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“You don’t seem like yourself,” he said, coming up behind me to massage my shoulders as I sat hypnotized by my blank laptop screen.
His touch made my heart jitter, and I stood sharply from the dining table, knocking him back with my chair, not caring how erratic it made me look. I just needed to get from underneath his hands.
“How can he love you when he doesn’t even know you?”Cole had asked once.
“He knows me,”I’d shot back at him.
“No,”he’d said.“He knows who he wants you to be, but I know how beautiful you already are.”
Maybe his point wasn’t valid after all, because as the antique sideboard behind Daniel broke his fall, he observed me as if I were an uncaged animal, and in that moment, it felt like he knew all of me. Like he kneweverything.
Or maybe this type of ache simply couldn’t be concealed. Maybe it pressed at the very air around me. Maybe it stank up the walls.
“What are you working on?” he asked, redirecting things, pointing to the screen with his chin. It was no longer asleep, but open to the trademark website I’d pulled up over an hour ago.
To try and take my mind off Cole, I’d decided to further research opening my own firm, but in this case, distractions weren’t working. “I ah…” I hadn’t mentioned my plans to Daniel. The dream was still in its infant stages, and I wasn’t yet sure I could make it work. One negative comment from him would ruin everything. “I’m playing around with the idea of starting my own practice.”
“Really?” he asked, seemingly excited, which surprisingly added some light to my dark mood.
“Yeah,” I said, my tone more confident. “I know it won’t be easy, but…”
“Yeah, well, nothing worth having ever is,” he said absently as he leaned over the table to read the business name I’d entered into the site’s search bar. “No other hits. It pays to have an uncommon last name,” he said. “What field are you considering?”
I swallowed. “Civil rights.”
“Ah,” he said, “of course.”
I wasn’t in peak fighting condition. Everything in me hurt, and my heart was sensitive to the touch. Right then, it wouldn’t have taken much to destroy the one thing I had left.
“Helping others has always been your passion, Jasper. I’m sure you’ll continue to be successful at it.”
“Thanks,” I said from the bottom of what remained of my heart.
Daniel ambled for the stairs, head lowered, pinching his top lip in thought. “And hey,” he said, twisting my way, one foot on the first step, hand on the railing, “at least when you can’t keep the lights on, because defending lowlifes who can’t afford to pay you doesn’t cover the bills, you can always pull at your brother’s purse strings.”
I could’ve been a test study on how fast an already fleeting light could be snuffed out completely. Daniel jogged upstairs, his voice cheerfully informing me we needed to get ready for his parents’ annual Christmas Eve party, oblivious to the mess he’d made of me. I collapsed lifeless onto my chair, closing my laptop, shutting away my dreams, and sank my head to the table.
My sulking didn’t last long because I’d remembered Cole’s Christmas present to me sat waiting in my coat pocket. After leaving his place, and exiting into the cold, I’d bundled my hands in my pocket to find a long, slender wrapped box waiting inside. He must have put it there when I went to the bathroom to splash water on my tear-streaked face. I didn’t think I’d ever open it, as denial seemed to be my go-to when dealing—or not dealing with things. But I needed a pick-me-up. I needed to be reminded of what made me great even if I felt the complete opposite.
Cole’s gifts are always meaningful,I thought as I played with the gold cross at my neck, his mother’s pendant. He’d given it to me at a time when he wasn’t yet strong enough to let me into the hole left behind from losing a mother he never got to know. The pendant was his way of saying: here’s something of her until I’m able to share the rest.
At the closet, I dug in my coat pocket until my fingers banged against the box, withdrawing it and admiring the silver wrapping and red ribbon tied into a bow. I ripped the metallic paper away before I could talk myself out of it, and inside the velvet-padded box sat a sterling silver fountain pen.
I turned the pricey pen over in my hands, marveling at the gold piping along the edges of the felt tip. There was an inscription along the barrel. I brought it closer and whispered the fancy script aloud.Don’t ever quit your daydream. Love always, Cole.And on the other side it read:Jasper Des Moines Esq.
I recapped the pen, a ghost of a smile playing across my lips, and reopened my laptop.
I gazed over the holiday-infused city with my coat on waiting for Daniel to come downstairs, my fist tightened around the pen in my pocket.
“Pierre’s stuck in traffic,” he said, closing in and pecking the column of my neck, the place designated for Cole’s punishing grasp. I spun away and faced him, counting down the seconds until I could wipe away the moisture he’d left behind before it evaporated into my skin.
“I didn’t hear you come down,” I said, hoping he’d see my reaction as shock and not rejection.
“I can believe that. You’ve been preoccupied with your thoughts all day. I know being around my parents isn’t always easy, but they are the way they are because they care.” He stepped in closer to the window, taking in the barricaded street corner due to the holiday parade happening on the block intersecting with ours. “I sure hope Pierre finds a way around this.”
Because God forbid we’d need to ride the subway with those lowly human creatures, or have to walk two blocks north to meet his parents’ driver instead of forcing him to maneuver in this madness. He’d need to reverse down our street to meet us out front.
“You can take off your coat. It might be a while,” he said, walking toward the kitchen. “Oh,” he doubled back, “don’t mention any of this civil rights firm stuff at the party tonight, okay, sweetheart? I don’t want to ruin my parents’ holiday.”
