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December 31, 2015
“Barrett?”
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.
“Hey…” I rub his broad, bare back. He turns toward me. I wrap my arms around him. I woke up from my own dream, and I’m so glad I did.
“Hey baby. It’s okay. We’re here together.”
He’s shivering. “I dreamed about Breck.”
I rub his arms and back with my warm hands.
“He used to do this knock. This secret knock from his older brother’s frat. I heard it. It seemed so real, Piglet.” I take his hands. They’re shaking.
I ease him down in the bed with me. I kiss both hands. “You’re a good man, Barrett. Breck loved you. I know he did, because you are impossible not to love.”
His eyes squeeze shut. His mouth flattens. He looks pained. I wait for him to ask me some anguished question, I can almost feel it coming. But he pulls me very close, holding me tightly, so I can feel his chest shaking a little. And I can feel it still.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
As we drift off to sleep, I think I hear a knock at the window.
There’s no question about it. Something is off with Barrett. I’ve noticed him staring into space a dozen times since we landed in Denver, staring at me more than normal, looking troubled, with his dark brows notched and his pretty lips melded into that pensive line.
I don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t want to ask, because after the information that he volunteered about his friend last night, I don’t want to pry. So I just try to stay near him, to hold his hand.
The strangest thing is, looking out for him is making me feel better. With his hand in mine, I feel less alone here. I smile at him; he smiles at me. There’s something comforting about loving on him.
We spend the last day of 2015 inside this bubble, taking fabric to a woman who works out of a little cottage north of town so she can sew Barrett a Zoro mask and alter a black blouse for me to wear with my red bandana; sitting beside each other in a small booth in a sandwich shop downtown, Barrett’s arm around my shoulder, even as he eats; touring a candy factory where he buys me salted caramel fudge and I buy him a massive chocolate bear; buying cowboy boots and black jeans; picking up the rest of our costumes; and finally heading back to the Madisons’ place just in time for pre-party hors d’oeuvres. I’m surprised to find Jamie eating goat cheese dip and crackers with her parents, no Nic in sight.
She’s already wearing her pink contact lenses.
“Hey there, alien.”
She studies the bags Bear and I are holding. “Zoro and…”
“His sidekick.”
“A nameless sidekick?”
I shrug. “I thought of going as his horse.”
Mr. Madison gets a chuckle out of that.
“So when are you all going next door?” Jamie’s mom asks.
“I’ll probably go soon,” Jamie tells her. “Help set up.”
“We might go soon, too.”
After a few minutes of small talk, the three of us escape upstairs. Jamie tries to chat us up, but Barrett is clearly unenthused. I can tell he’s trying, which makes it all the more obvious. Jamie gives us both an understanding smile. “I’m going to put on my alien gear! See you next door in a bit?”
I nod.
While Barrett showers, I sit on the bed and look out at the window he was staring through when I woke up last night. I get up and go over to it, staring down at the snow. It looks like…footprints. In between the bushes. As I tip my forehead toward the glass and squint, I hear the door creak.
I turn, then jump as Batman appears in the doorway. “Oh my God! Nic?”
