A Brush with Love

'Do you know what a honey mushroom is?' she blurted out, plucking at the hair on his arm, which was wrapped around her.
He was silent for a moment before letting out a husky laugh. 'No. Why?'
'It’s the largest living thing on earth. Larger than trees, elephants, whales—this one living thing takes up over three square miles in Oregon.'
She could almost feel him turning that random fact over his brain. She was glad she wasn’t facing him. This would be so much harder to look into his eyes instead of at the wall.
'Like the mushroom cap is over three miles across?' he asked.
Harper shook her head. 'No, no. That’s the amazing part. When you look at it—the part you see aboveground—it’s this tiny little mushroom head. It looks so insignificant. They just pop up here and there.' She gestured with her fingertips as though she could draw them in the air.
'But it creates this root-like system called hyphae. And the hyphae—it spreads and grows and, kind of… takes over underground. One living thing, every cell genetically identical, spreading below the surface to take up enormous amount of space.'
Dan was quiet for a moment. 'Why are you telling me this?' he asked, placing a kiss into her neck.
Harper swallowed and fiddled with the edge of the sheet. 'Because that’s what my anxiety feels like—a honey mushroom.'
She felt Dan tense behind her, but she pushed on.
'A lot of times, someone on the outside, like you, maybe, sees these clues to it—my fidgeting, my mind seeming a million miles away, panic attacks. But inside'—she tapped her chest—'it’s this intricate network of sharp pain and fear that’s constantly growing and pulsing through me. It’s always there, right beneath my skin, huge and controlling, but no one can see it. I just feel it. And it hurts. So badly. It makes me want to curl up into a ball or sprint out of my skeleton. This huge, inescapable thing inside me that controls me.'
She paused, picking aggressively at her nails. 'It feels cruel to have your own body do that to you.'

'I’ve spent my entire life afraid of pain,' she said, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. 'Losing my mom... It felt like something broke in me after that. My body felt in constant danger. I cling to routine and order and perfection because I think I can control those things. If I can control my life, things can’t hurt me.' She blinked, tilting her head back as tears traced down her cheeks. 'I’m terrified of letting people in and losing them. So scared of experiencing that pain again,' she continued, looking at him. 'And losing someone I loved so much has made me unsure how to love without losing.'

For all my anxious angels and worry warriors. Don't let the monsters get you down.

He was an open book, and Harper wanted to devour every page.