Beauty in the Ashes

“Not yet,” she smiled, heading towards her coffee maker. “I need my coffee first.”

“Of course,” I chuckled, sitting down on the couch with the present on my lap, “you must have your coffee.”

While Sutton tended to getting her daily dose of caffeine I watched Brutus bat at an ornament on the tree and then proceed to try to climb it.

“Brutus! No!” Sutton yelled as she ran over to remove the cat from the limbs.

She put the cat on the couch beside me and went to fetch her coffee. She sat down, took a few sips, and set the mug aside. “Gimme.” She held out her hands for the present.

With a laugh I handed it over.

Like an excited child she ripped the paper off.

“Oh,” she gasped, raising a hand to her mouth. “It’s beautiful, Cael.”

“You like it?” I asked nervously.

“Like it?” She looked at me like I had lost my mind. “I love it. This is…I’ll cherish this forever,” she hugged the canvas to her chest. “I do have one question, though.”

“And what would that be?” I laughed. She looked so cute with her nose wrinkled in confusion.

“Why a hummingbird?” She tilted her head to the side, studying the painting.

“It’s you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged, squirming where I sat. I didn’t want to sound like a pussy. “You’re my hummingbird—my light in darkness. That’s one of their symbols you know? I thought it was appropriate.”

She looked down at the painting and then back at me. “That makes it mean even more to me…I…wow.” She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I’m blown away.”

I couldn’t help smiling. That’s what I’d wanted to do. I wanted to give her something she could always have and look upon with fondness. Even if it all fell apart she’d still have a piece of me.

She stood and leaned the canvas against the wall. She studied it a moment longer before returning to the couch. She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me. I closed my eyes and did the same. I wished I could hold her forever, because when she was in my arms everything was okay. There were no bad memories. There were no cravings. There was only peace.

“Thank you,” she whispered against my neck.

“It’s just a painting,” I chuckled, rubbing my hands up and down her back. “I’m so pathetic I couldn’t get you anything from a store.”

She sat back, her hands on my biceps. She shook her head adamantly. “That painting means more to me than anything you could’ve bought at a store.

Anything that comes from the heart,” she placed her palm over the left side of my chest, “will always mean more.”

She stood then and went over to the tree. She picked up the lone package lying there and turned around to hand it to me. “I hope you like it,” she whispered and there was real fear in her eyes.

Before I opened it, I reached over to where she’d sat down beside me once more, and cupped her cheek. “Don’t be worried.”

“But—”

“Don’t,” I assured her.

I carefully peeled back the layers of the paper, unlike her chaotic tearing, revealing the gift underneath.

“Kyle helped me,” she whispered.

I stared at the picture frame in front of me—one of those that had individual slots for multiple pictures.

Most were pictures of my family—family picnics, vacations, parties, that kind of thing. All happy moments. There was one of Kyle and me too, after a football game. We were both still in our gear, hair sweaty, but smiling for the camera and our arms outstretched to proudly point at the scoreboard in the distance. A few of the pictures were of Sutton and me. They were candid shots, taken on a phone. In one we kissed, in another we made silly faces, and in the last we looked at each other and the love there was palpable. I’d thought someone like me didn’t deserve love, and that I’d never be able to return it, but Sutton taught me that I could.