The Anchor and I

     We were both so young then, when he first said it. “It’s okay, I’m right here.” We were

both young, and he was a year older. Back then, that was a world of difference. “It’s okay, I’m

right here.” He smoothed a bandage over my cut knee – his mother always made him carry

them, I remember, out of concern for his own safety. Yet here he was, worrying over me, the

annoying little kid next door.

 

“It’s okay, I’m right here.” A few years later, on that old playground with flaking paint

and that merry go round that always tilted a little bit on one side. Someone had pushed me down,

taken my favorite plush lamb I kept with me. He gave it back, a small dot of blood on its left

ear. The aggressor had fallen down, he said, and hit his nose on the ground. A stray tree root, or

something like that. And he told me he had accidentally given himself that black eye that

formed a few days later. “It’s okay,” he said, once again, wearing the purpled spot of oddly

smooth skin almost proudly. Like a badge.

 

            “It’s okay, I’m right here.” I had found my cat on the front lawn in the early hours of the

morning, dew dotting his matted fur. Ollie was the only pet I’d ever had, and staring at his

bloodied self, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t really him, just a torn up, half eaten thing

with the same eyes, decayed and molding despite having been alive just the night before.

Coyotes, he said. His dog normally scared them off, but she was inside that night. He asked me

over for dinner as my parents buried him in the backyard. To take my mind off it, he said,

although he almost seemed more upset about it than I was.

 

“It’s okay, I’m right here,” he said, as I sobbed into his shoulder the night before

prom. My partner dumped me not an hour earlier, over text. No reason. No other person, no inner

strife, not even a “it’s not you, it’s me”. Nothing at all. And he came over as soon as he read

my message, a bag of blankets and snacks slung over his shoulder like an early Christmas

present. “It’s okay, I’m right here,” he murmured between cold lips pressed to my forehead. He

didn’t dance with me the next night, but that was okay. I’d rather have played board games with

him anyway, to be honest.

 

            “It’s okay, I’m right here,” he said, when I came to hearing the sound of sirens. I could

still see the flames roaring through the bay window where my bedroom once was. He dragged

me out, and he was almost charred on his arms and legs as he held me. He was the one

crying this time, barely audible. “It’s okay, I’m right here,” he repeated, like a mantra, a

recording of the only way he knew how to help. “It’s okay.”

 

            He insisted that I move in with him, an almost panic in his voice. It was like he was

certain something horrible would happen if I strayed too far, that I would end up in further

danger. Or maybe that my bad luck would be a further curse to more people.

 

            He said the same thing, holding my hand at my parents’ funeral. They had lasted about

two weeks in the hospital before their injuries claimed them. We always visited together, and

he always brought flowers. Always. And he brought flowers now, and as soon as I took them

to lay on the casket I thought they looked a little more faded than a moment before.

 

            “It’s okay, I’m right here,” he said, when I fell down the stairs and shattered my leg a

week later. I screamed, but I wasn’t sure that anything could be louder than the pain shooting

through me. He was right there, the same stressed, haunted look on his face that had been there

for a while now, as he called the emergency services and carried me down to the floor, elevating

my limb on pillows before taking my hand in his. But when he met my eyes, he smiled. “I’m

right here. It’s okay.”

 

I’m surprised I didn’t die in the hospital too. Two infections and a botched surgery. One

of the doctors sliced through an artery and I nearly bled out. He brought stuffed animals instead

of flowers, this time. I think he figured I wouldn’t remember flowers fondly. And he tried to

smile, but I could see the grief in those blank eyes. Grief for me, or at me. I don’t know why he

stayed.

 

            The break-in happened a month after that. I was home, and he had gone out for groceries.

The robber put a gun to my head, but the bullet went into my shoulder as he took the few family

heirlooms I had left. “It’s okay, I’m right here,” I woke up to, as he called the hospital again.

They never even found the guy. He didn’t wear a mask or anything – that must be why I was

shot – but they never found him. Another long while in the hospital, and a triple infection this

time. I had to go to physical therapy, too. A lot of the nerves were torn, dissolved like wet tissue

paper. The nurses said they looked rotten, almost. But he was patient. Sad as ever, but patient. I

don’t know why he stayed.

 

            “It’s okay, I’m right here,” he says now, checking the locks on the windows, the doors,

even trying the door to the room we’re in to make sure it’s secure, before gingerly settling

himself on the couch next to me. The fabric frays under my fingers, which feel like they might

break too. I don’t go out anymore, but neither does he. Our cat curls up next to us, and I don’t

know if I’m okay. I don’t know if anything’s okay. Things aren’t supposed to be this scary, all

the time. Thinking something horrible could happen at any moment. I shouldn’t be like this.

Hurting and yelling at him over a rotting pain he can’t control. I should be better. Everything

should be better.

 

            But everything’s okay. He says it’s okay, even as I yelp at the cat stepping on my leg,

resisting my urge to twitch and send the poor thing flying across the room. As his hand is a little

too tight around my own, and he sometimes looks at me with that same grief. And he says, “It’s

okay. You’re okay.” His voice is the same. His face is the same. It’s always been the same.

 

            And he has no reason to lie to me.