All This Time

by Mikki Daughtry

  Luckily, she laughs and comes inside, sliding her shoes off.

  “You hungry?” I ask.

  She nods and turns her face toward the kitchen, sniffing. “Smells good.”

  There’s something suspiciously like relief on her face.

  “Hopefully it actually tastes good,” I say as we follow the warm smell of the food out of the entryway and down the hall.

  As we step into the kitchen, she takes in the carefully laid out table, the folded napkins, the candles I pulled from the top shelf of the hallway closet. Her hand reaches out to touch the flower-condiment plate, a smile finally appearing on her lips.

  “Because each deserves its own space,” I say, and she blushes as we sit down.

  There’s an awkward pause, a new tension between us. A warm electricity. Does she feel it too? I try to shake it off, keeping my voice light as I suggest we dig in.

  I grab my hot dog and take a huge bite. That eases the tension a bit more, and soon Marley’s laughing and trying out all the different condiments in little bites.

  Somehow her favorite, though, isn’t even a condiment at all.

  “Just popcorn?” I ask, incredulous, as she carefully puts another piece on top of her hot dog and takes a bite. “Of all of these toppings, popcorn is your favorite?”

  She shrugs playfully. “I must be part duck.”

  I can’t help but smile at that. I spend the rest of dinner grossing her out with different condiment combinations, though my bacon, barbecue sauce, and shredded cheese is literal genius.

  As our meal disappears, the conversation stalls. I pop my last fry into my mouth. Marley puts the last few bites of her hot dog aside. Both of us fall silent as the nervous energy we’ve been fighting off fills the room. I know Marley hasn’t shared her stories before, and I’ve sure as hell never shared my articles with anyone before.

  Well, not in person.

  But… I don’t think this is about the writing.

  I clear my throat and stand to take the plates to the sink. From the corner of my eye, I see her fidget with her napkin, folding it and unfolding it.

  I turn to watch her fingers twist the material.

  “Are you nervous?” I ask.

  She looks up in a way that says, Abso-freaking-lutely.

  “Good. Because I’m nervous,” I admit.

  She seems surprised. “You are?”

  “I am crazy nervous,” I say, studying her face, from the freckles on her nose to the fullness of her lips. Every feature somehow looks different in this new setting, sending my heart beating faster. “I mean, you’re here.”

  “I make you nervous?” she asks as she looks down at her napkin. “I… really?”

  I hesitate, knowing that I’m balancing on a ledge, one side the past, one side the future. I have to choose. “You make me…,” I start to say, and as I take a step closer to her, I decide to just say it. “You make me want more, and that makes me nervous.”

  She looks up, her eyes glowing in the flickering candlelight, but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut and let her enjoy her dinner.

  “So, um,” I say, changing the subject. “How ’bout dessert?”

  I get the ice cream out of the freezer, relieved to see Marley light up even more when she catches sight of the strawberry. Guessing people’s favorite ice cream flavors is a talent of mine, and Marley is definitely a strawberry lover.

  We each fill a bowl, Marley laughing when I pile most of the gallon of chocolate into mine and steal a scoop of her strawberry to top it off. Then I lead us into the basement, the both of us sitting on opposite sides of the worn couch.

  “You ready?” I ask her as I grab my wrinkled pile of articles off the dinged-up coffee table.

  I’m not sure I’m ready, but she nods and puts the half-eaten bowl of ice cream down, nervously pulling her worn yellow notebook out of her bag. She hesitates before holding it out to me, crossing over some invisible line as she lets go of it.

  I open to the first page. Her neat, even cursive pulls me in, making me forget she’s reading my articles as I’m instantly drawn closer to the hidden parts of her, the secret pieces of Marley that make their way into every single fairy tale.

  One story is about identical twins feeding a gaggle of ducks at the pond. More and more ducks come, until they are both swept away, flying high above the pond and the park and the cemetery.

  Another is about a young girl who plants pink flowers that won’t stop growing, until one day they turn into a whole person: a flower reflection of the girl.

  Marley’s stories are so good they make me want to lean over and snatch my lame articles back from her.

  “Marley,” I say. She peers at me over the top of one of the articles, her eyes wide, questioning. I hold up her notebook. “You have to share these with more people than just me. Kids would go crazy for these stories.”

  She shimmies up on the couch, eager, her nervous energy bubbling over. “You really think so?”

  I nod, looking down at the page in front of me, where there’s a doodle of the flower girl from her story. “Absolutely.”

  “Yours are great too,” she says, holding up the article she’s reading. “I don’t even like sports, and you actually manage to make it interesting. These player profiles you did are my favorite. I feel like I really know Sam after reading this,” she adds, Sam’s black-and-white picture staring at me from the top of the pile. “You make them more than just stats. That’s what you should use for your internship application.”

  I laugh, relieved that she doesn’t hate them. She’s silent for a long moment, staring at the yellow notebook in my hands.

  “People will like them?” she asks softly.

  Our eyes lock.

  “They’re gonna love them,” I say, meaning it.

  She looks past me to the French doors, the moonlight reflecting off the glass. “Do you want to go outside?” she asks as she tugs at her collar.

  I know how she feels. The room seems to have contracted around us, filled to the brim with that still-unnamed feeling swirling between us.

  “Sure,” I say, and I grab a thick, quilted blanket from my room.

  We head to the backyard and lie down on the blanket, gazing up at the ceiling of stars. Her hand brushes lightly against mine, and the night comes alive. Everything brighter. Everything buzzing.

  She pulls away to point at the moon, a perfect circle hanging in the sky. “They say people don’t sleep as well when there’s a full moon.”

  I study the shining surface, knowing I sure as hell won’t be able to sleep tonight, full moon or not.

  “Werewolves?” I ask, and she laughs, nudging my arm.

  “I wrote a story about the moon,” she says as the electricity from her touch still hums softly through me. I look over to see her face shining in the faint glow, the pale moonlight outlining her features. “A new story.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s a… love story,” she says hesitantly. “My first one.”

  “Then definitely tell me.”

  She looks over at me, her eyes dark pools, deep and vulnerable. I push up on my elbow, waiting.

  “Okay,” she says finally. “Once upon a time—”

  “Why do all stories start like that?” I ask. I don’t want to break the spell, but the question is out before I can stop it.

  She smiles. “Not all of them. Only the best ones.”

  “That’s the first thing you said to me, remember? Once upon a time.”

  We stare at each other for a long moment, an invisible force pulling me closer. I swear I stop breathing. Marley clears her throat and looks away, the pull fading but not disappearing.

  “Story,” I say, turning my eyes back up to the moon. “Right. Go on.”

  “Once upon a time, there was a girl,” she says.

  “I like it already,” I say, encouraging her, and she punches me lightly on the arm, her expression half-amused, half-exasperated. And li
ke I hoped, it spurs her on.

  “Every night she walked a path through a dark, dark forest to the base of a beautiful waterfall, and there, she looked to the moon and made her wish,” she says. “It was the same wish every night.”

  Marley’s words weave a spell and I imagine I see the girl. Really see her, gazing up at the moon from the base of the waterfall, her lips parting as she wishes for…

  “She wished for love,” Marley says, as if reading my mind. “She was a dreamer with no one to share her dreams with.”

  I feel it, the loneliness of the girl, sitting deep in my bones.

  “But it happened that on that night, the moon was full. Brighter than it had ever been,” she says softly. “Looking down, she saw something on the path. A pearl. She picked it up and heard a man say, ‘Excuse me, but I believe that is mine.’ ”

  “Was it?” I ask. “His pearl?”

  She nods. “So she held out the pearl, and he saw in the bright moonlight tears in her eyes,” Marley says as I hang on every word. “The man asked her, ‘Why do you cry?’ And the girl answered him quietly, ‘I thought for a moment it might be for me.’ But the man took the pearl and kept walking the path.”

  “Dick,” I say.

  “Just wait,” she says to me with a knowing smile.

  “He better not be a dick.”

  “The next night, while making her wish, the girl heard a sound behind her,” Marley says, ignoring me. “It was the man, and in his palm was the pearl. ‘I traveled many roads to find this lost treasure, this piece of me, but it was you who found it and returned it to me. Now I wish to give it to you,’ he said, placing the pearl in her hand. And every night for the next month, she met the man at the waterfall.”

  “Not a dick,” I say, relieved.

  Marley smiles and shushes me. “They talked of everything, shared their secrets and their dreams. The girl had gotten her wish. She had found love,” she says, the word making me turn my head and look at her, something inside me shifting. “But on the thirtieth night, the night of the next full moon, the man was not there. In his place… was a pearl.”

  My heart sinks. The sadness weaving through her words is familiar.

  “For the next twenty-nine nights, nothing. She didn’t wish. She just kept going, kept searching, but he was never there. But on the thirtieth night…”

  “The next full moon,” I whisper.

  “Another pearl,” Marley whispers back. Her eyes meet mine, the energy between us crackling. After a long moment, she continues. “The girl cried and cried. Then she wiped her tears, looked to the moon, and made another wish. A different one.”

  I hold my breath, my eyes on Marley’s lips.

  “ ‘Bring him back to me.’ ”

  Chills move up my spine as Marley says, “The moon brightened, its rays reflecting off the waterfall, making it look like a million falling pearls. The girl looked back at the moon, and suddenly… she remembered what the man said.”

  Marley stares reverently at the full moon like she’s making her own wish right now.

  “What did he say?” I ask quietly, when I can’t wait any longer. I know I’m being a terrible audience, but I need to know what she’s wishing for.

  “He said, ‘I traveled many roads to find this lost treasure, this piece of me.…’ ”

  This piece of me—holy shit. I start losing my mind a little.

  “Each full moon for the rest of her life, the girl received another pearl…,” Marley continues.

  “The man in the moon,” I say, and sit up, totally shook. “He was the man in the moon!”

  Marley smiles. “… and she knew that he was watching over her, shining down on her, lighting her path through the dark, dark forest. And every once in a while, off the water’s reflection, she could see his face. There in the moon, smiling at her.”

  Her voice is barely more than a whisper as she finishes the story. “And she knew that she was loved.”

  Our eyes lock, and I know this isn’t friendship. All my excuses fall away. I don’t think about if it’s wrong or right or anything. I love her. I love her like the man in the moon loved that girl.

  She flushes, sitting up, suddenly bashful, totally and completely misinterpreting my silence. “It’s stupid, isn’t it?”

  I shake my head and take her hand. “It’s not stupid,” I say, meaning it more than I’ve ever meant anything. “It’s beautiful.”

  I expect her to pull away, but she doesn’t. Our fingers lace together, and we stay like that until it’s time for her to go, gazing at each other underneath the glowing stars. Then I walk her to the door, leaning against the frame while she looks up at me from the welcome mat.

  “They’re good,” I say, meaning it. “Your stories are really good, Marley. It was almost like…” My voice trails off, and I smile at her. “Like magic. You take me somewhere else entirely.”

  I can feel that crackling between us again. Her eyes are warm in the soft glow of the porch light. More open. She takes a step back, but the magnetic pull stretches, and instead of breaking, it fills the space between us. “I hope you always think that,” she says. The tiniest shadow passes over her face. I just wish I knew why.

  “I will,” I say as she walks down the steps and across the front lawn, turning back to give me a small wave before disappearing completely around the corner.

  I stand on the porch for a while after she leaves, still feeling that energy even though she’s out of sight. I shiver, the cool fall night sending goose bumps up and down my arms, but I don’t want to move. I don’t want this feeling to disappear.

  Soon, headlights appear in the driveway. My mom’s car slows to a stop, and then the car door creaks noisily open. She steps out, giving me a once-over before ducking back inside to grab her bag.

  “You look happy,” she says when she reaches the steps.

  And she’s right. I am.

  18

  I wake up the next morning feeling pretty damn great.

  So great that I grab my iPad from my bedside table and open up Google to start my internship search during breakfast. At first it’s less than promising, mostly unpaid gigs that aren’t that thrilling. I find one that’s pretty perfect, working for the sports section of a magazine, but it would be a two-hour drive one way.

  I hear my mom shuffling down the stairs, so I throw another slice of toast in the toaster and pour a cup of coffee with cream for her just as she rounds the corner into the kitchen.

  “Morning,” I say as I hold it out to her.

  “Morning,” she says, taking the cup. She widens her eyes at me as she takes a sip. I turn my attention back to my iPad, frowning as I scroll through another page of openings. “What’s with the frown? Your head hurting again?”

  “Nah, that’s been getting better,” I say. And it has. The flashes have faded a bit since I started actually talking about stuff with Marley, proving Dr. Benefield’s point about them being emotional more than physical. I sigh, tapping the button so the screen goes dark. “I’m just looking for an internship.”

  “Oh!” she says, smacking her forehead. She books it out of the room and returns a second later with her overflowing purse. I watch as she sifts through it, pulling out receipts and a first aid kit and a couple of granola bars. I swear, the shit she has in there could get a small village through the apocalypse. “I ran into Scott Miller yesterday morning at Starbucks. You know, the guy from the sports section of the Times who used to cover your games?”

  “Yeah, I remember him,” I say, sitting up in my chair. Scott actually did a profile on me the week before my injury. He was really encouraging when I saw him a month after everything went down.

  I don’t know why I haven’t thought of him before now.

  “Well,” she says as she brandishes a business card from the very bottom of her purse. “I told him you were interested in writing, and he said you should definitely give him a call.”

  She holds it out to me, and I grab the card, jumping
up to give her a hug. “You’re the best,” I say as I plant a kiss on her cheek.

  I pull out my phone and head into the hallway to call him, but a text notification pings in from Sam as I’m dialing.

  Football today at 10. You coming? Need a ride?

  I hesitate over the keyboard before typing out a quick response. Today’s probably the best I’m going to feel, so if I’m ever going to try, it might as well be now.

  “Hey, Mom?” I call into the kitchen. “Can I borrow the car?”

  * * *

  By the time I meet up with Marley at the park on Wednesday, I’ve already scheduled an interview with Scott for this Friday and driven my mom’s car a grand total of three times. I’m practically invincible.

  The park is crowded today, the warm fall day bringing with it a slew of kids playing all along the grass.

  “I used to love flying a kite,” Marley says, watching as a boy sprints past us, trying to get one to take flight.

  I turn to look at her, the rest of the park fading.

  She looks beautiful today. Her hair is down around her shoulders, a deep-yellow sweater matching the thin headband in her hair. Every time she talks or turns to smile at me, I have an overwhelming urge to reach out and take her hand. I didn’t know what was going to happen after the other night, but this thing between us has only gotten stronger during our few days apart.

  We cross the small street that leads to the pond, and the closer and closer we get to the water, the braver I get. I think of the story she told me. The girl wishing for love. The man in the moon answering that wish.

  Do it, I tell myself, watching her hand as it moves back and forth next to mine, centimeters away.

  I take a deep breath and reach out, taking it, a sharp pain jolting through my head at the same time. Damn, my head has been pretty good all week.

  “Okay?” I ask as I fight past it, focusing instead on her rose-petal lips and the fact my heart is about to hammer straight out of my chest.

  She hesitates for a second, so I take a step closer to her.

  “Our story won’t be a sad one, Marley,” I whisper to her. “I won’t let it be.”