Forever Right Now
I should have taken care of her.
I gritted my teeth. “Whoever you find to replace her won’t be one tenth the dancer she is.” I looked down at Darlene. “You have stuff here?”
She nodded. “In the locker.”
“I got it.” A small woman in glasses brought Darlene’s bag and her ratty old gray sweater. Darlene added them to her lap, beside the flowers.
“You were great tonight,” the woman said, her eyes darting to mine and back. “He’s right. I hope you get better quick. Some other company’s going to be lucky to have you.”
“Thanks, Paula,” Darlene whispered.
I carried her out of the theatre, onto the street, where the night was cold and the wind made Darlene’s black dance dress slide up her legs. She shivered, and then let out a little cry.
“God, it hurts,” she whispered.
“Do you mind calling me an Uber or a cab?” I said, trying to take her mind off of it. “I’d do it, but my hands are tied.”
She smiled and fished her phone from her purse. “You can put me down. I must be heavy.”
“You’re not,” I said.
I’m not letting you go.
An Uber arrived within minutes, and I was glad the driver had the heat turned up. In the backseat, I kept her against me, holding her. And the way she molded herself to me, I felt like she was mine, and never in my life had I known such happiness. A bruised happiness, given what I faced with the Abbotts, but a happiness I hadn’t ever experienced. It felt like too much to ask for more, but in my mind’s eye, I tentatively reached for a future that had both her and Olivia. A real life.
A family?
“Thank you for coming to the show,” Darlene said, pulling me from my thoughts. “It meant so much to me, I can’t even tell you.”
Shame ripped through me at how I almost hadn’t. At how close I came to letting my own fear keep me home. I wouldn’t have been there to witness her dance, or be there for her when she got hurt.
I said nothing but held her tighter.
“I called my parents a few days ago,” Darlene said against my chest. “I waited so long to tell them about the show because what if I gave them plenty of notice, and they still said no? I thought it would hurt less if I told them at the last minute. Then they could say no, and it would make sense. Kind of like insurance, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And I didn’t even tell my best friends back home at all. But I wished I had. I wish I’d been braver.”
“You are brave, Darlene,” I said. “You’re braver than anyone I know.”
“My best friend Beckett told me that once, too. I don’t know if I believe it but I feel like I’m getting closer. This may not be the best show, but it was my first since I started using. My first since I’d been clean.”
She craned her head to look up at me. “Tonight was a disaster, but it was also better than anything I could have imagined. I needed someone there.” Her eyes shone. “You were there.”
“It wasn’t a disaster. You were incredible.” I swallowed hard. “And I showed up, yeah, but I should’ve been there for you a hell of a lot sooner.”
She shrugged and smiled, her fingertips touching my cheek. “You’re here now, Sawyer. That’s all that matters.”
Darlene
Sawyer directed the Uber driver to take us to the ER entrance at UCSF medical center. A team approached with a gurney. Sawyer helped me out of the car, and held me gently, reverently, as if he were reluctant to let me out of his arms. He set me down on the gurney and I bit back a cry at the pain when my heel touched down. But I couldn’t hold the next little moan in as we went over a bump. Sawyer grabbed my hand and I squeezed. He squeezed back.
The ER was bustling with nurses, doctors and people in pain; the air a sterile cold. They wheeled me into a space and closed a curtain around me. A nurse tucked a pillow under my foot, and then laid an ice pack on it. I clenched my teeth as the pain turned icy and bit deep. Under the bright glare of the hospital lights my foot looked awful; swollen and wearing a bouquet of purple, red, and blue bruises. My last two toes throbbed dully; a terrible just-stubbed-my-toe pain that wouldn’t f
ade.
Sawyer pulled up one of the two chairs in the little space, and took my hand, wrapping his warm fingers around my cold ones.