Chapter Eighteen
Graham
A s she tilts her chin upward, I try not to react when Lily makes eye contact with me. She nods slowly. I hold myself as still as possible to let my words take effect. I need a minute to process too. I’m still getting used to Lily not treating me with hostility. More and more, she is allowing me to see the thoughtfulness behind her eyes, looking at me without hesitation, of her own accord, even when we aren’t bickering. It feels like a gift.
And now, I may have the chance to dance with her. As much as I love to dance, this is one thing we never did in LA. My heart drops when she turns away abruptly. But she is only handing the wildflower bouquet I brought her to Anna, who is overseeing the dessert table.
When Lily turns back to me, I see the playful hint of a smile across her face. She’s radiant, and it takes my breath away. I see now that I’ve never truly appreciated Regency-era fashion to the level I should have. The lilac-colored dress skims the length of her willowy frame, whispering of the curves beneath. Her hair is swept up, a few curls escaping to graze her neck. I could swear she had a pair of gloves earlier, but only the soft, bare skin of her arms awaits my fingertips now.
“Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Little does she know I’m thanking my lucky stars for all the dance training I received as a kid. When I received the links for the dance instructions in the Birch Borough newsletter, I recognized them immediately. At my request, Liam sent me some music I could use to practice. Once I was certain I had the correct cadence, I got to work. Are my legs still sore from trying to figure out the steps until the early hours of this morning? Yes. Is it worth it as I observe Lily’s tentative enthusiasm? Absolutely.
Tucking her hand through my arm again, I lead her to the dance floor. I swear the world grows quiet despite the buzz and hum of the crowded room. As I take my place opposite Lily, intensity echoes in my bones. It was all coming to this: the moment we met in the movie theater, the loving, the fighting, the heartbreak. We were always going to end up here . . . somehow.
I don’t believe we’ve ever lived other lives, but if I did, as she grips my hands, and we take our first tentative steps—and I attempt to execute the steps perfectly and command my lungs to breathe—I could imagine we’ve done all this before, many times in many lifetimes.
The movement overtakes me, steps that are both familiar and brand-new imprinting themselves on my memory. As the magic weaves between us, I almost miss the way that everyone else seems to clear the dance floor. The music seems to match the rhythm of my heart, and I know I will never forget the warmth of Lily’s hands. Even when the tips of our fingers barely touch, I still feel her everywhere. Her eyes seem to deepen and take on a new glow as we sway and spin across the floor in a timeless expression of human connection. I could become addicted to this feeling. I sense that Lily feels it too. Say what she will about planning to run me out of town, this is the definition of romance.
Without uttering a word, we’ve yet said so much that when the music finishes, we stay locked in an eternal gaze. People clap around us, slapping me on the back, but I’m mesmerized. Lily has always been achingly attractive, but at this moment, I see a new depth to her beauty. She was made for the soft, feminine costume of a nineteenth-century maiden, her signature ponytail replaced with an updo. For once, she isn’t wearing black, and I feel as if I’m seeing a full-color motion picture—rather than a black-and-white film—for the first time. She chose to dance with me, even though we’ve hurt each other deeply. She may have used her words to hurt me, but I hurt her with my silence, however justified it was.
After the briefest pause, another song starts to play. It’s a lively one. Seeing Edgar stuck on a bench, Gladys’ arms wrapped like a vise around his, I realize she has essentially freed up Lily’s dance card for the evening. And I’m ready to fill it. I extend my hand to her, letting a mischievous expression peek through my face, and without a word, Lily reaches forward and places her palm in mine. Her silence surprises me. Momentarily, I wonder if her willingness to dance with me is just another way she is plotting to throw me off my game, but before I can analyze it too much, the music sweeps us away .
It’s only several dances later, when I step away to fetch us some drinks, that I allow the depth of this night—which is punctuated by some otherworldly effect caused by either lighting or fate—to sink in. Lily waits across the hall. I approach her, cups of punch in my hands and the feeling of my coattails moving gently behind me. When she lifts her face to mine, I picture a different life with her with a sudden rush of clarity. Perhaps, had we lived in another time or place, we would’ve been ready to fight for each other, disarming ourselves on the dance floor while sipping fragrantly spiked punch (my money is on Gladys as the culprit).
I extend a cup to Lily in a cheers gesture and take a sip. Immediately, I’m sputtering. Lily’s laughter rings out. Her form goes blurry from the tears in my eyes as she tries to decipher what could have possibly been put in the punch to make it taste so much like either medicine or moonshine.
Something tugs within my heart. Throughout this evening, through her laughter, her intentional touches, and the question in her eyes each time they meet mine, it’s like an invisible knot has once again been tied tightly between us. Fate loosened it once, but now it feels as if it is becoming stronger than ever. From the brightness in her gaze, I wonder if she senses the same. I take a step closer, and she tracks my every move.
“More dancing, George?” Her challenge is presented with a smile.
The heat in her expression, familiar yet new, threatens to cause my knees to buckle. “Indeed.”
I can do this. I can do this. Silently, my brain chants to my limbs. I move forward to meet her as she moves too, and we both stop in the middle. I’ll always meet her halfway if she’ll let me.
Rather than speak, I extend my hand. She takes it. For a moment, I allow myself to enjoy the feeling of our hands clasped together. She lets me lead her toward the other couples taking up their dancing position once more. It’s not normal for Lily to let someone else lead. I’m in awe that she trusts me enough to allow me to take charge for a while. Maybe the fatigue of being apart, if it feels anything like mine, has crept into her bones too.
A waltz begins, more modern in style and a little slower. Lily echoes my uncertainty about the forced (though I’m looking forward to it) proximity as she looks up at me. Silently, our hearts seem to connect as they have all night. In truth, I’ve hardly been able to look away from her. I know enough about classical ballroom etiquette to remember that the partners don’t always look at each other. Lily didn’t get the memo. She’s staring at me so intensely that it causes my spine to both strengthen and soften at the same time.
Our hands arch together, intertwining. Somehow, my other hand has already traveled to the lower part of her rib cage. I’m being cautious, realizing that we’re leaving the romanticism of Regency and traveling to the present, and there will be less propriety and more questions. To my relief, Lily chooses to break some of the ice by reaching for my hand, sliding it farther down her waist, and stepping closer to me.
I search her face with a gaze I expect to be a look of wonder mixed with hope. My brow is furrowed as I question this move. If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I’d think she is playing me, trying to trick me into failing her challenge. But I know she’s not. I recognize that, from this moment on, everything I feel isn’t going back into neat little boxes. Together, we’ve blown them to bits when she stepped forward and let herself fully exist within my orbit . . . in public. Tonight, she’s not with me because we accidentally fell asleep in the same room during a spring storm. She’s not here because she needs my help. And it’s not because someone forced us to be civil. We both want to be here.
It’s only been a few seconds. We’ve only missed one turn around the room, but it feels like we’ve existed in this space for years. Because that is the truth. We’ve missed our turn time and time again. She changed the music on me. She told me to dance it alone. And I listened, instead of realizing that, when she ran from me, it was her misguided way of protecting me.
“Let’s keep dancing,” Lily says, the words almost a question hovering in the air between us.
I nod. Slowly, I guide us into an elegant waltz. I’m trying to be a gentleman, gently leading her across the floor, steering us smoothly around other couples—some of whom are also dancing, some who cheer, and some who merely gape in our direction—as we no doubt look like we just stepped out of a movie about a star-crossed royal couple with all the odds stacked against them until fate intervenes and gives them a chance to work it out on the dance floor.
Driven by instinct, my feet take over. Even though I miss a few steps, my strength and determination try to cover us each time. The more Lily trusts me to lead, the more I feel myself easing out of any lingering stiffness. I can’t keep the smile off my face as we continue to spin. I glance about the room, spotting ahead of us so we don’t crash into anyone.
When the music stops, I catch Lily staring at me. With what feels like a caress, her eyes meet mine. A grin lifts the corner of her mouth. I’m mesmerized. For a moment, the world is nothing but light. The more she smiles, the more I know that I’m the one who put it there, and clarity steals softly into my heart.
She’s been trying to do all of it on her own. I’ve been trying to prove my love, but the emotion might as well be engraved in stone between us.
As the music swells again, we dance. The people clap and laugh. I never expected so many people in Birch Borough to attempt to follow along with the steps they don’t know, joining in the festivities. It appears that the Regency Ball is a success. Hours pass before we start to wind down. Lily looks breathless but happy.
“Do I win this one?” I ask over the noise of the room, a hint of mischief in my tone.
“You can’t ‘win’ one; you can only complete it,” she replies, and her voice is warm and light.
“Well, then . . .” I grin. Does she notice how often I seamlessly insert previous moments and phrases I’ve said to her into our conversations? She must.
“However, you’ve passed,” Lily concedes, allowing me a small sense of victory. Not because she admitted it, but because she said something similar when I brought her to a new ice cream place in LA, and she dared me to try an exotic new flavor I’d never had. That flavor is now my favorite.
Lily remembers as much as I do, I realize.
My hand runs through my hair. My heartbeat is a racehorse trying to figure out which lane to run in order to win. I know Lily is sorry for what happened between us. I’m sorry too. I don’t want our history to compel her to push me away for moments lost and missed opportunities.
If none of us ever forgive, if we hold back our love every time someone makes a mistake—even the big ones—I don’t know how we could claim to love one another at all. And love each other, she and I did. I’m not asking Lily to give her heart to me fully. I know it may take time for us to meet on the bridge of love again, but I’ll be there when she is ready. I’ll ask her gently to let me love her, every time. And I will always be there when she needs me, even if she never asks.
In one of our final dances, when I slow and spin her, drawing her closer, I lose my train of thought completely. Scanning her face, my gaze lands on her lips. Her head tilts, tipping to one side like she is extending both a question and an invitation. I’m ready to tell her why something happening between us could be a bad idea, but I find that I don’t want to.
We’re moving so slowly that I’m convinced ice has frozen on a summer day faster than the passage of this moment. She has the audacity to lick her lips. I track the movement, suddenly desperate to remember what it felt like to let myself love her. Her breath hitches in response. She moves another inch closer, her head tilting. One of my hands grips her waist, the feeling of the silky fabric beneath my fingers enough to hold onto when this moment passes.
The music continues to play as the world disappears. I can’t wait to finally do what I’ve wanted to do since I last saw her. In the middle of the crowd, I incline my head down to hers. Our lips barely brush. When the edge of her mouth and her breath greet my cheek, the touch sends delightful tingles across the side of my face, shocking my system. The feeling is an explosive current that causes me to rear back with wide eyes. Once again, we are standing on ground that is familiar and yet new. The fear of diving in just for her to leave me again is overwhelming. Theoretically, it punches me in the face, and I’m hit with a wave of emotion I didn’t see coming.
“I . . . can’t,” I say. I hear the grit of pain in my voice. It surprises me to find my actions and heart so at odds.
“Right. Of course.” Immediately, Lily releases me, her face flushed.
I catch the moment she realizes we lost our senses. She looks about the hall, and her face shows relief that people have continued to dance. The world didn’t stop because of the scene we just shared. The fact that she doesn’t look me in the eye again tells me just how much I sabotaged our moment. Once again, my knee-jerk reaction is to retreat. As much as I love Lily, I’m still unsure if I can trust her. There’s too much unspoken history between us.
She wraps her arms around her waist. I take it as my cue. The music is suddenly too loud, the lights too dim, and the fury in my heart too wild. I give her a nod and walk out of the room, the scent of love and loss lingering heavily in my wake.
I’d tell my younger self that another rejection wouldn’t nearly be as painful as the knowledge that Lily doesn’t believe I’ll run after her again and again. Somewhere deep within me, I think this must be a core part of what it is to be human. We live in fear of something we both want and need so desperately. Occasionally, that fear overtakes us, and we wonder what life would’ve been like if it hadn’t.
When I’m older, the sound of the music mixed with her laughter is the memory I’ll pull from. The way she felt in my arms tonight is the storyline that makes me want to freeze time. I make it just outside the building, my hands threading through my hair, pulling at the edges until I’m not sure they’ll exist after this moment.
“Stupid, so stupid,” I mutter. Unbidden tears spring up to sting my eyes.
“You okay, man?” Suddenly, Rafe is beside me.
The feeling of loss—this time caused by my own hands—nearly chokes me. I reach for him, and he opens his arms to hug me tightly, as if I’m a brother who is holding too much emotion to process on his own.
“I’m losing it, man,” I manage to get out. “I don’t know what’s up or down. I—I love her so much. And I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
I don’t even need to finish the sentence. Rafe leans back. He pushes away to look me in the eyes, never lifting his hands from my shoulders.
“You’re the best man I know,” he replies. His next words gut me to the core. “You’re not alone.”
I wipe my eyes, willing the emotion down. I’m not one to make a scene, but the emotion of it all has been just at the surface, trying to break through my skin for weeks. It’s more than Lily. It’s what Lily reveals. She shows me how much I’ve always feared being disposable, desperately avoiding a feeling of uselessness. I know that I can’t help but be all in when I make up my mind. And the disappointment kills me every time. First, with my father. And now, with her.
Rafe nods. Together, we walk around the corner of the brick building, the sound of music and laughter spilling out into the night, uncontainable within the walls.
“You held her,” he states simply.
“I did.”
“That’s a start. And you danced with her.”
I nod in reply, focusing on the shadowy, moonlit birch trees in the distance—the namesake of this town—to give me a sense of grounding. “It felt like we’ve danced a thousand times before.”
Rafe mirrors my choice to gaze out into the distance. “I know what it’s like to hold the woman you love in your arms and not know how things will end up. I don’t think it’s something a man recovers from. It’s not something we can forget.”
“That’s the problem right there,” I reply with a sigh, already pointing my shoes toward what now feels as if it is only my temporary home. “I never could forget. And I wouldn’t want to.”