Laura Miller - For All You Have Left

I really try not to laugh, so he knows I’m serious, but in the end, I’m not very successful at it.

“Just look next time you see her. I promise,” I say, joining him on the couch again.

He nods his head, chuckling to himself. “Okay.”

I grab a throw pillow and squeeze it to my chest. I’m really surprised he even has a throw pillow until I feel something furry protruding from it. I quickly flip it around and notice there’s a bear on the other side with half of its body sticking out of the pillow. I slowly turn the pillow so that the bear is facing Jorgen.

He notices it and simply shrugs his shoulders. “I’m a hell of a decorator?”

My eyes playfully narrow on him.

“No?” he says.

I shake my head.

“Okay, my mom and dad went to Colorado a few years back. It’s a souvenir.”

I nod my head in satisfaction.

“Better,” I say.

The room is quiet then as my eyes fall to the bear in the pillow again. What a strange, little pillow. I squeeze it to my chest and look back up at Jorgen when a thought crosses my mind.

“Jorgen.”

“Hmm?” he asks.

“What’s your middle name?”

He just stares at me with no expression written on his face whatsoever, and after a moment, he shakes his head. “Nah,” he says.

I feel my face crumpling in confusion, but I’m also trying to hold back a laugh. He looks so serious all of a sudden. “What?”

“Nah,” he says again, still shaking his head.

He runs his hand through his hair and then his palm down his thigh as if he’s nervous or something.

“What? Come on. You know mine.”

“Yours is a good one, though.”

“Jorgen, it can’t be that bad.”

He just gives me the most serious stare down I’ve ever seen, but it only makes me laugh.

“Jorgen,” I scold playfully.

His stoic features don’t budge.

“Okay, if I can guess it, you’ll confirm it, right?”

“You’ll never guess it.”

“First letter,” I say.

He seems to think about it for a second, as if he’s not even sure he wants to give that much away.

“Fine,” he pouts. “F.”

“F?”

He nods his head.

“Okay. Frank?”

“No,” he says.

“Ferdinand?” I guess again.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Fffffido?”

“What?” He laughs. “Like the dog?”

It’s the first smile from him in nearly a minute.

“Well, I can’t think of any more names that start with F. Come on, Jorgen, just tell me.”

He closes his eyes and then mumbles something under a heavy breath.

I tilt my head to the side. “What was that?”

“Felix,” he says, a little louder this time.

“Felix?” I ask. “Like the cat?”

His eyes dart to mine, and at last, a grin pushes past his lips. “Like the cat,” he confirms, lowering his eyes and looking defeated.

I throw the bear-pillow his way. It hits his arm and falls into his lap. I watch him retrieve it and then slowly look back up at me through hooded eyes.

“I like it,” I say.

“You have to say that.”

“What? Why do I have to say that?”

“Because you’re nice, and I’m sitting right here,” he explains.

“Not true,” I say. “Even if I were mean, and you were sitting millions of miles away from me on some couch holding a bear-pillow on Pluto, I would still like it. It’s a very strong name. It fits you,” I add.

I watch a smile slowly start to edge its way across his tan face, and before I know it, I’m stuck in his eyes again.

“What?” he asks, after a few moments of my staring.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “They’re just so unique, but so familiar.”

“My eyes?”

“Mm hmm,” I confirm.

He looks down, and his big eyelashes seem to rest on his cheeks for a moment before he locks gazes with me again.

“Well, maybe we knew each other in another life,” he offers.

I lower my head and gently laugh, until I feel his hand on my chin. He lifts my face until my eyes are even with his.

“Or maybe we were just meant to find each other in this one,” he says, smiling softly.

My heart breaks a little. I want to believe him.

Then, suddenly, I’m aware of my every breath and his too, as each falls one by one onto my lips. I close my eyes. I want to give in, but instead, I panic.

“Or maybe we shared an alley in our cat lives,” I push out, opening my eyes again.

Jorgen’s gaze falls from mine, but it returns only moments later.

“That’s probably it,” he says, softly chuckling to himself.

I laugh too, but mine is a nervous one. I pray he doesn’t notice.

“Come here,” he says, pulling me closer to him.

I let him put his arm around me and rest his hand on my thigh. Then, I lean into him and lay my head gently onto his chest, and instantly, I can feel his heart beating. I’m still not sure how I fit into this new life yet. I’m still trying to figure it all out as fast as I can without falling to pieces in the process, but I also don’t know how much longer I can resist this beautiful creature beside me.

“Lada, have you ever thought about moving? You know, just picking up and starting over?”

I stare right at Hannah. She’s kidding. Right? How does she not know that I’ll never be in the mood to have this conversation with her?

“Well, have you?” she asks again.

I continue to glare at her, willing her to drop it. Of course, I’ve thought about picking up and starting over. I thought about it once right before college, four years ago, but it hurt so much that I pushed it away and never thought about it again.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” she asks.

I look at her with a straight face, daring her to say it.

“I don’t know,” she says instead. “There’s so much here. Don’t you ever get tired of seeing it — reliving it?”

I stuff a towel into my bag.

“I’m fine, Hannah.”

“Okay, okay. I was just asking.”

I roll my eyes and fling open the door.

Jorgen is at his door fiddling with his keys. He’s wearing his navy pants, white collared shirt and work boots. He stops for a second and looks up at me.

I smile because that’s what I do around him now.

“Work?” I ask.

He nods his head.

“Pool?” he asks.

I nod my head.

“Food Network tomorrow night?” he asks.

I nod my head again.

“Have fun at the pool,” he calls back at me as he makes his way down the stairs.

“Have fun at work,” I call down to him.

When he’s gone, I find Hannah lurking in my personal space behind me. Her eyes are big and staring straight through me.

I crinkle my eyebrows at her.

“You’re in my bubble,” I say, frowning and chalking off an imaginary circle around me.

“You like him, don’t you?” Hannah scolds, crossing her arms at her chest.

Despite her demeanor, I can tell she’s excited. I don’t say anything. I just walk out the door.

“Do you guys hang out?”

“We’re just friends, Hannah.”

“Mm hmm,” she says.

I know she doesn’t believe me.

We walk the rest of the way in silence. And when we get past the gates, we find two lounge chairs side by side. Hannah lays down her towel and takes a seat in one. I do the same and take a seat in the one next to it. She pulls a magazine out of her bag. I find a book in mine, pull it out and start reading. But no sooner do I get past the first page, Hannah fumbles her magazine and sighs.

“Lada, he’s gorgeous, you know. I mean his arm muscles are as big as my…”

She stops and looks at her bikini-clad body.

“As my thighs,” she finishes.

I look at her thighs.

Hannah was never really good with comparisons or proportions, for that matter.

“Gosh, now I can see why you don’t even want to think about moving,” she adds.

I glare at her again. She doesn’t seem to notice. She’s facing straight into the sun now — eyes closed, her big sunglasses threatening to swallow her face. I helped her pick them out. They didn’t look so big in the store.

Then, all of a sudden, she makes a rash movement in my direction, and just like that, she’s on her side and staring at me.

“Has he kissed you?”

She dramatically lifts her big shades from her eyes.

“What?” I ask, starting to laugh.

“Has he kissed you?” she asks again.

“No, Hannah.”

“Well, are you dating?”

“I don’t know…No,” I say.

“Has he come over?”

She continues her rapid-fire questioning.

“Yes,” I say.

Her eyes grow wide.

“Lada,” she squeals, shoving my arm.

She grabs my thick, dark hair next and gently runs it through her fingers.

“You guys would make the prettiest babies,” she says, before she sets her sunglasses back onto her nose and positions her back flat against the chair again.

“Hannah,” I scold.

It doesn’t faze her, so I give up and return my attention to my book. But I get exactly two lines read, and I hear her voice again.

“Then when it seems we will never smile again, life comes back.”

I close the book and face her.

“Did you just make that up?”

“No,” she says, laughing. “Mark M. Baldwin did.”

I set my face toward the sun again, and I think about my old life — the one I feel as though I’ve abandoned somehow. It hurts to think of it that way. And even though I know it wasn’t perfect, I look back now, and all I see is perfection. Every soft whisper, every spoken word, every gentle touch — it’s all perfect. Time won’t let me see it otherwise. They’re all just perfect memories — perfect, untouchable moments that came and went so softly that they almost feel as if they were always just a dream.