Zelda
December 30th
I sat at the desk and flipped through the new pages of Mother, May I? while outside, the rain came down in slanted bullets. After Christmas night, Beckett and I had thrown ourselves into the work. I kept my head down and the pace feverish, trying to distract from the memories of that night. The food, the dancing, the words he’d whispered to me.
He thinks I’m beautiful.
This is home because of me.
This was his best Christmas.
It was mine too. His words were the best gift I could’ve received. Beckett was the best thing to happen to me in a long time.
Oh God, what am I doing?
I was a pro at denial, but this deep, raw desire refused to be ignored. We’d touched too many times for my body to forget, and now I suffered the pleasant agony of wanting what I couldn’t have. That sublime ache when the person you want is in the same space. The charge in the air, the tension that can snap with one look or one word…
I gave myself a shake.
Jesus, get a grip. Focus.
I bent over my work. Mother, May I? was nearly finished, which brought its own thrill. Half elation and half terror.
What if they don’t like it?
What if they do?
A gust of wind tossed rain at the window like a handful of pebbles, and I bit the end of my pen. Beckett was out there, in that mess, but due home any minute now. I got up to stir the chili that burbled in the pot, and exhaled a sigh of relief when I heard the key in the door.
“Hey,” Beckett said.
“Hey, yourself,” I said. “Jesus, you’re drenched.”
And gorgeous. You’re fucking gorgeous, damn you, Copeland.
His weather-proof jacket was shiny with water that ran off in rivulets, dripping onto the floor. He stripped off his gloves and blew on his hands, his cheeks ruddy, his hair glistening.
“What’s that?” he asked, slightly breathless with cold. “Chili? Smells amazing. Let me warm up, then we can eat and work.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Beckett showered and changed into dry clothes. We ate chili and the corn bread I’d bought at Afsheen’s, then crammed ourselves around the little desk to work. The silence was loud and filled with our rum-soaked dance on Christmas and all the words that came after…
“You care if I put on some music?” I asked. “Something not a hundred years old?”
Beckett smiled a little. “Knock yourself out.”
I set up my phone to play an alternative radio app. Oasis’ “Wonderwall” came out sounding a little tinny. We didn’t have a speaker deck, but it would do.
“I finished the text for the last two panels. What’s next?” Beckett asked, leaning over the drawings.
I pulled out the most recent mock-ups, the rough sketches that served as guidelines for the finished drawings.
“So Kira and Ryder have jumped to 1983. She’s caught a perv staking out a playground at night, readying to make his move the next morning. She’s got her weapon aimed, ready to blow his brains out, but…” I bit my lip and then blew out my cheeks. “It’s the moment of truth. Does she listen to Ryder’s advice and spare the guy? Or not?”
He looked at me, then at the drawing of a scared-looking man on the ground at Kira’s feet. He drew the rough sketch toward him and wrote, P-Please, Mother…m-may I l-live…? in a dialogue bubble above the perv’s head.
“Kira always say no,” I said. “What happens if she says yes? What happens to avenging her daughter? She’s a vigilante who kills to stop the pain. That’s all she knows. What happens when it’s all gone?”
Beckett smiled softly. “We don’t know. That’s the finale of the book. The repercussions of her saying no, yet again. Or yes. And letting him live.”
“I don’t know what will happen to her.”
He smiled gently. “Only one way to find out.”
I met Beckett’s eyes. I fell into the sapphire depths, like a warm, deep blue infusion where I was always safe. The music filled the quiet between us.
Because maybe, you’re going to be the one that saves me…
I swallowed hard. “She says, yes.”
Beckett’s smile was brilliant. He lettered the dialogue and set the pen down.
“It looks good, Zel,” he said. “Really good.”
I blew out a shaky breath. “It’s a start. Not sure what comes next.” I looked up at him. “For her.”
He slowly sipped his beer. “Maybe she thinks about what she didn’t do and finds a little comfort in that. How she spared herself from seeing the life in the guy’s eyes drain out.”
I didn’t miss the knowing look in his eye, or the fact he wasn’t talking about my comic book heroine anymore.
“Is this your subtle way of telling me you’re against the death penalty?” I asked tightly. “Specifically, you’re against me going to watch the asshole who killed my sister put to death?”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t expecting a straight, simple answer. It knocked the wind out of me and I slumped in my chair. “It’s what I’ve been waiting for, for ten years. Ten years, Beckett.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “And I know it’s not my place or my business. But I’ve been there, Zel. I’ve seen a man die. It changes you. Forever.”
I looked to the window where night had fallen and the rain was silver streaks against the glass. “It’s not the same,” I said. “Your guy was an accident. He wasn’t a sick, depraved monster.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Beckett said, his own words tightening. “But seeing it happen, Zel, no matter how or why…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Don’t listen to me. It might bring you the peace you want and the last thing I want to do is stand in the way of that.”
I looked at him straight on. “What about your peace, Beckett?”
He sat back in his chair. “It’s not the same situation. At all.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Yours was an accident.”
“Same result. The guy is dead. But you have a choice, Zel. You still have it. I made mine. I made it when I decided to rob that fucking house.”
He got up to throw his empty beer can away and remained in the kitchen, his hands on his hips, his head down. My heart ached for him. I wanted to give him one fraction of the comfort—the relief—he’d given me. Somehow.
“I know about your letters to Mrs. J,” I said quietly.
Beckett jerked his head up. “What? How?”
“Darlene,” I said. “Don’t be mad at her,” I added when his expression turned murderous. “You know how she is. Words flow in and out of her like a tide. She can’t help it. And besides, she only mentioned it because she cares about you.”
His hard look remained but I saw his eyes soften just enough to give me the courage to go on.
“The only reason I’m mentioning it,” I said slowly, “is because I care about you.”
He held my gaze for a moment more, his eyes full of thoughts and I knew every one was of me. But he shook his head as if to clear it and said in a measured tone, “The letters are nothing. Pointless. I’m sure she doesn’t even read them.”
“Does she send them back?”
“No.”
“Then maybe she reads them.”
“She hasn’t replied,” he said. “I’ve written her thirty-nine letters, Zelda. If she’s read them all, why hasn’t she replied?”
His voice was hard like a stone, but frayed at the ends. If I had to sketch him at that moment, I’d make him a heavy boulder. But streaked with veins of hope that could break the solid pain apart.
“Beckett—”
“There’s nothing left to talk about,” he said in a low voice.
“But you have plenty to say to Mrs. J,” I said, hugging myself. “You need her to give you permission to live again, right? And if she doesn’t, then what? What happens after we finish the graphic novel?”
What happens to us?
He was quiet for a moment, and then said, “I have nothing to offer you, Zelda.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m a felon. That’s going to follow me around for the rest of my life. Every job application, every rental application. Do you know how hard it was to get into this place? If it wasn’t for Roy, I’d be fucked, because not many people want to rent to criminals. I can’t even open a fucking checking account until I clear it with him first.”
“I told you I don’t care.” I looked away, tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and hugged myself tighter. “I don’t care about any of it.”
“I do,” Beckett said. “I care. I care that when I close my eyes, I see Mr. J dying. I see the light in his eyes snuffed out, and all the shit I’ll have to go through for the rest of my life seems so goddamned easy compared to that moment. That one fucking moment…”
He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “I fucked up my future,” he said finally. “The last thing I want to do is fuck up yours.”
I fought for something to say but he was moving to pull the air mattress down.
“Today was rough in that weather,” he said. “I’m tired. Let’s just call it a night, okay?”
I watched him fold his six foot-two inch frame onto that stupid air mattress, and reluctantly climbed into his bed. The apartment was quiet but for the soft, half-hearted clank of the radiator.
I stared at the ceiling. “Mrs. J might write you back someday,” I said softly into the dark. “Or she might not. You could write her every day for a long time, ten years, maybe, and never hear back. That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve some peace too.”
Beckett didn’t reply and the silence drew long and kept going, into a sleepless night where I felt Beckett lying three feet from me but trapped in a past he couldn’t change. I was too—our pain was of the same fabric, even if the patterns were different, but he was helping me.
And I can’t help him. I failed
I buried my face in Beckett’s pillow, and drifted toward a restless sleep. Sometime in the early gray of morning, I heard him climb off the air mattress and go to the desk. He drew a paper and pen, and under the illumination given by the strings of lights hanging above, he began to write.
And when he was done, he dressed for work, tucked the letter into his pocket and went out.