Like Gravity(77)

“Bee, can I ask you something?” The boy’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

I nodded, tearing my eyes from the stars to look at his face.

“Why me?” he asked, his voice quiet and his eyes turned away from mine.

“What do you mean?”

The boy swallowed roughly, his small Adam’s apple jumping in his throat like he had a gumball stuck down there. I almost giggled as I watched it bob up and down but his voice had sounded so serious, I held it in.

“Why do you talk to me and no one else?”

I was silent for a while, thinking about his question. The truth was, I didn’t even fully know why I felt so comfortable with him and not the doctors or psychiatrists or the other the foster kids.

“I guess…” My voice faltered. “I guess it’s because you make me feel safe.”

“Safe?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged my shoulders, looking up at the sky. I knew the boy was staring at me, but I couldn’t look back at him just yet. “At first, your stories…they reminded me of my mom. She loved fairytales. She’d tell me one every night before I went to sleep.”

The boy didn’t answer. After a minute of silence, I felt his larger fingers wind through mine as he laced our hands together.

“Tell me a story,” I whispered, squeezing his hand tightly. “One with a happy ending.”

“Okay, Bee,” the boy said, returning my hand squeeze. Taking a deep breath, he began.

“Once upon a time…”

***

I woke to the sound of a guitar strumming softly. It was still nighttime and moonlight was streaming through the skylights overhead, illuminating the soft, down comforter I was wrapped in. After a brief moment of disorientation, I realized that I was in Finns’ bed.

I closed my eyes as it all came rushing back at once: the attack, my escape, talking to the paramedics and police officers, all the helplessness and the fear. I began to tremble, hugging the blankets closer around my body.

I forced myself to think of the good things that had happened tonight instead: the look on Finn’s face when we sang together on stage, my realization that I loved him, the way he’d cleaned me up and cared for me when we got back to his apartment.

Once I’d gotten the shaking under control, I opened my eyes and looked around the room for Finn. He wasn’t hard to find.

Dressed only in a pair of faded, unbuttoned blue jeans, he was sitting on a chair facing a window on the other side of the room with his guitar balanced on his lap. I’m not sure he was even aware that he’d woken me, his playing was so soft. I vaguely recognized the tune he was strumming, but I couldn’t put a name to it until he began singing quietly.

The melody was haunting, the words unforgettable.

Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in….

As he reached the chorus, the lyrics pleading for me to take him in and give him shelter, I finally remembered the name of the song and my eyes filled with tears.

He was playing I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers. And it was perfect.

When his voice trailed off with the final words, the I love you hanging in the air like a specter, it was utterly silent in the room except for the sound of our quiet breathing. I felt like an intruder – like I’d witnessed something he might not have wanted me to see.

Did I pretend to be asleep? Act like I hadn’t heard him, like his words hadn’t reached into my chest and grabbed me by the heart? I wasn’t sure.

Before I could decide, his voice cut through the silence.

“How’s your head?” he asked, his shirtless back still turned to me.

Well, I guess this means he knows I’m awake.

“It’s alright,” I whispered.

He rose from the chair, setting down his guitar and turning to face me across the dark room. The sight of him made my breath catch in my throat. His hair was a mess, as if he’d been running his hands through it over and over. Bare chested, his muscles and tattoos had never looked more prominent – and he’d never looked sexier. With half his face in shadow and the other half illuminated by an errant moonbeam, he was otherworldly gorgeous, like some kind of dark angel sent to save and destroy me all at once.

He approached the bed with his lithe, inherently graceful stride, and I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. I was entranced by the way he moved toward me, fixated by the fluid way his muscles contracted beneath the skin. His eyes were intense on mine when he reached the side of the bed, stopping three feet away – just out of reach. I wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, but I could see the indecision in his eyes and I didn’t like it.

“I need to tell you something,” his voice sounded more serious than I’d ever heard it. I instantly felt a cold sweat break out across my body, my heart beginning to hammer in my chest as my mind raced with possibilities.

“What is it?” I asked. “Did the police call?”

Finn expelled a harsh breath through his lips and dragged his hands up through his hair; whatever it was, he definitely didn’t want to tell me about it.

“Finn?” I prompted.

He finally met my eyes. They were burning with frustration, anger, and sympathy. My heart rate increased even more.

“Officer Carlson called. They checked out Gordon’s alibi,” he took a deep breath, and I watched as his hands curled into fists. “It’s airtight. They say it couldn’t have been him.”