I get situated in bed, lay my phone next to me, and close my eyes.
Between listening to her rhythmic breathing and thinking about how I really did help with her sadness today, I’m easily sent back into my own slumber.
—
My lungs seem to work better on Saturday. It’s weird in a good way.
Noelle and I make a dinner plan, because tonight is the perfect night for that home-cooked meal she wants to treat me to. We also plan to shop for it together beforehand; she can always use help with Theodora in stores, especially since the kiddo has apparently been in a grouchy mood today. Plus, we think it’ll be fun to spend the extra time together.
And it turns out to be, until we very randomly encounter Jenna. Then the grumpy tension we were able to dispel from Theo comes back in the form of an entirely different person.
Figures. Of all the people who could’ve spotted me laughing heartily while the girls outfit me with discounted Valentine’s accessories, of course it would be Jenna.
I’m not torn up by the flat glare she fixes on me, but it sure isn’t pleasant.
Noelle manages to greet her amicably, despite the awkwardness and despite knowing Jenna probably won’t respond in kind. Learning how my ex feels about her didn’t turn her cold.
Theo has no idea who she is, but she still compliments her on being pretty—that child will have a sweet heart her entire life, I’m certain of it.
But all Jenna does is bitterly and wordlessly breeze past us…
…and then send me a text message.
JENNA: You literally NEVER laughed like that with me. Wow
I roll my eyes, erase her messages, and delete her number. Then I tell Noelle about it.
She sighs almost sympathetically. “Well…at least now she can go find whoever she’s meant to be with, I guess.”
“True,” I agree.
“Good luck to her.”
Before I can agree with that, too, Theo surprises us with a bellowed, “Good luck!” even though Jenna is quite out of sight now.
And as it echoes around us, we can’t help laughing our way back into our mood from before.
And I didn’t really get to see it yesterday since Noelle didn’t do too much laughing, but I see it now: the cute way her nose wrinkles when she finds something truly funny.
I picked up on it forever ago, within our very first minute of knowing each other, and I have highly valued getting to see it ever since. I’m glad it hasn’t completely disappeared over the last couple years—it seemed more distant than Neptune for a long time, but it has been returning lately.
Really, ‘glad’ doesn’t cover how I feel about her slow recovery.
As much as I hate having to live life without Cliff, I hate even more what living without him has done to her. My pain isn’t nothing, but hers is so different; she and Theo had something with him that I can’t relate to. I’ve never been in love with anybody before, and I never saw love between my parents, but Cliff and Noelle? They were a wellspring of love. They were so good together, and so happy…. It’s total bullshit that they got ripped apart.
So it comforts me to see there are still pieces of her beneath her grief. Comforts me to see her finding the strength to be present, to allow herself to keep going.
I hated seeing her broken. Sometimes it threatened to break me.
Sorrow touches me as I recall yesterday’s preschool party, specifically when Theo hurried to help that boy who tripped and fell. Noelle didn’t see me seeing how she absentmindedly twisted at the engagement ring on her finger—she does it sometimes when Cliff is missing something special.
The sorrow grows as I also recall flickers of our darkest days. Shock and depression and heartache. The cruel dreams we sometimes had. The choking anxiety that cropped up when something suddenly scared us, especially in the car. The milestones and moments he was starkly absent for.
Those memories will never leave me, will never dim into something that doesn’t hurt.
But I don’t dwell on any of it for long.
Not because I want to forget what we’ve been through or ignore how it made us feel. I’ve simply found that there are still things to cherish in the now. There’s still life to experience, even if it feels strange and empty in a lot of ways.
Cliff would agree, I know. He was always one to find the silver lining in a storm cloud.
He was the one who taught me how to do it.
So when Theo asks me to put on a girly Valentine’s-themed scarf and be her twin for a minute, I happily do it. And when Noelle grins big and gets her phone out for a picture, I grin along with her.
We’re okay—at least for now—and that’s a feeling to live in.
- 3 -
B E C K E T T
six years ago
It’s a hot June afternoon, and the air conditioner in Wings by Del is struggling to keep up. The bruise on my side keeps figuring out how to hurt even with me not doing anything but sitting in this corner booth. My stomach is grumbling, impatient for me to order some nachos already—wings may be this place’s proclaimed specialty, but their nachos are the best in town. Cliff and I eat them regularly.
Hungry as I am, though, I won’t order without him. He should be here any minute.
Del’s wife exits the kitchen to make a lap around the small dining room and check on her few customers. I’m the last one she gets to; as she tops off my glass of water, she apologizes for it being so warm in here.
“That AC has been acting up for almost a week now,” she says with a tsk. “We’ve scheduled someone to come look at it, but honey, that appointment can’t get here fast enough.”
“A week?” I repeat. “Wow. I’m sorry. You guys are amazing for working through that.”
“Eh, there’s people who’ve got it worse.” She waves dismissively and gives me a kind smile. “As always, we thank you for coming in! Now, if your friend shows up and I’m in the back, just holler and I’ll come get your orders, okay, sugar?”
I smile my assent even though it isn’t sincere—no way are we going to yell for Mrs. Del (as we call her) to drop what she’s doing and come serve us. We aren’t that kind of people.
She walks off, and I look across the room. Maybe Cliff is in view through the glass front of the restaurant.
Nope.
But the pretty girl who has been here almost as long as I have is still sitting over there with her back to one of the windows. It appears that she is also waiting on someone.
I haven’t been staring at her or anything, just glancing now and then, mostly during my checks for Cliff. But I have grown kind of interested in her hair. It’s up in a messy knot, and it’s a deep brown except for where the summer sunlight coming up from behind her is bringing out a reddish hue. Looks cool.
Right after she sets her cell phone down to take a drink of her water, a fluttery ringing starts up and announces that she has an incoming call. It encourages me to mess around on my own phone once again.
No new e-mails.
Nothing happening on Facebook.
Blah, blah.
I check the time and find it’s past four. I got here a bit early, but I’ve still been waiting for Cliff for almost—
The sound of the door chime has me looking up. Ah, there the dude is.
I lift a hand in a wave, careful to use the one that won’t tug at my injured side. He spots me and nods his greeting as he heads this way.
Once he’s close enough, he reaches out to me.
“What’s up, Beck?” he says as we slap hands. “Sorry I’m late. My dad….” Sighing heavily, he drops down to sit across from me.
Damn. I didn’t know he was dealing with his dad today. When we parted ways earlier, he was in a good mood and just said he had errands to run.
Mr. Cavill doesn’t talk with his fists anywhere near as often as my dad does, but he’s still not a stand-up guy. Being around him is about as fun as kicking a brick wall. He’s so critical of Cliff and everyone else; no one is good e
nough for him, and he never hides it. He’s a manipulative bastard, too, which is probably how Cliff got roped into seeing him this time. I bet he cropped up out of nowhere, like my own parents do.
Even though Cliff and I do our best to steer clear of our parents, our fathers don’t like to be ignored for too terribly long. It’s been an unfortunate truth of our lives for years.
“That sucks, brother,” I tell him. “Wanna talk about it?”
He rubs tiredly at the side of his face, but the smile he shoots me is full of familiar gratitude. “Thanks. Maybe later when I’ve got a beer in my hand?”
“Sounds good,” I agree easily. “No big deal that you’re late, by the way. I’m sorry for you.”
“Ah, back at you. How are your ribs?”
I scowl at where I know the bruise is under my shirt. “I’ve about decided they’re fine. They feel and look like shit, but nothing seems badly damaged.”
He shakes his head in old frustration. “Still hate that I wasn’t there to back you up.”
Now I’m the one managing a smile of gratitude, small though it is. His friendship has always meant everything to me, but I don’t want him to feel guilty for this. He had a meeting with one of his professors the other day; neither of us knew my dad would drunkenly show up to our apartment for no reason except to take his unprovoked anger out on someone he considers a weakling. I’m not upset with Cliff at all.
“It’s all right,” I promise him, not for the first time. “We weren’t expecting that to go down.”
“Well, sure, but still.” He crosses his arms and blows out a lighter sigh than he did a minute ago. “Someday, we’re gonna be free of this family shit. I know we’re twenty-one and still getting harassed, which is garbage, but at least we’re not kids anymore. We’ve got our own place. We’re working toward careers, making moves for our futures. Eventually, we’re gonna get away for good.”
Like he has countless times before, he gives me a look of reassurance and resolve, so sincere in his belief that I can’t help but believe it with him.
I nod my agreement and manage a better smile than before.
His words don’t make my side hurt any less, but they are true. I wasn’t always able to protect myself, and now I am, at least to some degree. Although my dad left this bruise on me the other day, I was able to get him off of me. Was able to get him to leave, even if it took a couple minutes.
God, the number of times in my life when that wasn’t true….
Cliff is right. He’s always right when it comes to stuff like this. He has been encouraging both of us since we were eleven years old and has been teaching me how to do it too.
“Slow progress is better than none,” I remark. “Just gotta keep moving.”
“Yes,” he says emphatically, holding a fist out to me. “Hell yes. That’s the spirit!”
I bump his knuckles with mine and smile more yet.
Cliff Cavill is the best person on this earth. I’m lucky to have him on my side, lucky to have a front-row seat to his crusade for a future that outshines his past.
I can only hope to keep learning from him.
That hope mixes with the lingering thought of his dad, and I recall one afternoon during our school days when Cliff’s grades dipped just enough to take him out of the running for valedictorian. I watched his dad slap him across the face and say he couldn’t believe Cliff had let that happen when Mr. and Mrs. Cavill’s expectations had been clear.
‘How hard do I have to try to make you care about the mark you leave on this world?’
What a joke those last words have turned out to be.
As I shift in my seat with a wince, my eyes move away from my friend. They spy the girl across the way.
And a second later, they witness her glass slipping out of her hand as she’s trying to drink from it. It clatters loudly as it falls, sending water pouring all over the table and her lap.
Her gasp is loud enough to drown out mine, even with all this space between us.
Cliff turns in his seat, and his tone goes sympathetic. “Uh oh. Aw, man, poor girl. Aaaand her napkin dispenser looks empty.”
She’s noticing that, too, with visible exasperation. I think I hear her question the universe, “Are you kidding?”
It isn’t, and I’m touched by the urge to help if I can.
Cliff must be, too, since he’s getting ready to stand up.
While I gingerly slide out of my seat so I can steal from an empty table for her, I ask him, “Wanna call for Mrs. Del? Probably need a clean towel more than—”
“—than a bunch of flimsy napkins,” he finishes. “Yep, I was just thinking that! But hey, Beck.”
I look and find him digging around in the pocket of his shorts.
“Heads or tails?” he asks.
Oh, yeah. This thing.
Even if we probably don’t have much chance with a girl—and regardless of who saw her first—we’ve long been flipping a coin to see who should try and talk to her. It’s not a hobby we have or anything; we don’t go around gambling over every pretty girl we see. We’ve just been finding the exact same girls attractive since ninth grade, so this is our way of handling a situation that comes up decently often between two single guys who are as alike as we are.
Therefore, I’m not shocked whatsoever by his current interest.
“Tails,” I claim.
He flips the coin…
…and…
…wins.
“Hey, cool,” he says.
It’s a bit disappointing, but that’s how it goes. Fair is fair.
“Cool,” I echo as we finally split up.
I get to a table stocked with napkins just as the girl finishes scooping her escaped ice cubes back into the thoroughly emptied glass.
“Hey, here you go,” I call, picking up the whole dispenser. I take it with me as I walk over, then tug a chunk of napkins out, ignoring the complaints of my ribs. “My friend went to find a towel, but these should help a little.”
Blue eyes turn up to me. I see how pink the girl’s cheeks are; I’m not sure if that’s from embarrassment or the weak air conditioner. Either way, good God, she’s even prettier up close.
She’s also taking the napkins from me. “Thank you so much. The condensation on my glass got the best of me.”
“Ah, yeah, it’s bad today, huh? Mrs. Del told me the AC should be fixed soon, but until then….” I lay some napkins on the table only to watch them basically dissolve in the water.
The girl pauses dabbing at her soaked jeans even though she just started.
Turning her face up to me again, she asks curiously, “Mrs. Del?” Then she’s smiling and her eyes are glancing around in comprehension. “Is this place named after her?”
“Oh, after her husband, actually. He’s Del. My friend and I just call her that, too, ‘cause for as often as we come here, we don’t have a clue what her name is.”
Her smile amps up before she busts out laughing.
I didn’t expect her to think that was funny, but wow, what a grin.
And wow, what a laugh.
And wow, she’s so amused that her nose is scrunching up, and it’s the cutest thing in the world.
But that’s all I let myself admire about her, because I lost the coin toss.
While she resumes dabbing at her jeans, I think about what to say next.
In the end, I hold up the napkin dispenser. “Well, I don’t think I’m gonna bother using any more of these.” Chortling, I gesture at the table and my disappeared contribution. “They’re not gonna help much after all. My friend is the hero you’re waiting for.”
She gives her hands a light toss into the air, admitting defeat. “Yeah. Thank you so much again for bringing them over, but…” she winces at me, eyes still bright, “…I’m afraid they won’t even help dry my clothes.”
“No problem at all. And I totally agree. Love this place, but these aren’t high-quality napkins.”
Cliff’s cheerful voice floats
up to us. “Sure aren’t, but the ever-fantastic Mrs. Del has blessed us with this.” His hand comes into view, full of a fluffy white dish towel.
As the girl accepts it, she cracks up all over again. “I don’t know why, but that name is hilarious to me! Full disclosure: I may start calling her that myself.”
I glance at Cliff, and we share a surprised look like, ‘Whoa, we influenced a stranger to use that name too? Nice.’
Then his expression begins shifting into a lighthearted confidence that I know well: he’s ready to talk to this girl and see if she cares to talk back.
When we started this thing back in high school, he wasn’t so relaxed. Because of our similar home lives, we used to have similar fears and insecurities. For a while now, though, he’s been more comfortable with life. As his optimism about the future has grown, so has his belief in himself. He’s not cocky, though—far from it. He’s just ready to take this ugly world and make it better, and he has somehow started with the way he views it and himself.
So I, for one, know he’s got nothing to worry about in this moment. Not a thing. This girl here is equal parts pretty and adorable, and she clearly has a sense of humor, which makes her even more compelling…but if she finds Cliff unimpressive, then she’ll be missing out. Plain and simple. And I know he’d say the same thing if it were me—he has in the past. We’ve got each other’s back like that. Besides, she may not even be single.
So I give him a quick smile and ask, “All right, you gonna help her clean up?” I nod across the room, where Mrs. Del is. “I’ll order the nachos if so.”
“Yeah, sure.” He brightly returns my smile, then adds, “Oh, and I want extra guac on mine.”
That has me chuckling. “We’ve been friends for a century—don’t worry, I know how much good guac means to you.”
He laughs, too, as does the girl.
As I turn to leave, I hear her throw in, “It means a lot to me too! Is it good here, really? I’ve never had it. I got boneless wings the other two times I came here.”
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