Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  “Right,” I answer Noelle with a smile. Then I lean over and smack a kiss onto Theo’s hair.

  ‘Your girls, my love,’ I recall her saying recently.

  A piece of me still feels like I’m not supposed to label them my girls; I went so long not thinking of them that way. But so much of me—most of me—thinks of them like that and feels solid, peaceful, happy.

  They’ll always be Cliff’s girls in a really important way, but….

  But Cliff isn’t—

  Theo plants some kisses on the sleeve of my shirt, distracting me from the same thought I almost got lost in at her grandparents’ house.

  Since my stomach had already begun twisting up at the mere shadow of those words, I silently thank her.

  Then I look down…and laugh. She’s gotten a bit of peanut butter and jelly on me. When she sees it, too, she giggles loudly and points the places out to her mama, who gasps and grabs a napkin.

  “I’m fine,” I tell Noelle as she hurries this way.

  Still, she crouches with us and reaches for my arm. “As adorable as PB&J kisses are, I’m not sure how nicely they play with fabric.”

  She wipes carefully at the tiny messes, not wanting to make them worse.

  But I care way more about her fingers cradling my bicep and how she looks with the breeze moving her cascade of dark hair. While I’m no bodybuilder, I’m certainly stronger than she is, so her hand doesn’t fit all the way around my muscles. And damn, do my fingers itch to smooth all those strands back from her face and relearn how soft they are. Their reddish tint isn’t obvious right now since the sun is behind some clouds, but it’ll be in view soon, I know, and I can’t wait for it.

  I reassure her, “Believe me, this day is perfect.”

  Just like that, her concern over my shirt wavers. Her lips curve into a little smile—she has even given in to light laughter by the time her eyes find mine.

  Love it.

  Theo pipes up with, “Yep, this is the perfectest day.”

  I look and see she’s studying her sandwich while pushing a bit of her own wind-mussed hair off her forehead. After a second, she takes a theatrical bite out of the sandwich.

  “I love you both,” leaves me as effortlessly as ever.

  Yet all of a sudden, it feels strange in my chest, like a hard tug at every single thing in there.

  Blithe is Theo’s, “Love yoooou,” like a charming birdsong.

  Fleeting is the flex of Noelle’s hand around my arm, like a skipped heartbeat—or maybe I’m projecting my own reaction onto her like I did in her kitchen this morning, when I touched her neck.

  Except upon looking to her from Theo, I realize I don’t think that’s happening again. If someone feels nothing, I’m pretty sure they don’t wear an expression as rapt as hers.

  It makes me want to touch her even more than I already did.

  My hands are full of kite things, though, and Theo has been remarkably patient in her wait for me to finish up.

  I start turning my attention back to my task—

  —but I still catch the hang of Noelle’s gaze on my lips before she quickly turns her face away, too, to Theo.

  Time seems to stutter.

  I miss what the girls say to each other as I’m vividly reminded again of overwhelming relief on the side of a dark road, bold thumbs and lost breaths, gazes heavy in the best way.

  An apology I didn’t completely mean.

  Her soft body fixed on top of mine.

  My skin humming with her quiet words of affection.

  And I can’t help the incredible way it feels for each memory to ripple through me.

  Or that my lips are sparking once again because I can recall exactly how badly I wanted hers last night.

  Blowing out a breath, I mentally shake myself.

  I need to try harder to fight all this. I’m doing a piss-poor job of remembering my place as her friend—as Cliff’s trusted brother—and putting myself back in it.

  She gently squeezes my arm again and belatedly tells me, “Love you, Beck.”

  And I’m pulled in that much deeper because those words hit harder than usual because she hasn’t taken her hand off me because she clearly doesn’t want to just like I don’t want her to.

  You asshole, the warning part of my brain accuses the rest of me. Don’t sit here all senseless and let this take you over. Get this feeling out of your chest and the thought of kissing her out of your head, and stop lingering on everything she says and does. It’s wrong. Think about Cliff.

  Yeah.

  Yeah, I gotta get my shit together. I know.

  Noelle finally releases my arm and stands.

  Once more, I miss the connection.

  But hey, I’m good. Of course I am. I don’t literally need her touch in order to live—no one dies from not feeling someone else’s touch. Not even people in love, and she and I aren’t—

  My stomach does a gymnastic flip at the idea.

  I clear my throat hard enough that the scrape of it hurts.

  No, we aren’t in love, so we extra won’t die from not touching each other. We love each other, but we aren’t in love with each other. She’s still in love with Cliff.

  But he….

  No.

  I shove back the creeping knowledge about him yet again.

  I gotta be done with this.

  On cue, the world brightens with the sun’s crawling escape from the clouds, inviting me to get out of my head, get the kite finished, and really get this picnic rolling.

  At least Theo has preoccupied herself with picking more tiny flowers.

  “All right, back to this!” I declare to her and myself as I shake out the breeze-curled instructions in my hand.

  Though my disobedient eyes do sneak a look at Noelle’s hair.

  Mmhmm. It’s as awesome in the sunlight as I knew it would be. A tiny bit like fire.

  Man, I love it whether I want to or not.

  When she glances at me from where she has returned to the food, the same goes for the smile I find us sharing—no way to help it.

  Well, whatever. It’s not my fault that her hair rocks and her smile is infectious.

  After she looks away again, I nod reassuringly to myself.

  Then I get my mind back on track.

  It doesn’t take much longer to get the kite in flyable shape, actually. Maybe another minute. Grinning proudly, I collect my trash from the ground and finally show off the sky-ready unicorn to Theo.

  “Oh my gosh!” she squeaks over the music Noelle has just set up on the Bluetooth speaker. She claps her hand and what’s left of her sandwich together, making me laugh. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  Then she thrusts the piece of sandwich at me so she can seize the kite with both hands, and I really laugh.

  Noelle does, too, so much so that her nose wrinkles up in that damn adorable way.

  “Wow!” she says. “‘Here, hold this, Uncle Beck!’”

  “Right? I guess I did a good job!”

  “You did!”

  Ah, God, this day.

  She brings me a paper plate with my sandwich on it, and we manage to get our laughter down to chuckles. With happy thanks, I accept the food, and she grins and takes the kite trash and PB&J from me.

  I take a big bite while she gets her own food into her hands—yum, she made the hell out of this sandwich. Once she’s ready, we both step over to Theo to help her learn the ways of the kite.

  To tell the truth, I’ll be learning right alongside her. My parents never did things like this with me. Is there some trick to flying a kite properly? Or do you just take off running with it and watch magic happen? I’m about to find out, and I’m excited.

  There’s no time like the present to start living more of your life.

  —

  How can a perfect thing get more perfect?

  I don’t know, but our afternoon has figured out how to do it.

  Lunch was the simple sort of delicious: the Funyuns and some p
otato chips went well with the satisfying sandwiches, and chocolate chip cookies wrapped it all up. The kite is freaking amazing—so worth the money. We enjoyed it for almost an hour; whether bright against the gray clouds or illuminated by the sun, it looked so cool billowing in the sky, and Theo looked picturesque holding it by its long, colorful ribbon. In fact, Noelle and I took turns getting pictures and videos of her experience…and took turns experiencing it ourselves. The fun could not be resisted. I don’t even care about how goofy I probably looked flying that thing around.

  We have since moved on to blowing bubbles. It has been another truckload of effortless entertainment, and it, too, has looked cool regardless of the amount of sunlight we’ve had (though they take on a decidedly magical quality when the light hits them). Bubbles are a little trickier to get pictures of, but believe you me, we’ve done our best.

  At this particular moment, the three of us are doing our best to beat each other in what Theo has declared a ‘bubble battle.’ What are the rules? What is the end goal? None of us really know. Nevertheless, we’re having a blast.

  I’m pretty sure I’ll have sore muscles tomorrow from laughing so much today.

  In fact, I’m doing it again now because Noelle has just ambushed me in the middle of my one-on-one bubble battle with Theo, and a bunch of the bubbles she blew at the side of my head popped right against my ear.

  My laughter sounds even louder to me as I rub the tickly spot against my shoulder. “Holy crap, Ellie!”

  She’s cackling so much she just snorted.

  That doesn’t help my aching muscles at all.

  “I’m sorry!” she barely gets out. “I bet that felt so weird!”

  I start to mention equal payback, but then I decide to keep it to myself. It’ll be better as a surprise—I know from experience, see.

  Theo exclaims, “Take this, Mommy!” and, with a huge puff of air through the plastic wand, mounts her own attack on her.

  As awesome as that is, I only cheer Theo on for a second. Then I take this chance to step away and grab a drink from my water bottle. I’m sure the action will turn back to me in no time.

  After I’ve quenched my thirst, I sigh cheerfully and notice a Fall Out Boy song I like is playing from the Bluetooth speaker. I reopen my bubbles while humming along with the dude as he sings about shared fates and wind in hair and how he thinks about a certain person more than anyone else does.

  And even though I’ve listened to this song many times, only now does it really resonate with me, really get the attention of the hairs on my arms.

  Only now does it make me think about someone in particular.

  Across the way, Noelle’s hair is weightless in the windy air, and so is she as she gracefully leaps from one foot to the other in lieu of outright running from Theo, and so are the streams of shimmery bubbles she’s still blowing in their bubble battle.

  Just from looking at her, I feel weightless here on the ground.

  Weightless and happy.

  Even with the slight bite to the early-afternoon air. Even with steely clouds building more and more in the sky, promising to end our fun sooner than we want. Even after last night’s sudden stress and the return of terrible memories.

  Even with my tangled-up thoughts still hanging around.

  I’ve tried not to dwell on them. On her. On the effect she keeps having on me. On the bits and pieces of actions and words that meant something to me even before yesterday brought so much emotion rushing forward.

  But, not counting bailing on the picnic or ignoring Noelle completely, I can’t seem to find an escape.

  And as if I haven’t been struggling with that enough, the song has given it an edge because it’s just so real.

  No one does think about her as much as I do.

  No one can look at her and see what I see, can know her and feel what I feel.

  She trades prancing around for dancing to the music as best she can with her hands full of bubble-blowing items. I can hear her singing along to the song, too, and her performance goes into full rockstar mode when Theo bounds up to her, including the bubble bottle being used as a microphone.

  It’s another little thing I find myself loving.

  God, how many more are there gonna be?

  Inhaling slowly, I pop my neck from one side, then the other.

  Surely not many. Whatever it is I’m caught up in has to run out of gas at some point. She can’t possibly keep making significant somethings out of nonexistent nothings, can’t keep patching up those holes in me that are so microscopic they shouldn’t even be discoverable.

  Because none of that is supposed to be meant for me to this extent.

  Because I lost the coin toss.

  Cliff won it, and a chance with her, fair and square.

  When will that start sticking with me again? Why is it taking this long?

  And why the hell is this even an issue for me?

  How did last night’s accident affect me like it did in the first place? How did the line between friendship and forbidden territory get so smudged, like it was drawn in pencil instead of permanent marker?

  Noelle turns to look at me. Her smile is a brilliant beam toward me before the wind throws her hair across her face, causing her to yelp. Since her hands are full, she tries to toss her hair back without them, but the gust isn’t having it.

  New laughter overtakes me and Theo, and—

  Cliff isn’t with us anymore. He hasn’t been here in a long time, and he can never come back. It’s just us now.

  The familiar truth I’ve been trying hard not to think about drifts through me at last, taking advantage of how disarming Noelle managed to be just now.

  As I take a stumbling breath, my laughter fading, the pleasant afternoon air cuts uncomfortably into my lungs.

  Nothing has been the same since we lost him, including me and her.

  The whisper-quiet facts burrow into me without my permission.

  All I can do is stand here and know them like I’ve known them for the last year and eleven months…but…but not like usual. Not like every other time. They’re twisting through me in a different way from ever before, with more intensity than I’ve allowed throughout today because I’m really starting to think about them now that they’ve blindsided me.

  New distraction finally arrives in the form of Noelle calling my name.

  Blinking, I find I’m being beckoned forward into the new whirlwind of bubbles she and Theo are creating in the breeze.

  Oh. Oh, yeah, I really have just been standing here, apart from them. Been doing it for too long; I quit playing around and got lost in thought a good chunk of time ago.

  Well, there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be than over there with them.

  There’s nothing I’d rather do right now than give Theo my phone so she can try to take a picture of me carrying her bubble-blowing mama in my arms—nothing I’d rather do than have one of my girls close to me and the other even closer.

  I take two steps.

  And something in me mutters that I need to stop, detach, speed through the rest of this outing and then make that escape I haven’t been committed enough to finding. Mutters that it’s extremely dangerous to continue down this path I’ve been on and therefore I should abandon it.

  But something else murmurs that it’s the safest path I’ll ever walk.

  The latter wins out for now. Too easily, maybe, but it has such familiar comfort attached to it…and it saves me from having to pay attention to my other, more nerve-wracking thoughts.

  I don’t know how the inside of me started turning into a warzone, but I’ll deal with it later.

  Noelle doesn’t have to stop what she’s doing and call for me again. Theodora doesn’t have to chime in. I dunk the plastic wand back into my bottle of bubble liquid and hasten forward to rejoin the fun.

  It greets me with open arms, and I fall right in.

  - 13 -

  N O E L L E

  now

  Thi
s has been such a great day.

  Theo loved her unicorn kite, and so did Beckett and I. The bubbles were a ton of fun—I can’t remember the last time I blew bubbles, even with her. The weather was fantastic up until a few hours ago, when the rain rolled in around three o’clock.

  And the warmth that settled itself in my skin early on is still with me.

  It isn’t from the sun—I don’t have a sunburn or anything. No, this is from Beckett.

  He has been…

  …just…

  …the best.

  Spending that park time with Theo was wonderful because she’s my heart, but Beckett added his own irreplaceable magic to it. He’s full of so much fun and strength and gorgeousness and life—he’s addictive, impossible to be too far from. You get a little too far from him and you just don’t feel right.

  He’s kind of a sun all on his own, isn’t he?

  No, I don’t want to ever be far away from him.

  ‘What if I just never let you go, Beckett?’

  I pause washing my hands. My cheeks grow hot. Thankfully, I’m not at risk of anyone noticing since I’m in my private bathroom, not the guest one.

  I can’t believe I said that to him.

  Then again, I can. There had been so much adoration filling my chest, and the fault lines had been set astir by that kiss I hadn’t expected him to put on my face, and it was just so true: I didn’t want to lose one single bit of it, of him.

  My hands are slightly trembly as I resume washing with the tangerine-scented soap.

  So are my bones, it seems like.

  The fault lines have been with me all day. Honestly, they didn’t even end up going away last night. They just went calm for a little while so I could sleep.

  Upon remembering that nightmare I had, a real tremble goes through me, not a little one.

  I stop rinsing my hands to dip forward and bow my head, to try to catch my suddenly thinned breath, to try not to think about…about….

  But in avoiding reliving the horror of it, I start reliving being cradled on top of Beckett on my couch, which doesn’t help the fault lines or my breathing whatsoever.