Then her hand comes into my vision, her palm up, ready for me to take it.

She wants to touch me.

And I need to touch her.

So I look up, my heart stopping the second my eyes make contact with hers—tear filled, just like mine.

She taps a finger to her nose, and then to her heart. I love you.

And I release the first sob that’s fallen on anyone else’s ears since my dad died.

I reach out, take her hand and pull her into my apartment, closing the door behind her.

Because I don’t just need her touch.

I need her.

And she knows that.

Somehow, she sensed it.

Because she knows me.

She sees me.

Time stands still.

And so does she.

“I love you, Becca,” I tell her.

Because I know her.

I see her.

And I know it.

I can feel it.

It’s our last goodbye.

“I love you, too,” she mouths.

Then she kisses me.

And I kiss her back.

We kiss away the tears coated on our lips while she holds me in her arms until my sobs fade to level breaths. She pulls back, her emerald eyes on mine. And then she nods once, telling me it’s okay. It’s okay to hurt. To cry. To let the immense pain consume me.

For one night.

It’s okay to let physical pleasure help heal me.

So we ignore the desperation in our kiss, the ache in our touch.

We ignore the voices in our heads, the ones that tell us it’s wrong, that it’s over, and that God, it’ll hurt.

We ignore time as we slowly take each other in; our clothes coming off just as slow as our eyes and our hands and our mouths explore each other for the last time.

We ignore the taste of our tears as we hold each other, kissing, touching, moving as one.

And as I hold her in my arms, naked and grateful for a moment’s reprieve from the pain of it all, I stroke her hair and wonder how I’m supposed to move on. How I’m supposed to wake up every day and breathe new air and fake it through the numbness that will no doubt live inside me. Then she looks up, and she smiles.

She smiles.

I think about my future. I wonder how I’ll look back on this time in my life… a time that changed me. When the fucked up circumstances of her life brought us together, and the messed up circumstances in mine tore us apart. But as I look down at her, her eyes boring into mine and her smile still in place, I make a choice. I’ll remember her as the girl who saw me. The girl who loved me. I’ll stop questioning the why’s and the how’s because in her heart, and in her mind, she felt like I was worthy of it. And I owe her that much—to remember her as the girl who loved me… more than any spoken word could convey.

I’ll love her for that.

I’ll love her forever.

I ignore the shattering of my heart as I watch her dress for the last time… as she stands up without looking back… as she walks to the bedroom door and I just lie there, knowing it’s over.

It’s all over.

“I’ll always love you,” I tell her. “You’ll always belong to me, Becca.”

★★★

My body awoke to the sound of knocking on my door and I already know she’s gone.

I know because she’s taken half my heart with her.

The other half now standing in front of me. “Hi Daddy. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, buddy.”

Kim asks, “How you doing today?”

I shrug. “As good as can be.”

She smiles sadly and lifts an envelope in her hands. I take it from her and look at my name scribbled in Becca’s handwriting.

To Josh,

Your emerald eyes have never been so sad.

“Becca was home?” Kim asks as Tommy pushes past me and into the house.

I flip the envelope in my hands. “Was. She’s gone now.”

“I’m sorry, Josh. I know she meant a lot to you.”

I shrug again. “Thanks so much for taking him. I needed the night to myself.”

Kim smiles. “Of course. You know I love having him. Tommy drew something last night. I think you should take look at it. I put in his backpack.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I close the door, anxious to see what Becca had left me. The second I hear Kim’s footsteps climb down the stairs I carefully rip open the envelope. It’s a black and white picture—a picture of an old man with his hand out, palm up. His head’s tilted back, his eyes rolled high, looking at the skies. There’s a single drop of rain on his forehead and I instantly remember the moment Becca told me about taking this picture—the moment she fell in love.

I flipped the photograph over and there on the back is a single sentence.

Six simple words.

Now you own all of me.

My smile’s slow, starting at one corner then the other and the next moment it’s taken over, not just my face but my entire body. I look over at my son—the little boy who holds half my heart in his little hands. “I love you, buddy.”

He looks up from his train set and he smiles.

And I realize it then; what everyone always tells me. His eyes may be like his mother’s, but his smile’s mine.

His happiness belongs to me.

“Your aunt said you drew something?”

“Wanna see?”

“I’d love to see it.” I place the photograph on top of the fridge and grab his backpack before sitting down on the couch. He takes a seat next to me and waits while I pull out his drawing from his bag.

I unfold it slowly as he climbs onto my lap.

It’s a stick figure drawing of a bunch of people—the smallest in the middle. “That’s me,” he says, pointing to the figure. Then he points to the ones next to him, “That’s you and Momma.” He goes on and tells me who the rest are; Natalie’s parents, Robby and Kim, Hunter and Chloe, his Nan and Pa, and then he points to Chazarae and Becca.

My eyes fix on his image of Becca—of her darker skin and her flowing dark hair and her eyes—her bright-green crayon eyes. “Daddy?” he asks, grabbing my chin between his hands and getting me to face him. His gaze flicks between my eyes, and then he says, “It’s my family. You like it?”

“Your family?”

He nods enthusiastically. “Do you like it?”

“I love it, Tommy. It’s one of greatest pictures I’ll ever own.”

He laughs at that, and follows me to the kitchen so I can stick it on the fridge along with all his other ones.

“I might sell it online,” I tell him. “I think I might be able to get a trillion moneys and then you can take care of Daddy for once. How does that sound?”

He cackles with laughter. One that spreads my heart completely open for him. I pick a magnet on the fridge and that’s when I see it; something that wasn’t there yesterday.

Two magnets.

Both white.

Red ink.

Choose to be happy. Fire truck the rest. -C-Lo.

I look down at Tommy quickly—still laughing, still happy.

Then I gaze back up at the picture of Tommy stuck on the fridge—the first one of him that Becca ever showed me. His face is covered in dirt mixed with sweat and his smile prominent.