Near Miss

by Haley Warren

I’m always grinning, even when I don’t feel like it.

I sort of hope she keeps talking, because even when she’s mad, it sounds nice.

Nathaniel might think she’s mean, but I think she was probably nicer to me than most people are on a day-to-day basis.

I smile—and it’s big and bright and wonderful. My cheeks hurt. I remember what that felt like for the first time.

I do hope he tells him, and even though I don’t know him, I hope Beckett Davis sleeps better tonight.

Pilates is fucking hard. And anyone who tells you otherwise either hasn’t tried it or is a liar.

The flecks in her eyes come alive and I think a part of me does, too.

Her voice is deadpan. Raspy. I feel it in my chest—strolling across my rib cage and planting itself there, kicking its little feet right alongside the still-too-fast beating of my heart. I forget I ever wanted to be alone.

but he’s looking at me, and he reminds me a bit of a lost puppy. The heart that’s constantly bleeding, according to my sister, twinges in my chest,

His brother and the other residents think I’m mean, but my sister says I actually feel too much.

that physical hurt to read knowing that it’s how i’m perceived

It seemed sort of like he was excited to have someone to talk to. It would have been cute, if it didn’t seem so sad.

He grins, dimple illuminating in his cheek. “Sexy.” It’s a beautiful smile, and it’s a beautiful dimple.

He’s looking at me, and he doesn’t know me, but I feel a bit like he might—like we might have more in common than we ever would have dreamed.

He looks back up at me, and he winks, like he doesn’t realize he’s probably one of the most beautiful people someone has ever seen in real life.

honestly, i love seeing the raw, physical beauty in people. Freckles, wrinkles in the corner of the eyes, brows, face shape. Like something they may take for granted but I just love to admire

He smiles at me, and it feels real—like his muscles twitched upwards in spite of themselves. Like his brain sent all his neurons firing to tell him that this was a nice, safe, happy moment. That he could relax. I smile back, and that feels real, too.

She didn’t ask me anything about football, she mostly just listened to me. And I definitely talked too much, but it sort of felt like I was a whole, real person again after a really, really long time.

I don’t really want her to go. I’m not good at being alone anymore.

“But if you find yourself lying awake at night, crushed under the expectations of a city and its sports fans alike, and you want to talk to someone who doesn’t care, who doesn’t hate you—that counts as business, too.”

“if you ever find yourself in the position to love again, i’m here.”

I’m already no good to anyone, but I don’t say that.

He says it like I had a choice. But I’m not really sure I’ve ever had much of a choice about anything.

ouch

He studies me, and his mouth pulls to the side before he grins again, changing tune, like he can see right through me, and he sees this thing that lives in my chest with my heart behind its bars I try so hard to hide.

His eyes go wide, and he shakes his head before tipping it back for a minute. He’s smiling when he looks back at me, and he looks beautiful under the sky, too.

She looks at me like I’m something—not nothing—but she’s not quite sure what. As she should. Because I think I look at myself like that—I’m something, not nothing—but I’m not quite sure what either.

I sink in the chair a bit, I think. But no one notices, because I’ve been smiling while I carried a mountain for them for years.

But sometimes, I wish they’d just look at me like they loved me. I wish they’d just ask. I’d say yes.

The sunlight hits her and, not for the first time, I think about the fact that she’s beautiful, but she has no idea.

“You’re a big deal, eh?” His eyes glint, and all of him looks amused. “I’m really not.” “You are to me.”

She laughs, and it’s raspy like her voice. I like the sound. But she doesn’t do it nearly enough.

she blinks again, and I think she’s keeping more secrets. I wish she’d give me one of those—I’d put it beside the smiles and the laughter, and I’d make sure it was safe, too.

I don’t think anyone has ever actually stood up for me.

He smells like something I can’t quite place—but I think it’s something I used to love a long time ago when I was young and free and safe.

and I give him a smile I hope he knows is just for him.

She lets go of my arm—I wish she hadn’t, I think I want her touching some part of me for the rest of my life—and

But a lot of the things that make up Beckett wouldn’t be found on a banner. They’re found in the way his smile changes when he’s comfortable in his own skin, the way he makes everyone feel seen and at ease. How when he speaks to you, his eyes are only on you—and he’s always listening. The fact that he brings the most fragrant flowers to a scent-free environment. Loves obscure parts of history and spends too much time talking about reformer Pilates. That he gives away smiles willingly and I don’t think he leaves much for himself. The way he breathes with you when you can’t do it on your own.

This me, though, she’s all over me and under my skin and I can’t really see anything but her. I thought maybe it would go away after we slept together, but I think she’s probably in my veins now and even if I bled myself dry—she’d be all that was left.

But you made people happy today, Beckett. And that counts for something.”

I’d bleed her if she asked me to.

If my life were one of the books I read, it would be explained by the presence of Beckett, this person made just for me by whatever benevolent gods ruled the sky.

“You don’t have to be alone to be enough.”

I feel a bit more worthy when she looks at me, because it’s never just a look. Not with a girl like that.

He grins—an entirely different grin I hope he only ever makes for me.

“You know me,” Beckett repeats, winking at me. I do know you, I think. And I’m not sure there’s anything scarier than that.

I don’t want him to leave. I think I like being a person he can just be himself with.

But when I love people, I can’t help but give myself away.

I can tell by the way his body moves, his shoulder upwards or his leg stretching out, when he’s relaxed or smiling. It’s an entirely too intimate way to know someone, what movements of their body give away something as innocuous as a smile.

I was a bit worried she’d run away like a startled animal if I told her that it made me want to cut my lungs out of my chest so she could have those, too.

I see you. I know you. Those were things I tried to say, because I think he deserves to know them. I hope he heard me.

How I’ve been the luckiest man on the fucking planet that she’s given me so many laughs and smiles now, I can’t really keep them in my pockets.

The whole apartment is probably ruined with her now and I’ll have to move whenever she calls the whole thing off. I’m probably ruined, too.

it hurts he knows her enough to expect her leaving yet he still stays and wants her

But I respect her more than anyone on the planet, and I’ll never ask her to give me what she can’t.