30. Nathan
thirty
Nothing could have preparedme for this.
Nothing could have prepared me for Claire Benson.
We’re laying in my bed, her head on my chest, and I realize that despite the trauma I’ve dumped all over our night, this is the most relaxed I’ve felt in quite some time. I wonder if that says something about keeping your past locked up tight.
“Tell me a good memory.”
I inhale, watching as her head rises and suspends with that movement. She doesn’t stop stroking my hair, doesn’t stop the idle movement of her fingers on my chest. I’m wrapped in a warm cocoon of her and the simplicity of that—her and me wrapped in my bed with the knowledge that she won’t leave—makes it easy.
“My mom introduced me to reading. I remember seeing one of those PBS ads during Sesame Street for books that would teach you how to read, and I begged her to take me to the library. We got the first four kits, and I was reading small chapter books by the end of the month.
“She would read aloud to me from the larger stories. The Fellowship of the Ring was my favorite. We’d probably read it five times, in front of the fireplace in our living room, by the time I could read it out loud to her. And then, Cal started cancer treatment. I would read while he slept, and one day, she brought Frodo and Bilbo along to keep me company. It was our time, stolen moments while my brother battled for his life, while I fought alongside him. They made me feel brave, and in the moments when even they couldn’t, they at least took me somewhere else for a little while.”
She stiffens, but her ministrations don’t stop. This is the part that I hate about telling my story. Pulling back my layers only reminds me of the way that people treat you like an eggshell when you show your vulnerabilities.
But not Claire.
Claire’s hand worms its way from massaging my scalp to laying over my heart. Claire rubs her palm over my chest, and I swear, my heart begins to beat to a cadence that synchronizes with hers, like it’s trying to leap from my chest and rest in its rightful place in the palm of her hands.
Claire says, She sounds lovely, and, Tell me more about her, and for once, I don’t hold back.
It isn’t until much later that my voice grows hoarse. I spoke the sun into the west and the moon into the sky, and not once did Claire leave my side.
“Is that why you were rereading it? The Fellowship of the Ring?” she asks after a stretch of silence, while I give myself a break. “Because you were waiting on a call from Cal’s doctor?”
I hadn’t even made the connection yet. I simply stroke her hair through my fingers and kiss her temple.
“That story makes me feel connected to her. It brings me back to a time when I had my mom by my side. These characters who were always so much braver than me always gave me confidence; when I felt like life was tearing my world apart in the most unfair of ways, I could put myself into their shoes instead. Well, theoretically—Hobbits don’t wear shoes.”
“Cracking jokes, Mr. Harding?” Her voice is rough, and the feel of her smile turning up against my skin is something I’d like to wear as a tattoo.
I sigh, tuck my arm beneath her, and tug her to me.
Holding Claire only furthers my hypothesis that our hearts are meant to be one. The beat of hers against mine seems to stutter until they thump in tandem. The way she fits to me, molds herself there until there is no longer she or I, but us, awakens something in me with a click I can’t quite understand.
We lay in the quiet. Her heart beating against mine. Her breath warming the space between us. The need that dominates them all is to hold her tightly and never let her go.
“I know you just finished it…” she says, her index finger tracing aimless pictures on my ribcage. “…but would you like me to read it out loud to you?”
My breath stutters. My heart, that has been in pieces since I was seventeen years old, somehow reforms with that one question.
“I think I would really love that.”
The copy remains at my bedside, tucked safely into the drawer at all times. It is well loved, torn and tattered, but I refuse to replace it. I hand my most prized possession to Claire. She finds the inscription inside the front cover, and traces her fingers over it:
All we have to decide in this life is what to do with the time that is given to us. Make the most of what you’ve been given, my strong boy.
Her breath catches, and in turn, she leans up and catches me. Right there in the palm of her hand. Right there, in the wells of her eyes, that I know without question lead straight to her heart.
And as, When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of the Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating is eleventy-first birthday… pours from her mouth like silk, I know that my heart no longer belongs to me.