of whatever I decide, even if it means we’ll struggle financially a little longer. He said those words to me, that clothes would look new on me, even if they’re faded, and I told him he better put it in a song. It’s almost as if he’s been waiting for this moment and already had those lyrics prepared. It’s incredible how seamlessly we work together. Writing music is such a solitary thing, much like how I assume writing a book would be. But when we’re together, it just works. It’s like we’re better together than we are alone.
He’s tapping through the beat of the chorus, but I’m still stuck on the lyrics he wrote. I draw a heart next to them to let him know I love them. Then I pause for a moment until I can come up with the next few lines of lyrics.
Don’t need no gold or diamonds Got the glow right in your eyes If it’s your love you’re selling
You know I’m gon’ keep on buyin’
We can make something outta nothing Just keep that feel good coming
Ridge hops off the bed and grabs his guitar. I decide to use the record feature on the keyboard, so I move over to the bench and he sits next to me on the bed. He spends the next fifteen minutes working out the song on his guitar, and I use what he’s creating on the guitar to match it with the piano.
He adds a few more lyrics and another chorus, and within an hour, the song is mostly worked out. We just need to give it to Brennan for a rough recording this week to see how it sounds. This was one of the easier ones we’ve written together. I record us playing through it again and then hit play on the keyboard so I can listen to it. It’s more upbeat than most of the songs we write together.
I love writing with two instruments. The options to add more variations using the keyboard makes the song sound more polished than ones we’ve sent Brennan in the past just using Ridge’s guitar. I’m so excited about the song and the gift Ridge gave me that it makes me want to dance as it’s playing back.
Ridge sets his guitar aside and watches me dance around the room as the song plays. I laugh every time our eyes meet because I’m in such a good mood. At one point, when I glance at him, he’s not smiling. I pause, wondering what just changed in him.
He signs, “I wish I could dance with you.” “You can. You have.”
He shakes his head. “Not to a slow song where I just stand there. I mean like this.” He waves his hand toward me. “To a faster rhythm.”
My chest tightens with his words. I step toward him and hold out his hand, pulling him up. “Ridge Lawson, you can do anything you want.”
I wrap one hand around his neck, and he places his hands on my waist. I start tapping against his chest along with the beat of the song. I move left to right to the rhythm, and he starts to follow my lead. I sing the lyrics so he can watch my mouth and know where we are in the song. When the song ends, I reach over and hit play again so we can keep going.
Ridge starts to fall in line with the rhythm, and I laugh when it finally happens. He laughs, too, as he starts to take over and keep up with a beat he can’t even hear. He leads me around the room as I sing and tap against him. At the end of the final chorus, he spins me and then pulls me against his chest as we both come to a slow stop.
He holds me there, staring down at me as I look up at him. We’re both smiling. Looking in his eyes, I can see the complete appreciation he has for me like I’ve never seen before. Like I just gave him something he thought he would never experience.
For me, it was a simple dance—something I do all the time and take for granted. For him, it was a breakthrough. Something he’s never done before that he believed he couldn’t do.
How he’s probably feeling right now is how he makes me feel every time he turns on the stereo for me. It’s the little things like these that create the biggest moments between us.
He cradles my face in his hands, as if about to say something, but instead of speaking or signing, he takes a deep, silent breath while gazing at me. He lowers his mouth to mine, giving me a tender kiss. Then he looks into my eyes, communicating more in that single glance than he ever has through any other means.
“Sydney,” he says softly. “Everything we’ve been through to get here—right here—it was all worth it.”
No sign or words could ever surpass the depth of what he’s just conveyed.
I reach over and hit play on our song again. He smiles as I wrap my arms around his neck, and he presses his forehead to mine. Together, we dance.
