And I found it in Nik.
He was the everything I’d been looking for. It just took me a while to realize what everything looked like.
It wasn’t until the fourth time his hand moved from my knee to ankle that I realized what the fact that I had noticed meant.
“Nik…I…I can feel your hand.”
He looked down, startled, so lost in his thoughts and his concentration on my face that he didn’t even realize what it meant either. He thought he was hurting me, jerking it back like retreating from an overly hot surface.
“No, no!” I shouted to stop him. “Put it back.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Please, put it back.” He did, looking right into my eyes and listening. “I think I can feel my legs.”
His eyes widened just before closing in relief, his fingertips sinking noticeably into the muscle of my blanket-covered thigh. Sweet sensation drifted into the skin around them, and my throat clogged in relief.
“Oh, thank God,” I heard my mom say from the side of the room I’d yet to survey. My dad stood next to her silently, probably for the first time in his life.
I’d told myself that everything would be okay no matter what the outcome with my legs. That as long as I figured out a way to get Nik in my life and keep him, the rest really didn’t matter. I had to hold on to that positivity before surgery.
But I could not deny the sweet melody that hummed through my veins at the realization that I wouldn’t have to live with that burden—and that Nik wouldn’t have to either.
Lost in my own relief, I hadn’t noticed that the room was uncomfortably silent.
When several seconds passed and my dad still said nothing, I scrunched my eyebrows together and looked from him to Nik, at a complete loss for what was going on.
“Nik?” I asked, knowing he would be the one to tell me the truth out of the bunch. Even if he didn’t want to, he respected me enough to do it.
“Cal,” he murmured sweetly with a short swipe of his arm, “it’s fine.”
It was fine?
What was goddamn fine?
What the hell was going on here?
“No, damnit. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that it is not fine,” I disagreed, anger running the line of my body, raising me taller in bed, and making Shirley hide a smirk and turn her head. “Someone is going to tell me why it’s weird, and they’re going to do it right now.”
Still, no one spoke, and as a result, I officially started to lose my shit.
I met each and every one’s eyes individually, holding them in the depths of my most violent stare until they turned repentant.
“Someone is going to tell me why I’m lying here after one of the biggest scares of my life, telling you I can feel my legs, and you’re all denying me a well-deserved goddamn celebration!”
Shirley, the saucy minx, raised her hand.
Nik couldn’t contain his laugh at the harmlessly shit-stirring gesture, and my dad’s eyes turned hard at the beautiful sound.
Mine narrowed for a fight, but before I even opened my mouth, my mom changed everything I thought I knew, turned my whole parental world upside down, and elbowed him directly and with force in the gut.
He made a small noise as the air left him, accusatory eyes turning toward my mom but not challenging.
“Okay,” I shrieked! “Now I’m really interested.”
Nik sighed and moved at once, coming to sit on the bed in the space by my hip. His hands moved to my face, love bleeding from every facet of his tender hold, and lifted my lips to his once, twice, and touching his lips to mine a third time before looking into my eyes and explaining to the best of his ability despite a clear preference not to.
“It’s pretty simple, Cal, and if you really thought about it, I’m sure you could figure it out on your own.” He paused only briefly, touching his lips to mine once more and drawing a grumble from my dad once more. My lips followed his as they left, each touch like a tiny stitch in the hole he’d torn open in my heart when he left.
He shrugged with a simplicity that matched his statement. “I’m here. Your dad doesn’t want me to be.”
I closed my eyes and slammed my head back into the pillow, turning in my father’s direction and prying them slowly open. “Still, Dad? Really? Jesus.”
“Come on, Frank,” my mom prompted my dad, pulling him toward the door of the room and trying to contain the situation. “We’ll give you some time alone,” she added, addressing me directly. It was pretty clear he didn’t want to go, but he did anyway.
Shirley winked and followed them out of the room, and Nik didn’t watch any of it.
He was too busy watching me.
His forehead met mine with a soft thunk, and his eyes closed as it did.
“I missed you, Cal.”
I reached up and cupped his cheek, whispering, “I missed you too.”
His face felt warm in my hand, and the flush of his cheeks matched my own. “I know I didn’t always make the best choices when it came to us, and I’m sorry for them all. For each hurt, each inconsistency, each time I made you feel less worthy and wanted than you are.”
His lips touched mine softly.
“I want an us,” I said desperately, feeling like my point wasn’t clear enough and not wanting to leave even an ounce of question. “I want you and me, and I want it forever.”
A small smile pulled at the very corners of his mouth, and his hands gingerly took mine, turning them over until the palms faced up.
Under the lights, the glitter and New Skin glistened, and the evidence of my jumbled up words shone indisputably.
“I know, my little Pea. I know you want it, and I know I’m going to give it to you. You, your dad, Shirley…” He smiled. “None of you could get rid of me if you tried.”
Relief surged and sizzled, and determined not to waste any more time or opportunities, I blurted out the one thing that was long past due.
“I love you,” we said at once, completely robbing me of my victory dance, a right of passage to be awarded for taking my foot out of my mouth first.
Smiles melted both of our faces, and the already negligible space between us dwindled significantly.
He didn’t let me dwell on it long though, crushing his lips to mine and re-marking my mouth as his. His tongue traveled all the territory, visiting all of the corners and the residents and leaving his taste with the majority of the sensitive buds of my tongue.
He felt like home and happiness and like a long awaited prize awarded solely by being a prize idiot.
I’d denied it too long, fought it too hard, and waited too long to make him my everything.
I didn’t intend to make that mistake ever again.
His forehead rolled back and forth on mine as I shook my head, wanting to let it go, wanting to live in the moment and move forward, but not being able to.
“Why’d you go?” I breathed, the sound just barely audible over the bustling noise of the hospital around us.
His forehead left mine and his vision narrowed in question, but his hands reached out to hold both of mine. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I started with a huff, the frustration I’d felt that day hitting me as if it were happening all over again. “Why did you leave? Why did you sign that stupid fucking paper? Why did you leave without saying anything? Why’d you give up and give in when you did nothing but swear that you wouldn’t? I’ve got nearly a million fucking whys that have done a million fucking laps in my head.”
He shook his head, slow at first and increasing in speed as it went, stopping only to accuse me of his own injustice.
“You signed that paper first,” he insisted, squeezing at my hands with more and more pressure as he did. He wasn’t only telling me. He was reaffirming the actuality to himself.