“It has its qualities.”
Hall’s eyes find me, playful yet solemn. “Do you hear what I hear?”
A lonely train whistle, boxcars rumbling across a stone viaduct. I catch snatches of curling white print on the train:Wish Come True Express.
I wish he’d stop making the world feel as magical as he sees it, but I’m resigned.
“I bet it’s pretty here in the spring,” Hall observes, lifting a hand toward the bare trees. I like what the shadows do to his face when he tips his head back; they close in on either side like dark fingers of a glove, and I visualize him in a twilit bedroom, palmspressed to a windowsill as he gazes down upon a lively street. Then, without even shifting his gaze, he’d be seared with awareness of me, knowing intrinsically that I moved into the room. Somehow I already knowexactlyhow his muscles will tense: with equal parts restraint and longing, because he draws out every moment that gives him pleasure and will make himself wait until he can’t any longer. Those gorgeous eyes would look like moonless nights, hands reaching for me, bringing me flush against him. I can see the rise and fall of his chest, the anticipation. I can hear his steady breathing in that quiet, faraway room, even from where I stand in the road inside a timeline that won’t ever let us have that moment.
It’s painful, how badly I want it.
Some trees fill with pink blossoms before our eyes, others pale green. Birdsong begins to chirrup from somewhere hidden, and I can smell it—earth and rain and that uniquely spring scent, like wet sticks, a doused fire.
I watch the pink blossoms blow away as green leaves unfurl and grow, a warm breeze shuddering through. Even though it’s dark out, sunlight warms my face, rebounding off the umbrella. As quickly as summer arrives, it gives way to autumn. The world is crimson, copper, gold, with pumpkins on doorsteps and scarecrows hanging from shadowed doors. Hall watches the progression with contemplative eyes that are, I notice, more brown than they are green.
When his hand falls, the trees are snow-laden, skeletal once more.
“You could see it,” I tell him. “If we’re careful, you can stay long enough to watch the seasons change. You could stay forever.”
“I need you to be more responsible with your money,” he replies, out of left field. “Okay?”
“Hall.”
“I’m serious. Please listen—I’m going to be upset if I see you struggling, and there’s nothing I can do. My magic works differently up there.” He lifts his chin. “I can only wrap you in feelings, not things.”
“I don’t like this. Don’t talk about going away.”
“I am going, though. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
“There has to be.”
He steps close, that golden, comforting warmth encircling, making me briefly close my eyes. “It’s every time you catch me looking at you,” he says so quietly I barely hear it. His breath hitches. A slow blink, eyes darkening. “It’s every time I laugh.”
“What is?” I whisper back.
His hands cradle my face. He’s so close that I make out new freckles, too faint to be detected from even a foot away—on his brow bone, three beneath his left eyebrow. Secret freckles. There’s still so much I don’t know about Hall, that perhaps I’ll never know.
“You get a little bit happier,” he responds with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Those strange eyes, more human now than ever, but still not completely of this world. There’s an inner light in their depths—if I turn my profile at just the right angle, I can see it flickering. “It’s a good thing that my purpose is close to being fulfilled. I tell myself it’s a good thing.”
“I don’t want to be happy.” I swallow a rising lump in my throat. “I don’t want to be happy anymore if it means you’ll go, okay? Make my wish come true.”
Instead of making my wish come true, he holds me close. Mythoughts stumble into the future, to a Bettie who won’t have this luxury anymore, who won’t be able to hold him whenever she wants. I love the way I feel when we’re together, bubbly and light and safe, whether alone or in a crowded room. The way he casts a glow over the atmosphere likeanythingcan happen, mysteries around every corner, old concepts taken for granted shining in a new light. Even the bad days, with Hall, are adventures. Just thinking about how I’m going to lose his caring touch, and the opportunity to admire him while he... While heeverything. Bakes with my mother, side by side, sending me flirty winks and secret smiles because he can feel my close attention on him. How could I want to look anywhere else?
He helps my grandparents by wheeling their garbage cans down the road for pickup, which is terribly attractive. If he walks through the kitchen and notices the oven timer has less than ten minutes left on it, he sticks around just to make sure someone’s there to get the food out before it burns. He answers the landline when everybody else ignores it, striking up friendly conversations with telemarketers. He tinkered with a grandfather clock on the third floor, making it chime the tune of one of Kaia’s songs. He performs magic tricks for the kids, involving all of them in unique and personal ways, making them feel special. They like how they get to pretend there is real magic in this world, but more than that, they like how he listens to them. He doesn’t act as though he’s above them talking down. I’m not all that maternal, although I think I could be someday in regard to my own children, and no power weakens my knees like the sight of Hall rocking baby Adrian to sleep while wearing a paper crown Honeysuckle Lou gifted him eight hours beforehand.
How can I give him up and not fall apart? To not be able to roll over at night and see him reading on his Kindle as he often does when it’s late; and then when he catches me looking, immediately begins reading aloud, giving each character a distinctive voice. My throat closes up. That feeling I wish I could stamp out only grows.
“I’m scared of feelings,” I admit. “This is the punishment I get for them.”
“I know.” He gently squeezes. I feel like I’m up on a mountaintop, losing air. What happened to all the oxygen? I can’t breathe properly.
“It isn’t fair.” My complaint is muffled by his shoulder. “Can’t you choose to stay?”
“No.”
So definite. A swift kill.No.
“Can’t you lie?”
