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None of it felt natural.
“What’s the dream?” I return the question.
“This,” she says with a sip of her beer. “The girls are happy here and—”
“What’syourdream?” I cut her off because I know the girls are her world and I respect the hell out of that, but she deserves dreams too. “You said it yourself, the girls are happy, so what makesyouhappy? When you imagine everything you want to do for you, what is it?”
Her smile falters, and for once she lets it. “You know it’s been a long time since anybody asked me that.”
“Well, I’m asking now.”
Those whiskey eyes become bright as she thinks, lost in her own world. For a minute, I’m convinced she won’t answer, but then she finally speaks. “I want my own studio… God, that sounds stupid.”
“What do you want to do in this studio?” I’m desperate for more of her answers, anything she’s willing to give. I’m here to pick up every crumb.
Chewing her bottom lip between her teeth, I watch her get lost in the endless dreams, in the opportunities, in her future. “Women. I want to photograph women. So many look in the mirror and see scars that are visible and the ones that aren’t. I want to photograph them so they can see their true story through a lens. So they can see themselves how others see them. I think I just want them to know that they’re seen.”
The sight of tears she won’t let fall has my hand clenching around the bottle.
“Beth.” Watery brown pools meet mine. “I wish you could see what I see.”
“Sexy as hell, huh?” It’s her attempt to lighten the mood.
It doesn’t work.
“Strong and fucking beautiful. If you ever need to know what you look like through the eyes of someone else, it’s that.”
She blows out a breath through a sniffle before rubbing the top of Missy’s head. “You hear that, girl? He can’t take it back now.” She holds up her empty bottle. “Beer?”
I shouldn’t. I should leave because if she keeps looking at me like that, I’m going to go stir crazy. When she senses the protest coming from my mouth, she says, “I’m not ready to sleep yet.”
How am I supposed to ever deny this woman of anything?
I nod and her smile is worth the torture of sitting here.
When she returns, she reaches out to hand me the bottle.
It’s like slow motion. I watch her watching the bottle fall before it bounces once, twice, and then explodes to a thousand tiny pieces.
It’s my fault. I didn’t grasp it in time.
My first instinct is to move her out of the way. She’s not wearing any shoes, but her face turns a haunting shade of white and the light in her eyes disappears.
“Shit. Mind your feet.”
But she’s not listening.
“I… I… I’m so sorry. I’ll get it.”
Lifeless, her knees bend and collapse until she falls onto the shards of glass, the beer soaking through her grey sweatpants.
“Stop, it was an accident,” I tell her.
She’s somewhere else.
In her eyes is the reflection of a woman I’ve seen before. A broken woman. A woman long gone. In her eyes, I see my own mother. Though I bet she never passed out with a needle still in her arm in front of her kids, I still see the trauma a man can inflict with his bare hands.
“Beth,” I call, grabbing her by the shoulders, getting her to her feet and out of the way so she doesn’t get glass in her feet. And fuck me, but she flinches away from my touch.
