Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  I sit with this for a while longer.

  This deepening stability, this candid conversation, this swirl of memories, this beautiful afternoon.

  And I somehow find myself starting to think about all this from the viewpoint of love and life in general. From the outside.

  What if this weren’t my situation? What if it belonged to someone else?

  What if it were reversed?

  A young woman dies an untimely death and leaves behind a fiancé and a child. It’s heartbreaking. It’s unfair. Still, life forces the pair of them forward. Almost two years pass one forever-long minute at a time, seeing the kid having nightmares and missing their lost parent, seeing the dad feeling shattered, colorless, lonely, like the world is suddenly too big to walk around in because the woman he loved got taken away.

  He’s off balance every single day of his life…except for those times when this warm, gentle, steadying hand reaches out to him. Because it’s not just any hand—it belongs to his fiancée’s longtime best friend, who is in as much pain as he is, just from a different angle. She’s been feeling off balance, too, and like the world is too big now because the woman who was basically her sister is gone. She, like the guy, understands what has been lost. Like he does, she lives in the void her friend’s death left behind. And it’s because of this that they find balance when they’re together. They find some semblance of healing with each other because they have this terrible thing in common and they can be themselves in the face of it.

  Quite unexpectedly but most beautifully, they can be themselves in spite of it.

  When they’re together, they stop feeling like they’re living in grayscale—they’re able to really laugh, really rest, really exist in the minutes that haven’t stopped coming since the woman died. When they’re together, it doesn’t feel so much like time is a merciless onslaught of needles that can’t be avoided or a series of gigantic mountains they aren’t sure of how to climb. When they’re together, it feels more like time is a gift. Like life is a gift. They sit in each other’s company and the colors start coming back, and the minutes start offering more than pain because these two people form a shield when they’re side by side, and they look up at the mountains and talk about how they can tackle them.

  What if that was how all this had happened?

  What if the situation at hand was Cliff’s?

  What if I had died and left Cliff and Theo, and Ceceli was the best friend who was there to mend their broken hearts?

  I would’ve preferred not to leave them, but things like that can’t be controlled.

  Wouldn’t my next wish be for them to someday find someone to cherish them and help them heal? Wouldn’t I want that for them—all three of them? If they found sincere love and safe comfort with each other, wouldn’t I want them to accept it and learn how to be happy again?

  Yes.

  It might not come easily. It might hurt me in some way. But if that’s true, I believe my love would win out. I believe it would support the three of them in the end, because their ongoing suffering is what would truly break my heart.

  They would’ve been through more than enough suffering by then.

  They would’ve been overdue for some peace.

  I take a long, deep breath.

  Then I get up and head down to the water.

  It’s still a mirror for the sky—the sun is on its way down, but those vibrant sunset colors are hours away yet. The water is reflecting the clouds above as well as the birds flying over. Farther out, it’s being swept into waves and small peaks by the wind.

  Shortly, I find I have just a little more to say.

  “We love you, Cliff. And—and Jesus, do we miss you. All of us. Every day. It’s not okay with us that you’re gone, and it never will be.”

  Another slow breath.

  “But we haven’t given up. We’re gonna make the best of it, just like you would’ve done. Just like you would’ve helped me teach Theo to do as she grew up. Just like you taught Beckett to do for all those years. ‘Don’t give up. Look forward. Find what makes you happy. You can do it.’”

  My God, I can hear him saying it.

  And once again, I can feel the presence of his love, same as I could in any other moment of note that has ever come along.

  Trembling is the smile I send out over the water and then down to the ground.

  “We love you,” I repeat in a whisper.

  After a second, I blow a kiss to him from each of us.

  Then I turn away so I can head back to my car.

  On my way past the stone table, I wipe at my freshly wet cheeks and nod along with his words from that one lovely evening.

  I’ve spent two long years thinking that being out here would never again come close to feeling good…but today, it has.

  —

  An ocean and an earthquake.

  It sounds all wrong to put them together—sounds terrifying, sounds like a disaster.

  Beckett and I aren’t forces of nature, though. We’re people.

  There is nothing wrong, terrifying, or disastrous about him being what saved me from a freefall and me being what shook him out of his own nightmare. There can’t be anything bad about that; it’s why we’re stronger than we were before.

  I’m ready to tell him I know that.

  I’m ready right now.

  As he did yesterday, he came to my house directly after he got off work, and he slipped into the evening with me and Theo as perfectly as ever. My idea for him to stay more than one night has already turned out to be every bit as solid as I thought—and having him in my bed has turned out to be even more comfortable and breathtaking than I thought. And that’s saying something because my imagination had done plenty of work on that on its own.

  Getting lost in him again is tempting now that the house is dark and quiet once more. We’ve already been sharing lazy kisses in the warm haven of my blanket, already been tracing the shapes of each other’s bodies with light fingertips in and out of clothes. These have been milder minutes than the ones from the other morning, but it wouldn’t take much for us to decide we want each other in more ways than this, especially since we’ve glimpsed how good we feel together.

  Were it not for these words in my chest, I would be quite willing to see where else lazy kisses and light fingertips might take us.

  As it is, I feel very much like it’s time for us to talk—really talk—about our life together as a whole. When I got back to Theo after my trip out to the lake, I carefully spoke with her about her hopes regarding Beckett and found they match mine.

  I had asked her, “Do you love him so much that you want him to be here with us all the time? Would you be comfortable and happy with that?”

  Easy yes. She said she misses him any time she doesn’t see him, and she wishes he would stay with us so we can always be with him.

  Sure though I was that my next question would be answered much the same way, I still posed it: “And do you trust him to always take care of you and me?”

  Her nod had been prompt and peaceful.

  “Mmhmm,” she said. “He makes me happy even when I’m sad a little bit. Or sad a lot. He will take care of us forever and ever.”

  Yeah, her thoughts and feelings definitely matched mine.

  Of course they did.

  So it’s time for me to start this conversation with him.

  I drift my lips away from his, brush my thumb over the dip in his collarbone.

  Softly, I ask, “Beckett?”

  “Hmm?” His thumb keeps brushing, too, back and forth across my spine under my shirt.

  I soak up every tingling bit of that.

  It gives me the rest of the courage I need.

  “How do you feel about me?” I whisper. “Where do you want us to go? What do you want with me and Theodora?”

  He pulls in a slow, slow breath.

  Kisses me one more gentle time.

  Rests his face close to mine—I wish we had the lamp on so I could see his
eyes, but I don’t want either of us to move and hit the switch.

  “You want the entire truth?” comes his low voice.

  His tone erases any need for me to be able to see his expression. It’s laden with all the sweet warmth and deep affection and calm honesty in the world.

  My pulse is fluttering. “Yes.”

  The graze of his thumb over my spine turns into his hand moving along the dip of my waist. Then he’s out from under my shirt and finding my hand on his chest; he closes it into his.

  That action alone brings a sting to my eyes.

  He murmurs, “It took a while for me to fully accept that things have changed this much from how they used to be. You know what that’s like. Even when we were letting ourselves act and speak honestly, it was still hard. None of this was anywhere in our plans.”

  So well. I know it so well.

  “I know my truth now, though. I’ve been ready to tell you ‘cause I understand now what Cliff would want for us, and it’s happiness. I understand that it’s okay for us to make each other happy. It’s okay that I’ve fallen for you with no way of ever going back—God, I’ve fallen so hard and so deep, and I’ll never go back. I really am yours. That’s how I feel about you. I’m not in denial or feeling terrible guilt anymore.”

  Yes, yes, yes. I nod.

  He does too. “I just know now that I….”

  We’ve inched close enough for another kiss, and we take it.

  His sigh is hot and trembling on my lips.

  “I want you to love me.”

  His words are hot and trembling through my soul.

  “Not like a friend,” he whispers. “Not to a certain point. Not inside certain limits.”

  My blood is hot and trembling in my veins.

  With my hand held to his chest, I feel that his heartbeat is just as wild as mine.

  “Ellie, I want you to love me with everything you’ve got.”

  My eyes are filling fast now.

  A tearful noise gets stuck in my throat, and I struggle to swallow at it.

  I feel how hard he swallows too.

  “I know it won’t mean you never loved him,” he says measuredly. “That’s okay with me. I’ll never want you to act like that part of your life didn’t happen—of course I won’t. But…your future….”

  He squeezes my hand once, twice.

  “What I want with you and Theo is every second of the future. I want us to keep building a life together, day in and day out. I want my place to be right here where I am, close enough to give both of you anything you need. I want you and me to not hold back how we feel—not with each other and not around other people—because we belong together in every way I can think of. I wanna worship your body, and see your face every morning, and spend a ton of time picking out the perfect engagement ring for you ‘cause it’s sure to be hard to find one that deserves you. And I—I wanna keep being Uncle Beck to Theodora until we all decide that me being her dad feels right. I wanna be dance parents with you, and help her with homework, and teach her about computers and how to change a tire, and be your teammate when she’s a sassy teenager, and warn each and every one of her dates to treat my daughter with respect or there will be hell to pay.”

  I can’t keep the tears in—or a soft sob.

  I pull our hands to me so I can drop fervent kisses onto his fingers.

  Through the darkness comes the warm press of his lips to the bridge of my nose. More warm words come too.

  “I want her to grow up watching me love you, Noelle, so she’ll know what to accept for herself. So she’ll know that if someone doesn’t give to her from way down deep, with sincerity and—and joy because she makes them whole, then they aren’t good enough for her.”

  I cannot breathe.

  I couldn’t be more okay with it.

  My heart was sure he would say things like this; what we’ve shared has made obvious how seriously we feel about each other. Still, actually hearing it—hearing him voice sentiments that equal my own…it fills me with something so beautiful I can’t describe it.

  He asks, “Can you see it too?” and his voice weakens as if there are tears in his eyes like there are in mine. “Can you see it as clearly as I can?”

  Yes, I can.

  Every bit of it, and more, is unfolding in my mind like one of those books of pictures that seem to move as you flip through the pages. Him having tousled hair and sleepy eyes as he unwillingly climbs out of our bed in the mornings, and him helping me clean the kitchen after meals. Soothing Theodora when she wakes up sick in the middle of the night, and growing emotional when she calls him her dad, and taking silly and sweet pictures with her before each new first day of school. Him replacing more lightbulbs I can’t reach even with the stepstool, and him making love to me in fresh morning sunlight with my name on his breath, and him looking at me with misty ocean eyes as we say our vows to each other. Us growing older and older, watching Theo grow more and more into her own life, loving how we’ve all grown so much together over so many years.

  I work to finally get words out of my aching throat. “Yes. I can see it.”

  He lets out another trembling sigh and finds my mouth with his.

  We share one earnest kiss after another.

  He doesn’t let go of my hand for a second, not even while he shifts to get his other arm around me.

  “What about you and Theo?” he whispers away from my mouth, holding me close. “What do the two of you want with me?”

  “Everything,” I whisper back. “Everything.”

  The answer is so much quieter than my pulse would be if it had a voice.

  Still, it feels powerful.

  It is powerful.

  It makes my soul feel light, has his breath shuddering through him, draws us into another kiss so tender it threatens to draw a sob out of me.

  I want to add to it. I want to tell him what I see in my own head, want to say out loud that Theo and I want to be his girls—only his, no one else’s—for the rest of our lives.

  For now, all I manage through my heightening emotion is, “I know it myself—that you and I are okay. That it’s okay if we’re right for each other and if we make each other happy. So Theo and I…we want every second of your future, too, Beck.”

  His lips brush over mine, along with the simple promise, “It’s yours.”

  Just as yet another kiss is about to come, I feel him smiling.

  “Take that to the bonk,” he adds.

  I can’t help smiling, too, even though the soft sob promptly gets the best of me.

  “Meet me there?” I wobble out. “At the bonk?”

  He nods again, then sniffles. “Yeah, I’m going wherever you go, Ellie.”

  I bring his fingers back up to my lips for more kisses. “Well, I’m going wherever you go.”

  It doesn’t need to be said—hasn’t had to be said any of the times we’ve voiced it. Each of us has known this for a long time. Our commitment to each other may as well be written in stone, in the stars, in our blood. We found ourselves in a most delicate place after our feelings got scared out into the open the night of our deer accident, but at our roots, there was only ever steadiness.

  Still, I’m never going to stop reminding him of that, and I know he’ll remind me right back forevermore.

  And it’ll always strike the deepest chords in us, because we really have turned out to be two halves of the same whole.

  - 23 -

  B E C K E T T

  now

  I end up staying away from my apartment for longer than a few days.

  The sixth of April marks an entire week of it.

  For the most part, it’s been an awesome week. I have helped get Theo ready for preschool almost every day, kissed Noelle goodbye before parting ways with her, taken the kiddo to the church myself when she requested it.

  The hours between cooking dinner with Noelle and reading Theo a bedtime story each night have been calm and goofy and messy and altogether comfortable. I’ve
liked getting to use the shower in the master bathroom since the guest one is less fancy and also teeming with toys and bathtub-crayon artwork. I much more than liked it the morning Noelle’s appreciative blue eyes caught me in nothing but a towel thanks to my late realization that I hadn’t taken my day clothes to the bathroom with me and needed to quickly grab them from where I set them out.

  And I have loved us being close enough to each other for her to play with my hair when it’s time to wake up, and for us to barely need to raise our voices when we talk from two different rooms, and for me to kiss the impending arm and hip and knee bruises she acquired during one clumsy day—and, of course, for me to hurry to Theo’s room and rescue her from a spider that appeared harmless but scared her nonetheless.

  There’s one part of this week, though, that hasn’t been awesome. The mist of an enormous memory that has been drifting in bit by bit, building up, preparing to dampen our spirits, really only visible to me and Noelle because Theo is still too young to notice it.

  Cliff died on the sixth of April two years ago.

  It’s today.

  It has been two long and short years since we lost him.

  Two years that seemed both impossible to slow down and impossible to hurry along; we didn’t want to have to go forward without him, but we also wished our agony would stop taking its time easing up.

  Noelle and I lie quietly in her bed, holding each other in the early sunlight. The last words we spoke are still in the air—words of how we’re glad we both took the day off work because all either of us wants to do is be.

  Theo doesn’t know it yet, but she’s staying home today too. We don’t want to be away from her.

  So while she goes on sleeping down the hall, we go on remembering her dad.

  After a while, I get the urge to remember out loud.

  “You wanna hear a story about when we were younger?” I ask throatily.

  Noelle shifts against me, snuggles further into me. “I do.”

  I think she’ll like the one that has been coming back to me.