His mouth opened and a dangerous smile graced his mouth. “You would, huh? Listen, what are you doing later?”
Atticus laughed. “Hey now!”
Keitel turned Atticus’s direction. “Atticus, I forgot you were here.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied, sitting in Keitel’s chair.
Keitel winked my direction and I giggled.
“You’re trouble,” I told him.
“With a side of mischief.”
“I believe you,” I said.
Keitel turned toward Atticus. “So where are we putting this? Not much room left from what I remember.”
Atticus stood and yanked his T-shirt over his head. My eyes briefly roamed down his chest and stomach then back up. He caught me looking and smiled, his black lip ring dark against his white teeth. He sat back down and cocked his head to the side.
“I’ve some room on the side of my neck. What about there?”
Keitel examined it and nodded. “Yeah, I think I can do that.” He stood. “Let me trace this out. Give me half an hour or so?”
Atticus nodded and Keitel winked at me before disappearing behind the velvet curtain in the back.
I sat on Keitel’s stool. “How are you doing?” Atticus asked.
“Today is the first day since Juniper’s passing that I feel open.”
He grabbed my hand and kissed the heel of my palm. “I’d say that’s doing well,” he spoke against the skin there.
I nodded, feeling a little teary. He noticed. “Don’t cry, Haze.”
“They’re not hopeless tears, not anymore. They’re tears in her memory alone.”
His eyes turned glassy and he nodded. “She was really something, wasn’t she?”
“She was the most beautiful person I’ve ever met in my life, Atticus.”
He looked as if he’d gone somewhere far away when he answered.
“I love her,” he told me.
I smiled as a tear slipped. “So do I, Atticus.” I took a deep breath as he brought my hand down and tucked it between both of his on his knee. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For her. Thank you for her. No matter how we got her, no matter how short her life was, no matter that I can’t have any more other than her, she was worth it. Every single second of all of it was worth it just to hold her those few short, beautiful days.”
Atticus’s eyes clenched and he brought a white-knuckled fist to his mouth. He didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything, it seemed. A full minute passed before he let out a shaky breath and his eyes met mine.
“She was worth it all,” he agreed.
Keitel came from behind the curtain and I gave him back his stool after he brought me another chair. He sat down with a pat on Atticus’s back.
“Let’s do this thing,” he said, working methodically, cleaning Atticus’s skin, and figuring out how he wanted to place his trace.
He got Atticus’s approval on the placement and got to work. Atticus let his head hang as he stared at me. The initial needle to skin made his eyes close briefly. I laid my free hand on top of our already stacked hands and soothed the skin there. He squeezed my hand and opened his eyes, staring directly at me.
“How did you guys meet?” Keitel asked as he worked.
I smiled at Atticus and he smiled back.
“We met at Normandy’s,” Atticus answered. “I saw her across the room and I knew if I let her leave there that night without trying to talk to her that I’d regret it for the rest of my life.” My heart beat wildly against my ribs. “She was with her best friend. She looked unbothered, like she could be there or not, she didn’t care, almost as if she belonged nowhere and to no one, and I remembered thinking she was so unlike anyone I’d ever seen, not just in the way she looked, although she is so obviously beautiful it’s almost an unbelievable thing, but it was in the way she sat, the way she held herself. It was a confidence I’d never really seen before. She wasn’t conscious of herself, and I thought that so attractive, so rare.
“I wanted her,” he admitted quietly, making the moment much more intimate than it should have been. I stared at the tips of his lashes as his head hung and wished I could really see him. “So I stood up and talked to her.”
“And the rest is history?” Keitel asked, not realizing the gap Atticus had closed between us with the admission.
I cleared my throat. “Our history is, well, it’s difficult,” I said.
Keitel’s needle stilled and both boys looked at me.
“You don’t strike me as the drama type,” Keitel said. “Either of you.”
“It wasn’t the kind of drama you create, per se, it was the kind that finds and slams you to the ground unapologetically.”
Keitel shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, returning to work. “That sucks,” he said.
“It did for a while,” Atticus admitted, squeezing my hand again, “but I was meant to find her.”
“Yes, you were,” I told him.
When Keitel was done, he took Atticus and me over to the mirror and let us see his work. We both stood seemingly dumbstruck. It was our daughter’s name. Right there for the world to see. It was our daughter’s name.
“It’s exactly what I needed,” Atticus said.
“It’s beautiful,” I told him.
Keitel shuffled back and forth behind us, cleaning up his station. “I meant what I said about a job, Hazel,” he said. He walked toward us and smiled through the reflection. “I hope you enjoy it, Atticus.”
Atticus grabbed my hand. “I will,” he replied.
Monday
We parked it outside at Lee Harvey’s and had a few beers together. Atticus only got recognized once.
Tuesday
We played miniature golf. I beat him fair and square, though he swears I cheated.
Wednesday
He made me dinner. It was terrible. I didn’t have the heart to tell him.
Thursday
Laser bowling. He wiped the floor with me but he didn’t gloat. His winner’s dance was totally worth it.
Friday
We saw the stage play An American in Paris. My girlfriend from school was in it. She got us the tickets. Atticus brought me a bouquet of flowers and a single rose for my friend. He cleaned up real nice.
Saturday
He took me to the state fair. We ate a funnel cake together. Powdered sugar everywhere.
Sunday
We went to the zoo with Etta and Simon. A gorilla charged and beat his fists on the glass we were standing near. I almost peed my pants. Atticus laughed so hard he fell down.
Monday
We went to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Atticus went as Riff Raff. I went as Magenta. We agreed no pictures.
Tuesday
I got off early because Atticus didn’t have any studio work to do. We bummed around Bishop Arts and ate a piece of pie from Emporium. It was called Smooth Operator—French silk chocolate with a pretzel crust. #heaven
Wednesday
Went to the drive-in at Coyote. I accidentally dropped my corn dog so Atticus shared his with me. We laid a quilt on his hood. We talked about books and art.
Thursday
We went to the aquarium then had a picnic at Dragon Park.
Friday
Shakespeare in the Park. We saw Othello. I cried. So did Atticus. He claimed it was dust, though.
Atticus and I spent every moment we weren’t working or asleep with one another. It was strange. It felt like we were just starting out again, really, yet a great weight hung between us, a gorgeous daughter who lived within us. Despite all that, or maybe because of it, I’d never felt closer to him in my life. All the bad had flushed its way from our minds and hearts and skin down, down, down into oblivion and we were left with nothing but the good, the sweet, the lovely.
“I’m thinking about having a dinner with everyone next week at Capital. Do you think your grandma could drive up?” he asked me.
“Oh, she would come up for sure,” I said, smiling up at him.
“Call her,” he said.
I laughed. “Right now?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, reaching down and yanking on a piece of grass.
“Okay, what day?”
“Saturday night okay?”
“Yeah.”
We’d gone a couple hours south for a last-minute trip to the caverns. Etta came with her boyfriend, Simon. We were sitting on a bench outside waiting for them to return from the bathrooms.
I pulled my phone out and rang my grandma but she didn’t answer. I opted to text her instead.
Grams, Atticus wanted to know if you could come up next Saturday for a fancy schmancy dinner at Capital. You down? You can sleep at my casa. I hit send then put my phone back in my satchel.
“I wrote her.”
“Cool,” he said, leaning back.
Etta and Simon came walking down the path toward the little round administration building near the mouth of the cave, so we stood and met up with them inside.
“Two, please,” Atticus said to the attendant, handing over his card.
“Thank you,” I said.
“My pleasure.” He smiled, offering his arm after the girl gave him back his card.
We stood to the side while Simon paid for his and Etta’s tickets.
“This, uh, this—” Atticus started, then shook his head.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, looking away from me.
“Atticus, cough it up, man. What were you going to say?”
He looked back at me, his cheeks slightly pink. “I was just going to say that this sort of feels like a date, Hazel.”
My face warmed and I bit my lip to keep from smiling. “Does it?” I asked, suddenly finding the tops of my boots fascinating.
Etta and Simon walked around us toward the stone staircase leading to the mouth of the cavern and we scurried down after them. Neither of us would look at one another, but I could feel his eyes on me and it did something to my insides, something I hadn’t felt since that first night, the night.
“Oh my God, it’s so beautiful! I’m glad y’all invited us,” Etta said.
I looked over at my equally beautiful friend. She was holding Simon’s hand, and I felt so happy for her. I looked down at Atticus’s hands as they swung at his sides. I found myself wanting one of his to take one of mine. My eyes followed up his arms, his shoulders, the side of his neck, over his tattoo of Juniper’s name, and settled on his face. I wonder, I thought, if we could ever be as we were, if it we could ever be simple, if he could ever love me. I wondered many more things as we followed the sinking path toward the open iron gates below, toward the stalactites and the stalagmites, reaching toward each other, desperate to connect, just like Atticus and me. They had much time to wait, though. I could only hope that wasn’t the case for Atticus and me. I didn’t know if I wanted to wait anymore. I was tired. Tired of suffering without him, tired of the weight of how I felt for him, tired of dragging it around with me, heavy, and begging to be lifted.
The sun had disappeared as we nestled deeper and deeper into the recesses of God’s earth and we found each other in the dull light of the scattered lanterns in a part of the caverns where the ceilings were barely eight feet high. Etta and Simon had gone ahead about a hundred yards where the cavern lifted a hundred feet into the air, studying the nature surrounding them more quickly than Atticus and I could absorb it.
We came upon a stalactite and a stalagmite separated by mere inches. They too looked tired to me. We circled them twice, each of us on opposite sides. Atticus bent his head to peer at me through the gap. I leaned forward and smiled at him but the smile quickly fell.
“So close yet so far,” I told him quietly, my whisper betraying me and echoing against the cavern walls. It bounced off our ears over and over.
“At least another thousand years,” his answer repeated.
“Such a long time to wait,” I said.
“They’ll get there,” he said.
“Will they, though?” I asked him.
Atticus’s eyes softened and he stood upright. He followed the base of the stalagmite around until he was standing about a yard away from me. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his T-shirt straining against his shoulders and biceps.
“You know something, Hazel?” he asked me.
“What’s that, Atticus?”
“When they meet, those two points, when they finally come together after the wars, the battles, the wrong that has surrounded them in the ripples of their existence, after the longing, the misery, the torture of seeing each other as their future complete, that moment, that second, that instant will be their most vindicating time. It will be quiet; it will be unassuming. No one who sees it will be aware of their perfect collision, but it will be an explosion amongst themselves, for only them to know, for only them to feel. It will be proof they can weather anything, absolutely anything that comes their way. Even if it meant the end of the earth, Hazel Stone, it would not mean the end of the world. They are perpetual. They are forever.”
My heart pounded. He took a step closer to me. Another. Another. Until the chasm between us matched theirs.
“I have missed you more than you could possibly comprehend, Atticus.”
His eyes filled with something, an emotion. “I think I could,” he revealed.
Tears spilled over my cheeks. “But I don’t deserve you.”
He shook his head back and forth slowly; the backs of his fingers found my cheeks and dragged across. I turned my head into his skin, desperate to feel him for as long as possible. “No, I don’t deserve you.”
I shook my head in disagreement, tears coming stronger. “But I pushed you away.”
“You were trying to protect yourself, protect Juniper. I don’t blame you for any of it, Haze. It was what it was and it made us who we are.”
I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. “Can you forgive me, still?”
“Only if you forgive me?”
“Of course. Of course I do. You know I do.”
He placed my face in the palms of his hands. “All is forgiven. All of it. All, Hazel.” He took a deep breath.
“Do you still hate my face?” I asked him.
His head lolled softly side to side. His thumbs started at my forehead and dragged down the sides of my face. “No, Hazel, I no longer see my pain there. I only see my future happiness, our future hope.”
I let out a groan of emotion, unable to hear that without a physical reaction. “I feel guilty admitting this—”
“Don’t. Juniper wouldn’t want that for us, Haze.”
I nodded. “I don’t feel the despair anymore. I feel calm now. I feel the memory without the searing pain. I think— no, I know it’s because of you.”
“We remember her as she is supposed to be remembered.”
Atticus brought me into him, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, and I wrapped mine around his neck.
“You’re my best friend, Hazel,” he whispered to me.
“You’re mine, Atticus, my favorite friend, my forever friend… just don’t tell Etta.”
He laughed against my neck.
Atticus held my seat out for me and I sat down at the table. It was full with all of Atticus’s family, Etta, her aunt, Grams, James, everyone was there.
“I just wanted to say a quick word,” Atticus said, standing next to me, his hand on my shoulder. He cleared his throat of emotion. “Hazel and I have been through a lot together,” he said, looking down at me. I smiled up at him to encourage him. He looked around the table again. “Our daughter—” he said, breaking down a little then coughing. “She was unexpected, she confused us, she frightened us, but then she became something else. She was early, beautiful, so utterly beautiful, the best thing that had ever happened to either of us, and then she was gone.” Atticus smiled at me. “I know she’s with us now. I can feel her. Hazel can feel her. Sh
e is a part of us and we love her. So, in her honor, I’d decided to have everyone here today because we all need to start over with each other. I want us all to wipe the slate clean and start over.” He picked up his pint glass and held it up, so we all followed suit. “For Juniper,” he said.
“For Juniper,” we all repeated.
“To Haze and me, to all of us,” he finished as we lifted our glasses and drank.
Atticus sat down next to me and we watched our joined family and friends talk amongst one another with ease, our histories settled between us all.
“That was pretty, Atticus.”
“You know me,” he teased.
“Stop,” I laughed, “I really mean it. It was an incredible thing to say. It’s all incredible. We’re making peace.”
He sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. “If there is one thing we deserve, it’s peace, Hazel.”
“Agreed,” I told him.
Atticus had reserved a private room at Capital complete with sliding privacy doors. They kept opening and shutting as the waiters came in and out, refilling drinks, setting down bread, taking orders. Atticus took my hand and we sat, content just to be in one another’s presence. Dinner came. Conversation flowed. Life was celebrated. Love was felt.
Atticus picked up the tab and the obligatory thank yous from my side and the incessant teasing from his ensued.
All in all, it was incredibly successful. It was everything I didn’t know I needed.
When we were done, Atticus held my chair out for me, and as a group, we made our way to the city street, meandering in a group as we waited for the valet.
“Damn, Etta, you’re looking good,” newly single Cillian complimented my best friend.
Etta crossed her arms under her breasts and snorted. “Cillian, I am very taken.”