Page 101 of And Now, Back to You

“Sit,” she demands. “We’re going to watch a movie.”

My eyes flick to the clock on the mantel. “It’s two in the morning.”

“So it is.” She yawns again, shimmying down in her blanket nest while she powers up her computer. “I bet I’ll last through the opening credits.”

“You don’t have to be awake,” I tell her, still standing at the edge of the bed. “You can go back to sleep. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will, but fine isn’t good and I want you to be good.” She pats the bed again. She’s wearing a gray T-shirt with a dancing chicken nugget on it. I didn’t see it when I came in earlier, the blankets already tucked high around her neck.

I stiffly slip into the place next to her, my thoughts still tangled up. It’s hard for me to let people see me like this. Firmly cemented in the middle of an anxiety spiral I don’t know how to battle my way out of. I cross my arms over my chest and my legs at the ankle. It’s uncomfortable as fuck, but so is this tight, anxious knot, right at the base of my neck.

“I don’t do this on purpose,” I say, trying to explain myself. I hate that I’ve made her worry. That this . . . thing I can’t change about myself is keeping her up now too. “I’d sleep if I could.”

Delilah doesn’t look at me, still navigating across her desktop. In a shock to absolutely no one, she has roughly ten thousand icons, arranged in no clear order, spread out across her screen like a handful of stars.

“I know that,” she says absently.

I drag my hand through my hair, feeling self-conscious and stupid. I try to joke it off. “I’m just naturally difficult, I guess.”

Delilah turns toward me. Soft eyes and soft hair and a soft downward tilt to her mouth that I want to press my mouth to until I soften too.

“You’re not difficult,” she says quietly. “You just haven’t had anyone take care of you.”

Then she hands me a pillow, shimmies down in the bed, and plops her computer between us like she didn’t just find all my bruised spots with a single statement. Like she didn’t just crack me open, reach her hand inside my chest, and squeeze.

“Press play when you’re ready,” she orders.

She chooses Casablanca.

“This is a stupid movie,” I say somewhere around halfway through, Delilah’s shoulder pressed to mine. Any attempt at maintaining space has been demolished by Delilah’s wiggly, relentlessly moving leg and her sheer inability to not be a blanket hog. I’m fighting for my life on my side of the bed, and she only settles when my thigh is pressed to hers. She keeps drifting off, the crown of her head tipping against my chest before she rouses herself again, trying to pretend like she’s engaged in the worst love story of all time.

“I beg your pardon,” she says, all cute and indignant. “This movie won the Oscar for Best Picture.”

I snort. “Shakespeare in Love also won an Oscar for Best Picture. It’s hardly a litmus test.”

She props herself up on her elbows, looking more awake than I’ve seen her for the past hour. Her knee jostles the computer.

“Did you just insinuate that the absolute masterpiece that is Shakespeare in Love is not a good movie?”

I grab the laptop and move it closer to me. “It won against Saving Private Ryan.”

“Which is a depressing and violent movie.”

“A really excellent depressing and violent movie.”

She huffs and grumbles something under her breath, throwing herself back into her pillows. Her foot kicks my ankle, and I’m not entirely sure it’s an accident.

I cover my laugh with a cough. “Did you say something?”

She rockets back up next to me, sending the computer toppling again, and digs one finger into the middle of my chest. “Love stories aren’t stupid, Jackson.” Another poke. “War movies aren’t automatically better and more serious just because people are . . . losing limbs on a beach.”

I curl my fingers around her wrist and lower our hands to the bed between us.

“Delilah,” I say. “Baby.” Her cheeks go pink at the endearment I meant as a tease but that falls out of me like a secret. My ears go hot as I rub my thumb over hers. “I think it’s possible you’re delirious.”

“I’m not.” Her mouth turns down. “Why do important things have to be things that hurt us? Why can something only be valued and held in high regard if it’s . . . dark and damaging? Why can’t we keep the bright things? The lovely things? Why can’t those things be special too?”

“We can keep whatever you want, Delilah,” I say, trying to ease some of the tension that’s settled across the lines of her body. I shift our hands so we’re palm to palm. “Soft things are important too. Of course they are.”