Forever (adv.): for all future time
Now (adv.): at present time
Darlene
I wiped a rivulet of sweat off my brow, and then planted my hands on my hips to catch my breath. Ryan, my partner, was bellowing beside me, and I fought a wave of irritation. He had mistimed three cues during the run-through—nearly head-butting me, again—and with the show a week away, his clumsiness wasn’t just annoying, it was going to make the rest of us look bad.
We already look bad.
I hated to even think it, but the show completely lacked inspiration and in my humble opinion, Anne-Marie, the lead dancer, was wooden and mechanical. Worse, she was the kind of person who thought she no longer had anything left to learn in dance, or life in general. The kind of person who began almost every sentence with “I know.”
Greg and Paula had watched from foldout chairs at the head of the practice room at the Dance Academy. They shifted in their seats like they were sitting on splinters. There should have been a palpable air of excitement this close to opening night. Instead, the six of us dancers were like humming electrical posts, filling the room with nervous tension.
The director and stage manager put their heads together for a moment. Anne-Marie tossed her blonde ponytail over her shoulder.
“Well?” she demanded. “Are you going to give us notes, or what?”
Greg and Paula murmured and nodded, having come to some sort of agreement.
“It’s…good,” the director said. “It’s coming together well. But it’s short, even for a showcase.”
“We timed it at twenty-seven minutes,” Paula said. “Thirty would be better.”
“We need one more act to fill out the time,” Greg said. “Darlene.”
My head shot up. “What?”
“We’d like you to perform your audition piece. As a solo.”
My glance immediately shot to Anne-Marie who audibly gasped.
“We’re a week out,” she said. “You can’t just change the whole show.”
“We’re not changing the whole show,” Greg said. “We need one more act. A time filler, really.”
Oh, is that what I am? I wanted to say. Truthfully, between the menace that was my partner, and the cold shoulders from the rest of the troupe, the words I quit, were teetering from my lips. But I was trying to be professional and not quit something just because it wasn’t what I’d hoped. And I wasn’t about to leave them in a lurch so close to opening night.
“Darlene?” Greg asked. “Can you?”
“Umm,” I glanced at Anne-Marie who was glaring poison-tipped daggers at me. “Are you sure?”
“We’ll put it between Entendre and Autumn Leaves.”
“Okay, I guess I could do that.”
“This is ridiculous,” Anne-Marie said. “Who cares if we’re three minutes short?”
Greg pretended not to have heard her. “Take your positions for the finale of Entendre, and then Darlene—”
“Rehearsal is over,” Anne-Marie said. “I have somewhere else to be.”
She flounced to the wall to grab her stuff and headed out. The other dancers shuffled their feet until Greg dismissed them too.
“Right, time’s up. We’ll have the music cues set up for tomorrow’s rehearsal then,” Greg said stiffly, trying to hold on to his authority. “Will you be ready?” he asked me, and I saw the spark of nerves dancing behind his eyes.
“Sure, no problem,” I said. “I’ll just stay here for a little bit and put in some extra time.”
And try to turn my improv into a routine.
Greg eased a sigh. “Good. That’s fine then.”
He left and Paula sidled up to me. “Anne-Marie really wanted to be the only soloist.”
“I noticed.”
“Thank you for stepping up.”
I smiled. “Doesn’t suck to have a solo on a résumé.”
“Yeah, well, we need it. The show needs it. A spark. Having just watched the whole run-through.” She bit off her words with a sigh. “Anyway, thanks.”
“No problem.”
After everyone had gone, I stood in the center of the room, and stared at the girl in the wall of mirrors.
“Persistence,” I murmured.
I didn’t quit, and I got a solo out of it.
If I told Sawyer the truth.
What would I get out of that? I wondered. Recriminations or acceptance?
I hit ‘play’ on my music app and Marian Hill asked her question. But I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t down or up. I was in limbo, unable to move. My body suddenly stiffened by all the words I needed to say, and I began to see why I’d quit dancing when the drugs started; when I’d begun to lie to my family and friends about what I was doing and where I was going. Dancing was my honest self. My body speaking the truth of the music, and I couldn’t be that while stuffed with lies.
I was probably just as stiff and mechanical in the run-through as Anne-Marie.
I took the Muni home, showered, made dinner. Always doing something, never letting myself stop and think. While doing the dinner dishes, a text came in on my phone from Max.
Well?
I bit my lip and typed, Not yet.
When?
Tonight. After his daughter goes to bed.
Shit. There it was, in black and white.
There was a short pause and then Max wrote back, “Don’t ever regret being honest. Period.” –Taylor Swift
I laughed, and it was like a sigh of relief.
You can’t argue with T-Swift, I typed.
No you cannot. Max wrote back. Call me any time if you need to.
I smiled at my friend, who was going to move to Seattle any minute and leave me alone. I will. <3 you
Love you, D.
I held the phone to my chest. It wasn’t a hug, but it was the next best thing.
At eleven-thirty, dressed in soft shorts and a white T-shirt, I headed down to Sawyer’s. I was going to bring some food for him and Livvie, but changed my mind. I wanted no pretense; there was no other reason for me being there than to tell him the truth.
My pulse was jittery as I tapped lightly on his door. It opened after an agonizing thirty seconds in which I almost ran away. Twice.
Sawyer was there in what I called his jammies—V-necked T-shirt and plaid flannel pants—though it didn’t look as if he’d done any sleeping in them. Dark circles ringed his eyes that were bloodshot. For a split second, the dark pools of them lit up to see me, then faded again.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey. Is this a bad time?”
“You can come in.” He shoved the door open and then turned his back to walk inside. “You want anything? Something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine.” I shut the door behind me. “I came here to tell you what I should have told you the other night.” I heaved a calming breath and started with the easy part. “I’m not seeing anyone else, I promise. Max is only a friend.”
“Okay,” he said. Sawyer moved slowly to his desk. He slumped in the chair, and covered his eyes with his hand.
Is he this torn up about our failed date?
A selfish part of me would like to think he cared that much about me, but no, it had to be something big, like he failed a final or that judge picked someone else for the clerkship he needed. It suddenly seemed horribly out of place to talk about myself when he was so obviously upset.
Not just upset. Devastated.
My fear for myself reshaped itself into fear for him.
“Sawyer, are you okay?” I moved to stand on the other side of his desk. “What happened?”
Sawyer dropped his hand from his eyes like it was too heavy, then reached over his desk to take a folded piece of paper. He tossed it closer to my side of the desk and slumped back in his chair.
I snatched it up and read it, my heart clanging harder with every word, then stared at him, incredulous.
“A hearing? For custody of Livvie?” The paper trembled like a leaf in my hands. “Who…who are these people?”
“Olivia’s grandparents.” Each sentence came out dull and staccato. “They were here with their lawyer. They have money. Lots of it. They met Olivia and they want custody.”
I let the notice of the hearing fall back to the desk. “But they can’t do that,” I said. “You’re her father. They can’t just…take her from you.”
Sawyer covered his eyes again and I rushed to him, behind his chair and wrapped my arms around him. He didn’t move but let me hold him and I fought not to burst into tears.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “It has to be. You’re so good for her.”
I straightened and without thinking—my body charged with panic I needed to channel—I rubbed his back, talking and kneading his muscles that felt like rocks under my hands. “There has to be a law, right? They can’t just barge in here and take her away from you.”
“It’s not that simple,” Sawyer said, his voice gruff.
“But it doesn’t make any sense—”
“There are circumstances, Darlene.”
“What kind of circumstances let the grandparents take a baby away from her father?”
“I’m not her father.”
I reeled, his words pushing me back a step from his chair. It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
“What…what are you saying? Of course you are.”
Sawyer looked around at me, shaking his head miserably.
“I’m not. I took a paternity test when Molly first left her with me. I’m not a match, but it doesn’t matter. Even after only a few days of having her in my life, she was mine. I tried to take her to CPS with Jackson. He tried to convince me it was the best thing, that I was crazy to try to raise her on my own. But I couldn’t do it. Molly told me she was mine and that’s how I thought of her. I still do. In my heart and fucking soul, she’s mine and I love her.”
He bit off the words, fighting for control.
“It doesn’t matter to me what some stupid fucking test says. It only matters what I feel.” He shook his head, a harsh, bitter laugh breaking free. “But turns out, that doesn’t matter either. The court is going to order another paternity test. The Abbotts will demand one, and when the results come out, I’m going to lose her.”
I put my hands back on his shoulders, shaking my head. “No. They can’t do that. Not after so long. She calls you Daddy,” I bit back my own tears. “Because you are her daddy and they have to see that. They have to.”
He shook his head and a small silence fell. I pulled myself together and Sawyer’s shoulders rose and fell under my hands as he took deep breaths to compose himself.
“Do you have help? A lawyer?”
“Jackson.”
I bit my lip. “He does taxes…”
“I can’t afford anyone else. And I trust him.”
“Okay. Okay good.”
I kept massaging Sawyer, working at his shoulders; the coiled knots of worry that his deepest fear was coming true. His entire body hummed with tension and I felt so helpless to do anything for him but this. I dug my thumbs into the hard muscles of his back, working circles over his shoulder blades, then back up, over his collar bone.
For long moments, there was silence. I didn’t know what else to do or what to say. I could only try to ease his pain somehow, because I had nothing else.
Sawyer didn’t move and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, chin to his chest. Then his hand rose to take one of mine. He pressed my palm to his lips and I sucked in a breath as the kiss slipped up my arm, raising goosebumps, then spread over my shoulder and chest like a flame.
Sawyer turned my hand over and kissed the back, then held it to his cheek, still saying nothing. My heart thumped hard as he pulled me around in front of him, and then sideways onto his lap.
Face to face, and so close, he was breathtaking, but his eyes were so heavy. I lifted my hands and continued the massage, pressing circles on either side of his face, at the hinge of his jaw, below his eyes, his forehead. Then I grazed my fingernails along the sides of his head, just above his ears, over and over.
Our gazes never broke, we shared a breath, and then his hand was on my thigh. The other slipped up to hold my cheek, and even that small touch I felt everywhere. It scared me how much I wanted him.
“Did it help?” I asked. “I want to help.”
He nodded. “You’re the best thing in my life right now, Darlene,” he said hoarsely. “The only good thing.”
And then he kissed me. Like a drowning man needing a breath, he kissed me hard and desperately, his brows furrowed as if he were in pain. His hand found the back of my head, and he made a fist in my hair, gently but urgently, pressing me closer, deeper; holding me to him when I felt weightless. My mouth opened for him; Sawyer holding me to his kiss was the only reason I didn’t float away.
A little moan of want fell out of my mouth and he took it in his. The kiss deepened as I came back to myself, wanting to feel every second, every sensation. His tongue ventured into my mouth and another little sound escaped me. My arms went around his neck, my fingers slid into his hair, nails grazing as our kiss intensified.
Sawyer’s breath rasped in his nose as he kissed me harder, his arms wrapped around me now, both hands in my hair now, angling my head to take him deeper. The bite of his teeth on my lower lip made me dizzy and the chair was suddenly too small to contain us.
But Sawyer wrenched himself away from me, shocking me with the sudden break. He gently but quickly moved me off his lap and strode to the kitchen where he stood with his back to me, head bowed, hands resting on the counter.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Shit, I’m sorry, Darlene, I shouldn’t have done that. Everything is so fucked up right now, and kissing you is like stepping outside of a nightmare.”
I nodded quickly, thinking of my original reason for coming here tonight. “Me too. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“We can’t do this. I can’t. I can’t do this to you.” He turned to face me, carved his hand through his hair. “Goddamn, Darlene, now? Why is this, why are we happening now? My whole life is about to implode. I have nothing to give you. Nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” he said tiredly. “You deserve someone who’s not stretched to the goddamn breaking point every second of his life.” His jaw clenched and his dark eyes shone. “I was close to being done and now this hearing...”
“I know,” I said in a small voice.
“I have to fight for her,” he said, his tone hardening. “I have to put everything I have into that. No, not just that. I have to pass the bar, and get the goddamn clerkship so that I can prove I can provide for her. Fuck.”
He rubbed his eyes and my heart broke for him, for the weight that was pressing down on him, trying to crush him.
“I know it’s so hard for you right now...”
“Too hard. I feel like my fucking heart is being torn in half. I’m scared shitless about losing Olivia, and yet when I’m with you, I see something real. For the first time in my life, I want whatever we have to be real.”
Real. But I’m a liar. A fraud. He doesn’t know me, I haven’t told him anything.
He shook his head. “But I can’t give you anything right now but stress and pain. When all this shit blows over…” he said hoarsely. “If I still have her when it’s done...”
“You will. You will, Sawyer.”
His jaw worked and for a moment he said nothing. “I don’t know, Darlene. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. But when it’s all done and if I have Olivia,” he swallowed hard. “Then I can really be with you, if you still want that. Or at least we can try. Until then…” He let his hands drop to his sides. “I have nothing.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “But I understand. I do. And I’m supposed to be working on myself, and God knows there’s still so much left to do. To say to you.”
I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand.
“But I can be here for you,” I said. “As a friend. Or to babysit Olivia if you need me to. Whatever you want, okay?”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
I moved to the door, feeling like I was running away, but God, how could I tell him anything when he was about to face the fight of his life? Keeping Olivia was the most important thing right now, but it still felt like a cop out.
“Tell me how the hearing goes,” I said, opening the door. “Tell me if you need anything. Anything at all. Tell me…”
Tell me you’ll forgive me when you know the truth.
The words stuck in my throat, and I flew out of his place, tears spilling over.
I guessed not being so much of a coward was something I still needed to work on.