Loving Mr. Daniels(18)

The warm air bustled through my hair. Digging into my pocket, I pulled out Hailey’s keys, ready to return to the place I had yet to call home.
“No name!” was shouted behind me, and I turned to see an exhausted-looking lead singer running my way. “What was that? Connect and run? You’re bailing without a goodbye?”
I opened my mouth and shrugged. “I said thank you.”
He slid his hands into his jeans. I could tell that the small breeze probably felt good against his bare arms after having stood under the hot lights in the bar. He stepped closer to me, and my body tensed up.
“I thought…” He paused and laughed. I thought he was laughing at himself. It was clear that I hadn’t done anything funny. “Never mind. It was nice meeting you.” He held his left hand out toward me and I shook it.
“Nice meeting you, too. Get inside and have a celebratory drink. You did amazing up there.” I chuckled.
He wasn’t smiling with his lips, but his eyes sparkled with care. “Was it your sister? Who you lost?”
I straightened up, taken aback by his words. “How did you know?”
Our hands still connected, he stepped one inch closer. “When you told the story about your golden, you spoke about her in past tense.”
“Oh.” That was all I could say. I didn’t know what else could be said, and just thinking about Gabby standing on that sidewalk was sending my waves of tears back.
“Still a new hurt?”
“Still fresh and ugly.”
“My mom passed a year ago. And last Friday I lost my dad to liver failure.” He stepped another inch closer.
My mouth dropped opened. “You just lost your father and you’re performing in a bar?”
“I’m pretty f*cked up,” he whispered, tapping his finger against his head. I knew the feeling all too well. “He was an English teacher. The band was his idea, actually—a Shakespeare-themed band. Only Dad could’ve come up with that.” He paused. “People tell you over time it’s suppose to get easier but—”
“It just gets harder,” I said, understanding completely and stepping closer to him.
“And it gets old to everyone around you. People get tired of you bringing it up. People get burdened by your sadness. So you act like it doesn’t hurt anymore. Just so you can stop people from worrying about you. Just so you won’t annoy anyone with your grief.”
“You want to know something that sounds crazy?” I felt a bit insane for talking to a complete stranger about losing a family member, but the truth was that he was the first person who seemed to understand where I was coming from. “When I drove over here, I could have sworn my twin sister was sitting next to me in the car.”
I watched as his eyes filled with such a look of despair. The words ‘twin sister’ had probably run through his mind, giving him that pained expression. I felt bad that I’d made him feel bad. A person like him should always feel good.
“It’s fine,” I whispered, “I’m okay.”
He shifted his feet around. “Sometimes I swear I can smell my dad’s favorite cigar smoke floating around me.”
We silenced our thoughts for a moment and both glanced down to our hands, which were still attached from our ‘goodnight’ handshake. Then a nervous laugh happened. I wasn’t sure if it was his nervous laughter or mine.
I broke the stillness and stepped backwards. Looking up into his blue eyes, I blinked once, hoping to not miss too much of his stare. “Ashlyn,” I said, offering him my name.
He stumbled back a few steps with a wide, toothy smile. “Ashlyn,” he sang. “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more stunning, you pull out a name like that.”
I slipped my hands into my pockets and stared up at the night sky. It all seemed so simple. A bar with music that touched my soul. A boy who knew what it was like to lose a part of his joy. A light breeze that refreshed my entire being. “If there were a God, which I’m not certain that there is, do you think this night would be a form of apology for him taking away the things we loved?”
He released a breath and rubbed his hand across his mouth. “I don’t know. But I think it’s a good start.”
We were silent again. I’d never known that a silence could feel so much like home. He couldn’t stop smiling, yet neither could I. They were intense, cheesy grins that felt nothing but natural.
He broke the stillness and stepped backwards. “Well this has been a really f*cking weird night.”
“I can second that.”
“All right then. I will stop bothering you and let you get going.”
“Yeah, of course. It’s just…” My words faded off, and he looked at me with narrowed eyes, waiting for me to finish. “I’m not ready to go yet. Because I know once I leave, all of this will be over. All of the magic of tonight that turned off my mind for a few hours will be gone and I’ll be sad Ashlyn again.”
“Are you asking me to make believe with you for a little while longer?” he asked.
I nodded with hopeful eyes, praying he wouldn’t think I was a total nut job.
He lifted my hand into his and nudged me in my shoulder. “Let’s take a walk,” he offered.

We took lap after lap around the block. I didn’t know why, but we started exchanging stories back and forth about our lives. On lap three, Daniel told me about his father, how they hadn’t been close until his mom died. Then they’d grown really close, and he regretted the years he’d lost due to being distant. He paused on the corner of Humboldt Street and James Avenue and took a deep inhale. Staring out into the night, he laced his fingers behind his neck and closed his eyes. I didn’t say anything because the regret in his body language was saying all that needed to be said.