Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  I make sure her stuffed animals are snuggling her in a cute and comfy way, and then I head off for the end of my own day.

  Once I’m curled up in my bed with the lights off, I call Beckett.

  He answers after one ring, like he’s been waiting on the edge of his seat for this.

  His hello feels warmer than the central heat and my pajamas and this blanket combined.

  “Hello,” I echo softly.

  “How has your evening been?”

  I already knew he’d gotten home safely earlier because he texted me like he always does. Still, hearing his voice is a relief, a joy.

  “Well, I’m tired,” I say, “but it was wonderful. After I did regular nighttime stuff, I cuddled up with Theo on the couch. The pillow and blanket you got her are so nice. We watched her new movie with them until she fell asleep.”

  “Oh, that’s awesome and definitely a good way to end a day.”

  “Yeah. Have you had a good night?”

  It sounds like he’s stretching as he replies, “Yep, been spending time on YouTube. Watching videos, learning new things.” He seems to chuckle, but I can’t be sure.

  Smiling, I say, “Really? That sounds fun.”

  “Yep, I’ve had a great time.”

  “I’m glad. I like it when you’re happy.”

  “Me too.” He does chuckle now. “When I’m happy and when you’re happy.” After another little laugh, he adds, “And when Theo is happy.”

  Now I’m grinning.

  “Thank you again for everything you’ve done for her. Especially yesterday.” My lightheartedness fades into gentle solemnity. “It really means so much that you took her out and made her day special. And that you protected her when she needed it.”

  More gently, too, he says, “You know you never have to thank me for loving her.”

  Well, when he puts it like that, it’s simple. Easy to accept. I don’t feel like I have to insist like I always have.

  Thinking of this and her official birthday makes me think of her party again…and of how it brought on more intimate minutes than he and I have shared in too long.

  I want more of that.

  I’m visited by the drifting memory of text messages we exchanged some time ago—ones from when we hadn’t yet detected what was happening between us. He asked for more of my smiles and time and trust simply because he wanted them, and my response was an easy yes. I wanted more of those things from him, too, and it had been so easy to admit.

  Not being able to relax with each other has felt so wrong.

  I want it back. I want him back.

  Shortly, all this reminds me of someone whose time I don’t want more of.

  “Cooper’s dad did invite me to dinner,” I divulge, “before they left the party. It sounds bad, but, uh…well, as awkward as the whole thing was, the way he looked when I said no is kind of funny now.”

  “Oh, God.” I can hear Beckett smiling. “Was it a, ‘Huh, I should’ve listened to that dude from earlier,’ kind of look?”

  “Yes, it was. I could practically see you floating into his thoughts.”

  His quiet laughter ripples through the phone and through me.

  Even lying down, my knees feel trembly over it. They also feel trembly over one part of the alone time we found ourselves in this afternoon: when he put it right out there in the open that he wins at holding my attention and therefore no other guy should bother trying for it.

  Upon recalling my mention of ‘someone else’ to Cooper’s dad, tightness takes over my throat.

  I wasn’t entirely sure whether I was referring to the man I unexpectedly lost or the one I accidentally found—my brain was too tired, my thoughts too much of a whirl. But it has come clear to me since then. It would be an outright lie to say otherwise.

  “Beck,” I huff out suddenly softly, “you make me feel so….”

  A thick silence falls now.

  I’m scared to finish my off-limits sentence.

  I’m scared to put a voice to what has been taking up all this space in my chest, to bring a new facet of life to it when it has already been growing out of my control.

  We sit here, wordless, for half of forever.

  Then he breaks the silence with a low, “Let’s see each other tomorrow.”

  I can hear the unsteadiness in his tone, though.

  He knows this isn’t safe territory.

  He knows this is not what he should be asking for after today and after everything we’ve been going through…and after my half-formed admission just now.

  Yet he’s asking for me anyway.

  Both of us are cracking.

  I grip my phone with one hand and, beneath the blanket, close my other fingers over where his had been on my knee so many long days ago.

  I relive the glow, the buzz, the tension that passed between us at the party so many times in so many ways.

  I give the answer I shouldn’t give, because it’s the only one in my head.

  “Okay.”

  —

  Delicate.

  That’s how things feel between me and Beckett on Saturday.

  The morning showed up cool and partly cloudy, and he showed up on my doorstep looking like he was standing on the edge between confidence and nervousness, between being alight with joy and shadowed by regret.

  It was comforting to see him sharing in my mess of emotions.

  For better or worse, we would be in it together.

  Even though we smiled at each other almost as easily as we used to, we kept our distance; I took several steps back while he came through the doorway. Then he shut the door and I turned away to go finish getting Theo ready for our breakfast outing.

  “We’re so happy you’re here,” I sent over my shoulder.

  “I’m happy about it too,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure why that made me grin into a light laugh, but it did. From behind me, I heard him chortling with me, which set my insides aflutter.

  It hasn’t eased up a bit.

  It’s still here—a fluttering, delicate tension born of us both wanting to respect what Cliff meant to us and wanting to embrace what we have grown to mean to each other.

  We and Theo have been out to a light breakfast, run a few errands, and gone by the park to play and see the ducks (including one they apparently named Tucker the other day, to my amused delight). Some of the laughs and smiles I’ve shared with Beckett have been tentative—sometimes it has felt like even three more seconds of going with each other’s flow would be the undoing of our self-control—but the rest of these hours together? Cheerful. Silly. Warm.

  Except for right now, that is.

  Right now, we’re dealing with the zigzag of pain through our fun times.

  The three of us were headed to the car so we could leave the park. We moved off the sidewalk to make way for another little girl and her dad, who were coming our direction. I thought they were sweet; he was cheering her on while she cautiously rollerbladed down the sidewalk.

  “Look, Daddy!” she exclaimed. “I’m doing it!”

  He clapped and grinned. “Yes! Sasha, I’m so proud of you!”

  I smiled at them and at the thought of Theo giving something like that a try. Then I bumbled awkwardly to a stop in the grass because she had stopped walking, too, right in front of me. Her head was turned toward the father and daughter.

  I couldn’t see her face from that angle, but Beckett caught sight of it, and the concerned look he fired at me had my heart dropping.

  After I hurried around to bend down in front of her, she finally turned her attention away from the strangers again, and I saw the tears building in her eyes.

  The sweetness of it had affected her in a very different way from how it affected me.

  She returned my long hug, wobbled out that her daddy is gone, got sad sighs out of both me and Beckett where he stood next to us.

  I whispered back that I know and am so, so sorry. That it’s not fair.

  In her own little
whisper, she told me she wanted her Uncle Beck to hold her.

  I encouraged her to tell him so, and she did, and he got right to it.

  We have just relocated to the shade of a big tree not far from the sidewalk so we can have some privacy from other parkgoers.

  “You always make me feel better,” I hear Theodora whimper to Beckett. Her head is resting on his shoulder.

  He sniffles at the same time I do. Says humbly, “I always try to, sweetheart.”

  I miss what she says next because it’s too quiet, but his response is that he loves her, too, so I have a good guess about what it was.

  My heart begins its rise back up from where it has been sitting in the pit of my stomach.

  I don’t believe I love any sound in the world more than that of Beckett and Theo together; whether they’re laughing or talking, it’s music to my ears.

  Don’t believe I love any sight more than that of them together, even in situations like this.

  Nor do I think I’ve ever beheld inward or outward beauty quite like his. Cliff had been so handsome and wonderful, too, though in different ways—he had a thicker build, green eyes, that golden hair Theo got, an outgoing and ever-positive personality…. But while Beckett is an undeniably strong and brilliant person, too, he can also be so quiet. He doesn’t lead the way through life like Cliff did, with his chin lifted, his footsteps certain, his hand outstretched behind him toward you. No, Beckett ambles along next to you, sits in your pain and amplifies your joy with a devotion that comes from a place of hard-earned trust rather than natural buoyancy.

  God, look at him.

  I haven’t merrily skipped after him these last two years. I’ve weathered the ebb and flow of life right there at his side.

  I don’t want that to stop.

  Cliff used to say Theo and I were the holders of his heart. I made sure he knew he was the holder of ours. When he died, it felt like most of my heart died with him—felt like all that remained was what our daughter carried around with her.

  I thought that was it for me.

  I thought I had nothing left to give to anyone else.

  But right now, I tearfully watch Beckett comfort Theo yet again, pacing beneath the shade of the tree with her nestled in his arms like she weighs nothing, talking calmly to her like he’s not also misty-eyed from her heartache, like her dad’s death hasn’t been hard on him too…

  …and I fully realize he isn’t only holding the piece of my heart that she embodies.

  Somehow gently and securely, he’s holding a piece that belongs to no one but him.

  I feel like screaming it out to him, to the sky, to the world; I also feel like crying even more.

  What I end up doing is closing my eyes, standing still and quiet while the cool breeze nudges my hair off my shoulders and puts chill bumps on me.

  What do I do? I pray again. I can’t stay this way, torn between the ghost of one extraordinary man and the reality of another. What’s the right thing to do?

  But I still don’t get an answer. All I get is a new question echoing in my head: What do I want?

  If only it were that simple.

  Momentarily, I find myself watching Beckett and Theo again. Even though her crying is easing up, there’s a frown on her face as she clings to him, like she’s hoping with her whole being that he’ll hold on to her forever.

  I’m so sad for her.

  But more than that, I’m happy for her because I know if it’s up to him, he will hold on to her forever.

  He continues to prove it here for the next couple minutes, then all the way to the car—he doesn’t set her down until it’s time for her to get buckled up.

  After she falls asleep on the ride home, he’s the one to carry her from the car to her bed.

  And once he and I are settled on opposite ends of the couch from each other, he closes his eyes and tells me, “I love her so much. I hope she’ll always know she can count on me to do my best for her.”

  I fold myself up in my corner and hug my legs, wishing they were him.

  “She will,” I tell him with certainty. “Your love is palpable.”

  A soft huff of a laugh leaves him. “I don’t know how I ended up being this special to her, but it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever accomplished. Like, in my entire life.”

  His sincerity is so plain.

  It isn’t just in his tone. It’s also in his slight frown and in the way I can see him swallowing hard.

  If things between us weren’t so precarious, I wouldn’t think twice about touching him right now—curling my fingers to his cheek, or stroking at his arms, or pulling him into mine.

  My body actually hurts from how much it wants to be near him.

  He clears his throat.

  I’m not sure how long I’ve been watching him rub one of his palms with his other thumb. Snapping my attention to his face, I feel like I’ve been caught somehow.

  But he isn’t looking back at me. His eyes are on the floor.

  He’s just preparing to speak.

  I realize even from this angle that his expression has lightened.

  “To you, too, you know,” he says. “Being as important as I am to you is also one of my greatest accomplishments.”

  My insides resume their fluttering.

  After many quiet moments, I feel that the tension from earlier has started coming back to us.

  “Me too,” is all I seem to be able to say.

  It’s so lacking.

  There’s so much more swirling through me than just a returned sentiment. There are echoes of times when he was hesitant to trust me but still did it, and other times when he was mourning and turned to me for solace like I was the most familiar thing to him in this world, and more times when he was relaxed and happy and playful and I wasn’t merely welcomed into it, I was part of it.

  I try to come up with a way to voice all that somehow, but I run out of time.

  “Okay, hey,” he’s saying suddenly brightly, “speaking of things I’ve accomplished…. Guess what?”

  My eyes follow him as he swoops up to standing on his feet. “What?”

  He steps away from the couch and into a more open spot in the living room. At long last, he looks at me straight again, giving me a clear view of how his expression has gone lighter still.

  “I have a surprise for you.” He holds his thumb and forefinger close together. “Just a little one.”

  A surprise?

  I perk up. My arms loosen from around my knees. “Really? What is it?”

  As his eyes skip over me, an almost shy smile curves over his lips. Color is starting to come into his cheeks.

  He looks proud and nervous and excited about whatever this is, and it’s gorgeous.

  “I…” after a beat, he exhales a laugh that strengthens his smile, “…I know what an arabesque is.”

  I’m stuck on that smile.

  At first, anyway. Then I register what he said, and I blink about it.

  Huh? He knows what an…?

  Tilting my head, I regard him in full with curiosity. As familiar as the dance term is to me, I don’t know why he’s bringing it up.

  That smile is growing more yet. “And I know what pirouettes are, and what a plié is, and—”

  “I—what?” I blink hard now, then shake my head. “Why do y…?”

  My words die away as he goes from standing still to fixing his feet into a damn nice first-position stance.

  Mouth falling open, I stare at how he has pressed the heels of his plain sneakers together and angled his feet outward. Then I watch him round his arms in front of him for the holding-a-beach-ball look that young ballet dancers learn when they’re being taught arm positions.

  And as if that doesn’t look impressive enough, now he’s bending his knees just a little, just enough to form a diamond of empty space between his jeans-clad legs, in an actually nice demi plié.

  This doesn’t look like the form of a person who took a three-minute ballet lesson from
a preschooler over a month ago, or even that of a person who visited one dance class.

  This looks like the result of practice.

  “What the hell?” I whisper.

  He straightens up out of the half-knee bend like a new dancer being led by his instructor. He even lowers his arms with grace. Then he grins at me, happy and—and yes, proud.

  “I’ve been learning some beginner dance stuff from YouTube,” he tells me. “So there’s my ballet plié, right? In, uh, first position?”

  Staying upright, he extends one of his legs straight back behind him, keeping the toe of his shoe pressed to the floor. He holds his opposite arm out in front of him.

  “And here’s an arabesque, right? Kind of? Sometimes I don’t know what to do with my hip. Like, with the angle of it. They say to turn your leg out or whatever when you do one of these, and I think I get it about half the time, but the rest of the time, it just feels awkward.”

  I can’t stop staring.

  Is this real?

  Is Beckett—? Did he seriously just say he’s been watching videos online to learn how to do these things?

  To learn dance basics?

  Why has he taken the time to learn dance basics?

  “Check it out,” he continues. He puts his feet back together, fixes his arms into their rounded position again, and goes up onto his tiptoes.

  He doesn’t even wobble.

  He holds the relevé in first with fantastic poise.

  Only for another second, though, and then he relaxes out of it. “And here’s one of these!”

  He angles himself away from me, toward more of the room’s open space, and puts one foot out on the floor in front of him in what I instantly recognize as a preparation of some sort. Then yep, it’s happening—it has happened—before I know it, he has stepped into, executed, and landed out of a jeté leap. Small though it was, like he’d been hopping over something on the floor, his beginner’s form was pretty impressive once again.

  I get to witness it a second time when he turns and does another one, chuckling out, “These are fun. One of my favorite things I’ve learned.”

  As I go on staring at him, my voice finally comes back to me.

  “You…. Beck, this is amazing. You look amazing. But why are you doing this? What made you want…?”