Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior.
– Abraham Maslow

Paige woke up surprised not to feel Emily's body pressed against her back. She rolled over onto her other side, facing the middle of the bed and saw Emily lying on her back next to her, propped up on top of a couple of pillows, idly flipping through Tumblr on her phone.

"Everything okay?"

"Hmm? Yeah," Emily sighed, with a light kiss to Paige's temple. "Just thinking about stuff."

"Stuff?" Paige coaxed.

Emily put her phone down on the bedside table and turned to her side so that she was facing Paige. "Maya."

"Oh." After the turn that the conversation took at dinner the night before, Paige wasn't sure that she wanted to try getting Emily to talk about Maya again. Even so, she found herself asking, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. Not really," Emily replied. After a few moments of silently gazing into each other's eyes, Emily continued, though. "She cheated on me."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Em." Paige sat up on one elbow, giving Emily her full attention. Her hand idly smoothed through Emily's hair as Emily continued.

"She got sent away to druggie rehab camp - long story. -and ended up having a fling with some guy whom she met there."

"Some guy? So, she's bi?"

"Yeah – I didn't know, either. Actually, though, Maya would say that she's fluid. Anyway, but, that wasn't the point. I mean, that's no big deal; – love is love. I wouldn't have cared that she was bi if she was with me, you know? It wasn't that she cheated on me with a guy, it was that she cheated on me at all."

"Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, no, that makes sense."

"The thing is," Emily continued with a huff, "When I found out about it and confronted her, she blamed me. She said that I shouldn't expect her to be faithful to someone like me, and I should be happy that she was even with me in the first place."

"Wow! I wish I could've been there when you kicked her sorry ass to the curb… Literally?"

Emily huffed. "Yeah. I would've liked to haave been there, too. Only it never happened. I - " Emily's voice cracked slightly. "I believed her. I blamed myself. Like, our whole relationship, she was constantly putting me down, you know? Making me think that I didn't deserve her – that no one else would ever want to be with me – that I needed to hold onto her, because she could up and leave me for someone better anytime she felt like it."

Paige cupped her girlfriend's face. "Em, I'm so sorry. Can I ask why you stayed with her so long if she didn't appreciate you?"

"You have to understand; she didn't out and out say those things. She was very subtle, and, over time, I just started to believe her. When we met, I was young, and going through all these changes. And I was confused about what I was feeling, you know, was it okay to feel. The way I feel about girls? She was just so confident and self-assured. I was kind of in awe of her. And after all the things my Mom told me when she found out that Maya and I were together – it was just a phase; it wasn't a real relationship, blah blah blah, – it just seemed that I had to make our relationship work to prove to myself, not to my Mom, that all the stuff my Mom was saying wasn't really true. Like, if I couldn't make it work with Maya, then it would mean that my Mom was right about how being gay is unnatural. So, I put up with her put downs, I started to blame myself for all of the problems that we had relating to each other. I really believed that I didn't deserve her, and that I had to hold onto her, no matter what she did or how she made me feel, or I'd end up alone."

Emily flipped over to her other side, subconsciously wanting to hide this weak, unsure version of herself from Paige. Paige instinctively drew herself up next to Emily and wrapped her arm around her.

"When she cheated on me, it finally opened my eyes. My Mom found me crying in my room. I told her the truth – she had come around about my sexuality by then, but she still wasn't a fan of Maya. She told me that I deserved better, and I finally realized that she wasn't saying it because she hated Maya but because she loved me. It was a long time before I told her all of the manipulative games Maya played, and how she messed with my head. Hanna helped me out a lot. She helped me realize that I had value, that Maya was wrong, that I was worthy of being loved. Seeing Maya last night – I just felt like her little insecure plaything again. I just felt - like smaller, somehow. I don't know. Like that stupid, insecure little girl I was in high school."

Paige pressed a kiss into her girlfriend's shoulder. Only then did she realize that she was the big spoon for the first time in bed with Emily. She thought back to a couple of months ago, when Emily was an unapproachable goddess of whom she didn't feel herself worthy. She never could have seen herself as Emily's equal. But that's how Emily saw her. And that's how Emily made her see herself.

"I can't even imagine you weak and insecure like that, Emily. Back before I actually met you, when I was only crushing on you from afar, I was in total awe of you, the way that you were in awe of her. You had it all together, so confident and self-assured. So far out of my league. I actually remember telling Pru that it didn't matter how good I was, because you're a goddess, and I'd be lucky if you even spoke to me."

"Oh, Paige, you know that's not true…" Emily started to turn around to face Paige, but Paige tightened her grip around her slightly, to hold her in place. She didn't want the focus of the conversation to shift to her. This was all about Emily.

"I do know that – now. That's my point, Emily. It would've been easy for you to make me feel small and unworthy. I mean, I already felt like that. But when you came into my life, you showed me that I had value. It's not that you made me into someone better, but you made me feel better about who I already was - that you loved that person who I already was. You always make me feel not just loved but cherished. And, the thing is, to this day, I still feel so lucky to be with you, but you also make me feel that you think that you're just as lucky to be with me."

"I really do, Babe. I'm so lucky," Emily said, rubbing the arm that Paige had her wrapped up in.

"People like Maya think that they need to tear other people down to build themselves up, but that's not love. Love elevates. You elevate me. I'm better because of you."

Emily turned around beneath Paige's arm and kissed her lovingly. "You're not going to start singing 'You Raise Me Up,' now, are you?"

"'You raise me up?' What's that?"

"Never mind." Emily rolled over again. "I'm just going to lie here and enjoy being the little spoon for a little while longer."