“It is whatever I say. And I’m going to see it in real life one day,” I argued.
“OK. I hope you do. Maybe you can show me. So, you like butterflies?” he asked.
“Yeah. They’re so beautiful. They’re my most favoritest animal,” I gushed.
“They’re not animals. They’re insects,” he insisted.
“No, they’re not,” I replied indignantly. This boy was so frustrating.
“Miz Graham said they were.”
“Who’s Ms. Graham?” I asked.
“My kindergarten teacher.”
“But aren’t insects animals? At my school, we learned all living things are either plants or animals. And they aren’t plants,” I argued.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Are you sure you’re only six?” He squinted his eyes at me.
“Yep,” I said, letting the p sound pop. “Why would I lie?”
“You just talk like you’re old.”
“I am not old. I’m just like you,” I stated with a frown. I was messing it all up. I didn’t know how to talk to other kids because I had no friends. And I’d never get any friends because I didn’t know how to talk to other kids. Tears blurred my vision as I turned my back on him.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it bad. You’re just different.” He put his hand on my shoulder.
“Different isn’t a good thing,” I mumbled, refusing to look at him.
“Yes, it is. You’re smarter than any kid I know.”
“I read a lot,” I said defensively.
“That’s not bad.” He smiled at me.
“It feels bad sometimes,” I whispered.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Because nobody wants to be my friend. Probably ‘cause I talk too smart. Or ‘cause I’m different.”
“I’ll be your friend,” he offered.
“Really?” My previous despair disappeared.
“Yep,” he said, letting his p pop just like I did. “So, what do you like to read about?”
“Princesses. And horses. And butterflies.” I tapped my finger against my lip, thinking some more.
“I shoulda guessed.” The corner of his mouth tipped up in a half-smile.
“One day, I’m gonna go places where there’s hundreds of butterflies fluttering by in the sky like the picture I drew.” I sighed dreamily, imagining it.
He giggled. “Flutterby. I like that. It’s like a new word.”
“Flutterby,” I tried it on for size. I liked it too.
“That’d be a cool nickname for you. You know, since you like butterflies so much,” he suggested.
“Yes,” I shrieked, jumping up and down.
He covered his ears.
“Sorry. I forget to use my inside voice when I get excited. I never had a friend give me a nickname before. You really are my friend, right?” uncertainty crept into my tone.
“Sure. I need new friends. You’re the only person I know here. And you live right next door. You got a puppy and a treehouse. Seems like you’d make a good friend,” he reasoned.
My cheeks lifted so wide that my face hurt. I finally had my first people friend.
“So, what do you do for fun?” he asked me.
I spun in a circle, pointing to the bunches of pictures on the wall. “Umm… draw and color, mostly.”
“How ‘bout exploring or going on adventures?” he asked hopefully.
“Where?” I tilted my head. Adventures weren’t my thing. At least I didn’t think so. But I’d make them my thing if he wanted me to.
“The woods behind our houses,” he suggested with a shrug.
“I’ve never done that before, but if you want, we can go tomorrow.” I was willing to do whatever he wanted, so long as he came back to play with me.
Day after day, we went on adventures. Afterwards, I drew our escapades and imaginings. Dawson always suggested things to add to my pictures to make them better. It only took a few weeks for us to become best friends. For two glorious months, Dawson was all mine, and I was his.
Then Jessie came home from summer camp. He lived across the street from me. He was seven and never wanted to play with me. Matter of fact, he was always really mean to me. For the rest of the summer, I invited Dawson over for adventures. But he told me girls had cooties, so he couldn’t play with me anymore. I even tried including Jessie, thinking maybe Dawson didn’t want him to feel left out. It was a no go. Every day, I watched them play in Dawson’s backyard from the window of my treehouse. Sometimes Dawson waved when he saw me watching.
Dawson had always loved my artwork, so as a last-ditch effort I decided to draw him a picture. I worked on it for days, using my best coloring pencils. I made sure it was perfect. When I was finally done, it was a picture of us playing with Brownie underneath the treehouse the day we met. In my best six-year-old handwriting, I wrote “I miss you” across the top. I put it in an envelope and left it in his mailbox. I really wanted to write more, but I didn’t know how to spell all the things I wanted to say.
The next day when I went into my treehouse, taped to the wall was the picture I’d drawn for Dawson. Hanging next to it was a new picture with a sad boy on one side of the fence and a sad girl sitting under a treehouse on the other side of the fence. On the bottom of the picture in messy writing was “I’m sorry”.
My heart felt a little lighter as I traced my finger over the pink words. He’d remembered pink was my favorite color.
Every week after that, I drew him a new picture and left it in his mailbox every Sunday morning. Sometimes he added to my drawing or wrote a story to go with it. And sometimes he just drew me a new picture. He always taped them up in the treehouse after dark.
I tried to wait for him in the treehouse one day to make him talk to me. But I fell asleep waiting. When I woke up the next morning, there was a picture of me sleeping beneath the stars and him watching over me. Two words were written so tiny at the bottom, I almost didn’t see them. “I’m here.”
No matter how many times I knocked on his door over the course of the next couple of years, he never came out to play. And he never talked to me. Jessie always teased me whenever he saw me. Called me names, threw things at me, made me cry. My former best friend never did those things. But he never stopped Jessie either. Whenever I saw the two of them together, I started hiding. I hated crying in front of them.
Our only communication for over a year was the exchange of drawings and stories, and the occasional wave across the fence or through our bedroom windows, which looked into each other’s.
Until the day Brownie got hit by a car and we didn’t know if he was going to make it. That day was the first time he actually wrote me a real letter, which I found when I rushed up to my sanctuary to cry.
Izzy,
I’m sorry about Brownie. He’s a good dog. I hope he’ll be OK. He gives the best kisses. I don’t like seeing you sad. I wish I could give you a hug.
Dawson
I smiled through teary eyes. Then I drew a picture of Dawson hugging Brownie. And I wrote him a note.
Dawson,
Thank you for the note. It made me smile. We go see Brownie tomorrow. I hope he’s OK too. He does give the best kisses, probably better than any old boy would. I don’t like being sad. Maybe one day when you want to be my friend again, you can hug me.
Izzy
I put the picture and note in his mailbox.
Brownie recovered. Dawson and I still didn’t start hanging out again. But we did start writing each other notes. Always silly things—what we watched on TV, what we had for dinner, new tricks to teach Brownie, what our parents were doing to annoy us. It was like we were secret pen pals.
Mom worried about me spending so much time alone, so she enrolled me in ballet. There, I actually became friends with some little girls in my class. We played together. But I wouldn’t ever let anyone play in the treehouse. It was my special place with Dawson. I practiced dancing in my room in front of the window every night. He watched but acted
like he didn’t.
“Hey, babe. We’re back.” Beckett gently shook my shoulder to rouse me.
“Sorry, I’m such a bad travel companion,” I mumbled and wiped the sleep from my eyes, wishing I could rub away the memories as easily as that.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to long rides on my own. Speaking of, I wanted to talk to you about something.” His eyes held equal parts hope and trepidation.
Crap.
Panic crept over my body. I wasn’t sure what he wanted to discuss, exactly. But with my rioting emotions and thoughts, I knew I couldn’t handle a talk about our future.
“That sounds serious. My mind isn’t awake enough for serious yet.”
He rubbed his hand up and down my arm. “That’s OK, we can talk about it next time,” he said with a sigh of resignation.
“OK,” I whispered in relief.
“Let’s get your stuff inside.”
He got out of the car and grabbed my bag from the trunk. I followed him up the steps and into my apartment building. A part of me felt bad that I was skittish about discussing the direction of our relationship. I should want to talk about where we were headed. A week ago, I might have willingly jumped into the conversation.
Maybe. But now, I just couldn’t.
When we got inside my apartment, he carried my suitcase to my room while I went to fix us some water.
“Thanks,” Beckett said as he took the glass from me. He wandered around my living room while I stood anxiously in the kitchen, the bar a physical representation of the divide between us.
He squatted in front of my shelf of DVDs. They were arranged by colors on their spines. It was an odd way to organize them. But it appealed to the artist in me. I didn’t really watch them anymore. Most of them had too many memories linked to them. It sucked the former pleasure from getting lost in the stories.
I stood silently as Beckett slid one out enough to see the cover. The Notebook. “This is a great movie. I haven’t seen the whole thing in one sitting yet though. We should watch it together sometime,” he mentioned.
“Sure.” No way.
Beckett ran his finger along row after row. He stooped to the lower shelf and pushed against a couple that stuck out slightly more than the rest. Frowning he pulled them out.
“What’s this?” he asked to himself as he discovered an unopened DVD stashed behind the row. Out of sight. Usually out of mind.
He stood, leaving the removed DVDs in a stack on the floor. “Izzy, is this LO’s Christmas special from two years ago in Paris? The one they did with Trans-Siberian Orchestra?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Those things sold out in presale almost immediately. Back then,” he mused as he read the back of the case.
The band had collaborated with the musical geniuses that made up Trans-Siberian Orchestra for a limited edition live Christmas special. The number of copies created was low compared to the demand. Dawson had ordered my copy before the sale was even announced. The concert was magical.
“I tried to get a copy. But they were all gone,” Beckett’s words stopped me from falling down that rabbit hole. “And you haven’t even taken the cellophane off your copy.” There was a question in his eyes.
I shrugged. “They didn’t ship them until the Christmas after they were recorded. I wasn’t well when my copy arrived. And then I kind of forgot about it,” I offered lamely. I hadn’t forgotten. I just hadn’t needed to watch the show on TV. I’d been there to witness it in person. I could still recall every moment.
“You can borrow it if you want,” I said to distract him from asking any more probing questions.
“Really?”
I smiled and nodded.
“Thanks.”
“I still can’t believe you know Dawson Anderson of Lyrical Odyssey.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“He’s just a man,” I said as much to remind myself as to remind Beckett. Just a man.
“I know. But he’s a musical mastermind. Or he was. The past couple of years haven’t been so great. But still… after all the time we’ve spent together, I would’ve expected your friendship with him to come up. I mean, if I was friends with Taylor Swift or Angelina Jolie, I would’ve found a way to work it into conversation sometime over the past year and a half of our friendship.” Hurt filled his eyes.
“I didn’t keep it from you to hurt your feelings or because I didn’t trust you.” My eyes pleaded with his for understanding. I didn’t offer a reason why I’d never mentioned Dawson before.
“I know that,” he finally answered with a deep breath. “But based on the photos and stories from this weekend, I know he was a really big part of your life. So why didn’t you tell me?”
I chewed on my fingernail rather than answer him.
He turned to my bookshelf of framed photos and examined each one carefully. Landscapes, animals, my parents. “He was so important to you, but you don’t have any photos of him here in your home. Why?”
Tears filled my eyes. After setting the DVD on the arm of the couch, Beckett strode across the room and pulled me into his arms as the first drops fell. “Shh. It’s OK. We don’t have to talk about it.” His hands stroked up and down my back soothingly.
♪ Cry to Me by Solomon Burke
“I promise, I’ll tell you about it someday. Just not today,” I mumbled into his chest.
“You don’t have to. Your past is none of my business. I only care about your present and your future. Our future,” his voice had a fierce edge of possessiveness to it.
His arms tightened. I knew I didn’t deserve his comfort considering the feelings in my traitorous heart. But I soaked it in like a healing elixir.
I wasn’t sure how long we stood there, but eventually Beckett pulled back. Stooping, he looked into my eyes. “You OK now?”
I nodded and brought a hand up to stroke his cheek.
“I hate to, but I’ve got to run. I’m on call tonight.” Disappointment was written all over his face.
“I forgot. I’m sorry for holding you up. You should’ve been on the road a while ago, so you’d have time to nap before going on shift.” I fidgeted with the collar of his shirt.
“No, it’s all good. I hadn’t planned on turning and burning anyway. I was going to spend time with you when we got back, since we didn’t get much alone time this weekend. And I won’t be back for a couple of weeks. But now we don’t have time for a lunch date or… anything else.” He gave me a sad smile. The longing blatantly burning in his gaze.
It was my turn to soothe and reassure him. “It’s fine. We both have a lot going on over the next two weeks, so the days will fly by. And before you know it, you’ll be back, and we can spend the weekend just being together.”
“You’re right. I’ll plan something special for us. It’ll be a surprise.” He winked as he stroked my cheek.
I pasted on a big smile before he lowered his mouth to mine. Wrapping my fingers around his neck, I held him to me as I poured as much passion as I could into my kiss. I was desperate to remind him and myself of my affections. One of his hands cradled my face, while the other gripped my butt, squeezing.
He moaned into my mouth, then pulled away. “Babe, you’re making it so hard to leave.”
“Sorry.” I smirked up at him.
He pulled me back flush against his body, making me feel the evidence of his desire. “See what I’m going to have to deal with while I’m driving?” he murmured in my ear.
“A souvenir to remember me by?”
He chuckled. “As if I needed a memento to keep you forefront in my mind.” He moved his hands up to my shoulders and put some space between us. “Much as I loved that kiss, I need blood flow going to my brain for me to be safe behind the wheel.”
“OK. I’ll see you in two weeks, then.”
“I’ll be counting the hours until we can finish that thought.” He pecked my lips chastely, moved to grab the DVD and then walked to the door. “I’ll call you before I go o
n shift. Love ya.”
“OK. Bye, Beckett. Love ya too.”
“Bye, Isabelle.”
With the soft click of the door closing fading from my ears, the presence of a hidden package beckoned to me. Before I could submit to its siren song, I scooped up my purse and my keys and dashed from the house. While I didn’t want to be alone with Beckett, I also didn’t want to be alone in my apartment with it either. I’d go to the gallery for a bit.
Chapter 8
Dawson
♪ Love Walks in by Van Halen
When I woke the next morning, the fireproof box still sat opened at the foot of the bed, and the bound book of memories rested on the pillow next to me. I couldn’t stop the smile on my face as I looked at the wrinkled sheet of notebook paper flattened and glued in place. We were eight and in the same third grade class. I’d avoided Izzy for the better part of two years, aside from the routine exchange of letters in my mailbox and her treehouse. I hadn’t wanted to stop hanging out with her. But like an idiot, I’d wanted Jessie’s friendship more…
“Hey, Son. How was the first day of school?” Dad asked as I climbed in the car.
“Good. Mrs. Jernigan is nice,” I said as I buckled up.
“Are any of your friends in your class?” His eyes met mine in the mirror.
“Izzy’s in my class,” I mumbled.
“That’s nice. Does she sit near you?” He pulled out of the school’s driveway and turned in the direction of home.
“Not really. Her desk is one row over from mine and one seat up.”
“Don’t get in trouble talking to Izzy in class. Did you talk to her today?” He smiled at me over his shoulder.
“Yeah, we sat together at lunch.” I fidgeted with my backpack strap.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, we shouldn’t have been next to each other because our last names are a little apart. But since we both had to pee before lunch, we wound up in the back of the line.” A giggle slipped out as I remembered her doing the pee-pee dance down the hallway.
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