Staring into the fire later that evening, I told Mark, “We’ll burn that Yule log tomorrow.”
We sat and held hands, gazing into the leaping flames.
Mark eventually broke the silence. “I haven’t told you much about what life was like for me at home, have I?”
“Not really.”
“I’ve always thought all this was a safe zone, you know?” He gestured to our modest living room. “It’s a place where I feel comfortable, at peace with the world, somewhere where no bad things can happen to me. It all stems from when you’d have me round when…”
“I know,” I said softly, not wanting to say out loud that he felt safe here when I’d purchased an hour or two of his time.
“And I could forget for a couple of hours everything that was going on outside.”
I kissed his cheek, silently giving him my support.
“So
