Page 44 of Cross Checked
I nodded toward the coffee table. “Never.”
She froze.
Not dramatically. Not enough for someone else to catch it. But I saw the tiny pause before her body remembered how to move, the way her right hand twitched once toward her pocket before she realized the marble wasn’t there.
Then she smiled. Too bright. “Look at you remembering my emotional vocabulary.”
“I remember things.”
“I’m learning that.”
She walked to the coffee table and picked up the marble, rolling it between her fingers. The sunlight caught in the glass, turning the trapped little flower inside it gold.
“It’s old. It fell off and I need to reglue it. This one is for prom,” she said.
The word landed quietly.
I leaned back against the kitchen counter, careful not to move too fast. I’d learned that with her too. Bliss didn’t like being handled, and she didn’t like being cornered, but she noticed when people gave her room. I could flirt with her until she blushed. I could argue with her until she threatened me witha potato peeler. But when something real came into her face, rushing her felt like a violation.
“Prom?” I asked.
She nodded, eyes still on the marble. “My mom missed mine.”
I said nothing.
Bliss took my silence as permission to keep going or maybe as enough safety not to stop.
“I mean, Aura and Charm’s moms went full military operation on us. Hair, makeup, pictures, all of it. Charm’s mom cried every four minutes like we were being deployed instead of shoved into a limo with boys wearing rented tuxes and too much cologne.” Her mouth curved faintly. “It was beautiful. It was also one of those days where I couldn’t stop thinking about how my mom would’ve been the worst in the best way.”
“The worst how?”
“She would’ve cried. A lot. Embarrassingly. She would’ve tried to help with my hair and made it worse. She would’ve taken four thousand pictures and told us we were brave for going just the three of us and no dates.” Her thumb moved over the glass. “So this is one of the nevers. Never got to help me get ready for prom.”
The apartment went quiet.
Not empty. Just full of something I did not have the right words for.
“How can you tell them apart?” I asked.
Her eyes lifted to mine.
“The nevers.”
She swallowed once. “I collect them in moments.”
“I think it’s cool you honor her like that.”
“I know it’s strange.” She looked back down, turning the marble again. “It sounds depressing when I explain it.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep being wrong.”
That got me a real smile. Smaller than usual, but real.
“I guess it’s how I keep her with me,” she said. “All the things she won’t get to do, I try to give them somewhere to go. So, they don’t just sit in me and rot.”
