THE ACIDIC CITRUS FUMES ARE getting to me, causing a pounding behind my temples. I'm hoping it'll stay a dull ache and not turn into something worse. I've spent the last three hours making the small shop as squeaky clean as I possibly can, putting all of my frustration and feeling of ineptitude into the washing of the walls and mopping of the floors. 'I Want You Here' by Plumb really isn't helping me in my quest to ignore reality. I know I need to be fearless. I want to be. I have to remember how to be, from day to day. And Rivers—Rivers makes me fearless. I need his physical presence to remind me that I am not sinking; I am standing. No, I am flying.
I have to use this body, mind, and heart to their maximum potential while I still have the capability. I need to feel, not just emotionally but physically as well. And what I want, what I need, what I covet, what I love, is Rivers. I realize caring for someone is painful, I realize opening up to him in all ways will eventually hurt to an unbelievable degree. I know I need to stop being scared of what I feel and just...feel it.
I also know he is looking at me right now like his whole existence rests upon my next course of action.
“Hey.” He nods, moving just inside the doorway. I caught a hint of fear, desperation, and hope in that three-lettered word.
His black hair is longer, covering up the scar above his temple. The wounds have faded from pink to a pale tan. If he wanted, he could have his old life back, or some variation of it. Looking at him sends my pulse into a crazy rhythm only my heart can understand. Being so close to him and not touching him is excruciating to me. I didn't realize how much I truly missed him until he is once again standing before me. I can smell his clean scent, I can feel his eyes devouring me as he tries to replace the recent loss of me by sight alone. My eyes, in turn, rove over him like it is the first time they have been acquainted with beauty.
I set the rag and cleaning solution on the white porcelain of the sink. “Hey.”
“Your mom told me you were back here.”
“Figured that.” When he doesn't reply, I shift my feet and tell him, "I was going to call you. Today, actually." That was the plan once my shift is done. I was going to go home and call him, or possibly be brave enough to go to his house after work. I hadn't decided which yet, but it doesn't matter now, because here he is.
"I enjoyed your text this morning immensely." He pauses. "'My mom always told me to find something to believe in, so I decided not to like feta cheese. I protest that shit like you wouldn't believe.' Catchy."
I shrug. "Your reply was better. 'I don't like feta cheese, but goat cheese is okay.' That should be on a shirt."
A grin teases his lips, but is erased as soon as his eyes lock with mine. “It's been three days.”
I lower my gaze, because when I look into his eyes, I see so much, more than I ever thought I'd see in them for me, and it makes me want to cry. I wipe at a speck of dirt on my pink tank top. When it refuses to disappear, I tighten the rubber band around my hair so I have something to do with my fingers. He just keeps watching me, silent and still, and it gets to be too much.
Finally unable to take the quiet any longer, I ask, “Three days since what?”
Three days since I quit, three days since I walked away, three days since I've felt the way only Rivers can make me feel.
“Since I've had you next to me while I sleep. I miss it. I miss you.”
I don't answer. Each night I struggle to sleep, needing his arms and finding only emptiness to hold me during the long hours of nothing and everything. It feels like I am alone in an unending world of disquiet without him. I wonder if this is what death feels likes—this limbo state of black consciousness that you can never awaken from.
“I want to wake up next to you in the morning.”
My eyes fill. “I don't think your mother would have the same view on that.”
He gives me a half-smile and his eyes light up. “Okay, then I want to wake up every morning knowing I'll see you.”
The pain is fast, intense. I rapidly blink my eyes, but it does no good. The tears fall anyway. I avert my face and Rivers quickly tugs me to him, his hands resting on my hips as he stares down at me. We're in this silent showdown as our eyes memorize the features of the face before us.
“Whatever I did to push you away, you have to forgive me—I need you to. I...I can't lose you.” He swallows. “I mean, I guess I don't really have you, but I feel like I do. I feel like when you smile at me...my whole body feels it. I've never felt so much so soon for anyone. I don't want to lose this feeling. You woke my soul up and the rest of me followed.”
“You did absolutely nothing wrong,” I tell him in a voice that shakes, his words filling me with emotions too great to try to decipher. I woke up his soul. I woke up...his soul. Those words are so very precious to me. I mentally wrap my heart around them to keep them near me always.
“Then why did you quit? Why did you avoid me? Why are you still avoiding me?”
“I needed some time...to think.” The words I speak are true, but it was more than that. I needed to sort it all out, stop feeling sorry for myself, and be thankful for what I get. I tripped and stumbled off the course of my path and now I am back on it.
“And now?”
I meet his eyes. “And now I know what I have to do.”
Wariness creeps into his expression. “What's that?”
“Let you wake up knowing you get to see me.”
Rivers' fingers slide into my hair, causing the rubber band to fall out. He grips my face and lowers his lips to mine. His voice is low and full of fervor when he whispers, “I don't know how I missed you all those years. You were there, right there, and I never saw you in the way you deserved to be.”
“But you do now.”
"I do now."
"That's enough," I tell him.
He presses a kiss to my forehead, moving his hands down my arms to my sides. "Don't do that again."
"I won't," I promise, wondering if at some point he and I will both regret these words. There may come a time, when it will be best to place as much distance between us as possible, for both of our benefits. What will we do then?
"Better not. I don't expect you to come back to work, but I can't go without seeing you. Deal?"
"Deal. I'm sorry I left. I shouldn't have. It was stupid, cowardly." I blink my eyes against tears. "I didn't want to go."
His fingers tighten around my waist. "Then why did you?"
"I'm scared," I admit. "I'm scared about how I feel about you and what it means."
Rivers moves away and turns his back to me. "You don't think I'm scared? Every day with you scares the piss out me, but every day without you was ten times worse. And yes, what I feel for you—it terrifies me. But the alternative is incomprehensible." He faces me again. "You and me..." He shrugs. "We work."
I grin. "We do, don't we?"
"We really do."
"Who'd your mom get for a replacement?"
Rivers groans, briefly closing his eyes. "A seventy-year old hag."
"Rivers!"
"She is like the housekeeper from hell, I'm telling you."
I cross my arms. "Really? Why is that?"
"First of all, she isn't you." He takes a step toward me.
"Yes, well, sacrifices and all that." I look to the ceiling, hiding a smile.
"And she smells like men's aftershave." He shudders.
"Hmm."
"She won't buy ice cream because it's fattening. Trust me, even my mom is having a problem with that one. My mom asked her to pick some up yesterday and she refused. It was kind of funny. The look on my mom's face was anyway, and the fact that she was serious."
"What's her name?"
"Meg. I call her Hag Meg."
"Charming," I murmur.
He takes another step closer. "She gets a fifteen-minute break every hour and she smokes like a chimney in front of my bedroom windows, so the smell comes inside if the windows are open. She doesn't get the rooms shiny like you do. She should be fired for that alone. She hums all day long. Even Thomas is afraid of her. The other day he didn't take his shoes off at the door and she yelled at him because she'd just cleaned the floors and he was dirtying them up already. And she doesn't sleep with me at night." He pauses, tilting his head. "Although, that one I'm okay with."
My face hurts from smiling so hard, but I can't remove the joy from my being. "She sounds perfect." I grab the front of his shirt and pull him to me.
"She really doesn't," he disagrees, inhaling sharply when I pull the collar of his tee shirt down to kiss the smooth skin beneath. My lips linger against the warmth of him as my eyelids slide shut and I inhale his scent I have ached for.
His nose nudges my cheek and I lift my face, his mouth immediately attaching to mine, bridging them, connecting us. I am awash in heat and love, desire and tenderness.
"You smell like bleach," he whispers close to my ear.
"I wore it especially for you." I smile and feel his smile on my lips before they meet again.
"I FEEL WEIRD PUTTING A name to what we have. I mean, it doesn't feel right—labeling us."
I look up from the flower arrangement I've been studying. I lost track of time letting the frail perfection of them sink in. The softness of the pink petals makes me think of raspberries. I place my chin in my hand and focus on Rivers. He's wearing a tee shirt the color of the ocean and khaki shorts. Warmth waves through me in gentle strokes of love.
"I agree. No labels."
Frustration takes over his features. "Then what am I supposed to call you?" He nods at Nancy, my mom's full-time assistant, as she sweeps by, immediately turning back to me.
"Del, Delilah, Bana, girl not related to Eric Bana, sexy lady, hey you..."
"It isn't enough." He moves to the counter I'm sitting behind, tapping the fingers of one hand against the top of it. "You can't just be some girl I know."
"You have no idea how glad I am to just be some girl you know," I tell him thickly.
His expression clears as he looks at me, leaning forward to bring his lips to mine. "You're my girl," he whispers against my mouth. His words wrap around me like a warm hug and I close my eyes to better feel the enormity of them. "What are you thinking?"
I open my eyes to find his directly before me. There are flecks of pale brown and gold within them, even a hint of olive green. "That being your girl is all I want to be. That this—that we—are impossible, and yet, we make sense like nothing ever has before."
Half of his mouth lifts and he nuzzles my neck. "We're almost like peanut butter and bacon on toast, right?"
I perk up. "Did you make one?" A slow smile takes over my mouth when he won't meet my eyes. "You did, didn't you? Did you like it? You loved it. I can tell. Don't deny it. I see through your lies."
"I only made it to feel closer to you."
I laugh. "I suppose you only ate it to feel even closer to me, right?"
He scowls, but a hint of a grin flirts across his lips. "Are you ready to do this?"
I hop down from the stool. "You bet. I'll make sure Mom is ready to go and meet you outside. Where's your mom?"
"She dropped me off to run an errand. She'll be back any minute. I'll wait outside."
I call for my mom as I walk through the cool interior of the shop, finding her in the small room she calls her office. I thoroughly dislike this room. There is no window and it is cramped to the point of being claustrophobic. There's just enough room for her desk, two chairs, and a wall of shelving. I tried to brighten it up when I was ten, drawing hundreds of pictures of different colored flowers for her to hang on the walls. They're still here, faded and wrinkled, turning the walls into a fortress of cartoonish blossoms.
She closes a book and gets to her feet, smiling as she meets me at the door. "All set?"
"Yeah. Nancy is closing up now. Rivers is here. Monica went somewhere and will be back shortly."
She nervously tugs at her dirt-smudged shirt. "I wish I could have changed first. I felt so dingy compared to her the other day when she stopped."
"That's because you were working and she was not. She doesn't work. She can do whatever she wants to do and she never gets dirty."
"She seemed sad," she comments.
I bite my lip so I don't tell her it might be because Thomas decided to go back to stay in California indefinitely. Rivers told me in a text last night. It sounds like they are separating. I don't know the full details of their marriage, but I saw a version of what I wouldn't think a happy marriage should be, even though my time with them was short. Rivers sounded confused, like he didn't know if he should be happy or sad about it. I told him it was okay to be both and he told me to quit shoving my intellect in his face. Then he said he ate all the ice cream so I needed to bring more over. I said I was on to him and he replied that he wished I was on him. I smile as I remember.
"It's because her son keeps eating all of her ice cream."
My mom rolls her eyes. "Come on. Let's not keep them waiting. She seems nice," she adds.
"She is. You'll like her."
Monica kept her promise, coming to talk to me almost as soon as she got back into town. At first she just looked at me, and then she pulled me into her arms, thanking me, begging me to come back for Rivers, and finally getting herself under enough control to apologize. And then she asked again if I'd come back. I said no. She offered extra money for my time at her house while she was out of town. I vehemently said no. And then she hugged me again, telling me she was so glad we started a conversation that day at the store, and then told me she wanted the four of us to have dinner. I agreed, inviting them to our house for lasagna.
So here we are.
My fondness for Monica grows as I take in her casual outfit of jean shorts and a plain white top. She made sure to dress down so my mom didn't feel out of place in her presence. Or maybe she is just sick of wearing pristinely pressed outfits. I know I would be.
She smiles as our eyes meet, immediately turning to my mom. "Hello. We didn't get a chance to talk the other day. I'm Monica, Rivers' mom, and Delilah's former employer."
The smile my mom bestows upon her is genuine. "Hi. I'm Janet, Delilah's mom, and current employer." They both laugh and Rivers and I share a look.
"We walked to work today so we don't have a vehicle here. Do you guys want to walk over or take your car?" I ask when the silence draws out.
"Oh, um..." Monica looks at Rivers.
"Rivers has walked farther," I tell her, wanting to make sure any feelings of pity are wiped out before they can begin. Rivers is not the same young man he was when she left for California.
She frowns, but it quickly clears as she searches my stoic features. She nods. "Good. Okay."
My mom takes the lead, Monica quickly falling into step with her, their conversation at first stilting, but becoming steadier the longer they talk. Rivers hangs back, snatching my hand up and bringing it to his mouth to place a kiss upon it. He threads his fingers through mine, holding our clasped hands close to him.
"Thank you," he says quietly.
"There's nothing to thank me for."
"There is. There's so much." He inhales deeply, opening his mouth and closing it. After a moment, he shakes his head and begins to move.
My feet fall into step with his as I place a hand on his forearm. When he looks at me, I ask, "What is it?"
He looks torn, unsure of whether or not he should tell me his thoughts. His eyes meet mine and he seems to draw strength from that. With a deep sigh, he tells me in a low voice, "I lost something that day on the river. It isn't something I can get back, it isn't something I want to get back. At first I thought I did, but then I realized losing it was a good thing. Do you know what I thought all throughout high school? I thought I was better than everyone. I really did. The conceit of always winning took its dark toll on me. I thought, everyone wants to be like me. I am king of this school and I deserve to be, because I'm good at sports and people like me. People acted like I was something special, and after a while, I believed I was."
He swallows, looking straight ahead. "And then the life I knew was gone. Just like that. I looked in the mirror and saw a scarred person who could barely walk. It was all taken away—everything I had ever had or thought I wanted. Gone. I hated myself, but what I hated more was that I used to think I wasn't anything unless I was something—just like Thomas always told me. Then I was nothing. And when I was nothing, I finally was better—not better than anyone else, but just...better. Better than I used to be. I lost my old life that day, but I also lost my arrogance. I had to hit the bottom to realize the ground was hard." He grins sardonically.
I smile back, warmed by his words, by his sudden outlook on life and himself. I don't respond; I just take his hand and continue walking. There is a warm breeze to alleviate the glare of the hot sun and I inhale the scent of grilling food and freshly mowed lawn. The scents of summer are some of the best ones. I watch the people around us in the their yards, their cars, their world.
"Do you ever think about all the people you see on a daily basis?"
Monica and Janet glance back at us, smiling before facing forward again. Rivers' grip on my hand tightens. "Yeah. Right now, I'm thinking about the people ahead of us and I'm wondering what they're saying about us."
"I'm sure only great things."
He glances at me, the scowl disappearing as he takes in my grin. "Well, about me anyway."
"Look at that lady over there." I nod to a woman standing in a yard across the street. She is watching a little boy play catch with a large, fluffy brown dog. "What do you think her life is like? What do you think she is thinking? What's her story?"
"She's laughing," he murmurs. "She's happy. She's wondering how anything could be more amazing than this moment right now."
"I think...she is a stay-at-home mom. Maybe she is active in the community. She looks like a baker. I can see her making cakes, baking cookies. And she likes to decorate them too. She probably gets up in the morning with a smile on her face, knowing she gets to spend the day with her son."
"She takes her son in the stroller as she walks the dog."
I smile. "She loves the sun and muffins."
"She loves her husband."
I nod, wrapped up in our imaginary story. "He's an accountant. The youngest at the firm. He's smart and he's going places, but he loves his wife and son more than any job. He kisses her goodbye and he kisses her hello, thinking he is the luckiest man in the world."
Rivers stares at me, saying softly, "He flies planes. Because he wants to fly and she loves the stars. He flies planes so he can touch them for her, so he can be her personal Superman." The story has shifted, become a make-believe tale of Rivers and Delilah; a story of what could be, if that future day is ever to come.
I blink my eyes as tears form, whispering, "She paints every room in the house a different color of the rainbow. He doesn't like it, but he knows she loves it, so he really doesn't mind all that much. He brings cheesy movies, that he says are scary, home every Friday night and makes her watch them, and she does, because when he is happy, she is happy."
He smiles slowly, glancing at me as we cross the street. "He stocks up on peanut butter so there's never a chance she'll run out. He makes her try every sport, just once, and if she doesn't like playing them, he doesn't press her, but she has to at least try them."
"She picks out a random person in the crowd and they form a life around that person. She can tell he thinks it's silly, but he humors her anyway."
"He wakes up beside her every morning, and every morning he is hit with the enormity of how blessed he is. He is thankful for every day he has with her, and all the days in the world will never be enough."
Our steps slow as my house comes into view. My mom and Rivers' mom are already on the porch, quietly watching us, something like delight in each of their faces. He turns to me, in the middle of the road, and clutches my hands. The smile on his face is beatific, striking, and makes me want to weep.
"Do you know how you make me feel?"
"Slightly insane?" I tease.
"Yes," he answers seriously. "But in the best way. In fact, I feel like doing something really crazy right now."
A flutter of conflicting emotions sweeps through me. Rivers, being spontaneous—it's a little worrisome. "Please don't."
"I have to," he insists.
"You really don't," I reassure him.
Apparently, he does.
Grinning at me, Rivers spins me around, singing the opening verses of 'It's Time' by Imagine Dragons. We turn in a circle so fast and for so long, I get dizzy, laughter falling from my lips in a waterfall of joy. He releases me and I stumble to a stop as he steps back, directly into the path of traffic, if any were around, and slides back and forth across the pavement as he continues the song. I imagine the elderly folk in surrounding houses are peeking around their window curtains right about now.
He stops only to ask my mom, "Is this your car?" and when she says yes, he uses it as a prop, causing me to giggle when he slides over the hood and lands on his feet before me. Air catches in my lungs at that move. He looks at me, grinning so widely I want to grab his cheeks and kiss his smile. But my mom and Monica are watching. Then I think, So what?
And I do exactly that.
When I pull away and see tears in my mom's eyes and that Monica's eyes are suspiciously red, I mutter to Rivers, "I feel like we just exchanged wedding vows or something."
"If we hold hands for too long, they'll probably think we're expecting."
Nodding my agreement, I approach the house. "Come on, the lasagna isn't going to cook itself."
As the four of us sit around the mismatched furniture of our kitchen, I feel serenity with the ever-present, and the slowly growing touch of an inescapable void just beyond us. There is light here, but surrounding us is darkness. We laugh, but there is sorrow nearby. I feel it. It's getting closer. I am knitting the future together in broken pieces of yarn, tying together loose ends to make a blanket of security for the three people talking with me. I will keep them safe. I will protect them. I will give them each other when I can no longer give them me.
"I know it's probably going to embarrass the two of you, but—" Monica begins.
"But you're going to say it anyway," Rivers guesses.
She hands a breadstick to her son. "You're right. I am. And do you know why? Because it's amazing." She looks from me to Rivers. "Clearly the counseling and physical therapy—"
This time I interrupt. "Have been beyond beneficial. Right, Rivers?"
He frowns at me. "No. Not really. The whole world knows that isn't it, Delilah. It was you."
My face burns as three pairs of eyes focus on me. "It was unconscious, I swear."
"Why don't you want to take credit for a good thing?" my mom quietly asks.
"I don't like attention," I mumble.
Rivers' laughter is incredulous. "You do nothing but draw attention to yourself."
"It isn't like I set out to, or that that is why I act the way I do. I just...I want to live as much as I can. If people are around when I happen to get impulsive, I can't exactly tell them to go away. I can't be like, clear out the grocery store! I feel the impulse to dance."
"I would."
I throw a chunk of a breadstick at him.
"What is it with you and throwing things at me?" He pops the bread into his mouth and chews.
"Well, I, for one, am grateful, whether you meant to help Rivers or not. You have. Tremendously. He's so—I've never seen him more content." Monica pauses, clearing her throat. "Anyway, thank you." She gets up from the table and begins to clear it.
When my mom starts to wash the dishes with Monica beside her, Rivers leans over to whisper, "I miss you, so much it hurts."
"I'm right here."
"It isn't the same," he insists.
"I know."
"Come outside with me? If I can't sleep with you at night, I at least want to have you next to me in some way, for a little while."
Before I can even offer to help with the clean up, my mom is nodding me toward Rivers and the back door. I salute her and we head out. Clouds have taken over the sky—swirling, morphing masses of gray and white.
"I think it's going to storm." The wind picks up even as I am saying this, sweeping the tail of my shirt out and causing my skin to pebble. A dew has formed to the grass, strands of it tickling the soles of my bare feet.
"Then I guess we should hurry." He yanks me to him and seals our lips in a heated kiss. "I have dreamed of your eyes every night. Do you know, every time you look at me, I feel it all the way to the very center of me? And your scent—I lie on the pillow you did just so I can catch a hint of it. Lime and sugar." His mouth scorches my neck, his fingers biting into my waist. He wraps his arms around me and squeezes me to him, burrowing his face into the crook between my neck and shoulder. I feel the tremor in his body and stroke his back. "This is torture."
"I have the next two days off. They're yours if you want them."
"I want all of them." He sighs, moving back. "But I'll take what I can get."
"You could always come work at the flower shop with me. I'm sure your flower arrangements would be extraordinary."
"You're really not as funny as you think you are, you know that?"
"I'm funnier," I say, poking his stomach. A tiny light blinks above his shoulder and I grab his arms and whirl him around. "Look! It's a lightning bug." I bounce on the balls of my feet.
He looks over his shoulder at me. "You act like you've never seen one before."
"I love lightning bugs," I breathe. "I used to spend hours every summer catching and releasing them."
"Like a true fisherman of bugs."
I squint my eyes at him. "Come on—let's catch some." Without waiting for his answer, I skip forward, turning in a circle as I catch blips of glowing orbs in that magical time between partial dark and full. I spy one in the grass by my feet and reach a hand down, holding still as the bug lands on my fingers. "Go on, little buggy, go home before the storm comes." It flies away, lighting up as it goes, and I smile as I straighten.
His breath tickles the side of my neck as he says, "You are the sweetest version of quirky I have ever had the pleasure of seeing in motion."
I laugh softly. "Thank you. Glad you got to see me in action."
He wraps his arms around my midsection and rests his chin on my shoulder. "Don't ever change."
"I do what I want," I say, just to say it.
Rivers' hold tightens. "That's the exact thing I don't want to ever change about you."
I feel those words in my heart.
"Are you two ready for the movie?" Monica calls from the doorway. "We made popcorn!" Her enthusiasm over this detail is puzzling. I prefer potato chips.
I move away and look at him. "What movie?"
"No idea."
"It's a romantic comedy," she supplies and we both groan.
Rivers is into his supposedly scary movies, and I, for the most part, like science-fiction movies. Or rather, anything with superheroes in them—or something out of the ordinary, like thrillers that make you think. Traditional story lines are boring; romantic ones are nauseating, and sad movies just plain suck.
"Why can't it be 'X-Men'?" I grumble as we walk toward the house.
"Why can't it be 'The Grudge'?" he counters.
As we reach the door, I look at him and make the sound the ghost in the movie makes—like a bendable straw being straightened out.
His eyes go wide. "What the shit? I didn't know you had it in you."
"Your turn."
He thinks for a minute and then slashes his enclosed hands down at his sides just like Wolverine does and my heart melts. I pat his cheek. "You're a keeper."