“Hi,” Delilah said.
Claire didn’t say hi back. She couldn’t. She just blinked, her mouth hanging wide open.
“I’m really here. You’re not hallucinating,” Delilah said with a little smile. She had on a pair of gray skinny jeans and a fitted black V-neck tee, her lovely tattoos on display.
Claire snapped her mouth shut.
Delilah’s smile fell, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft. “Say something. Please.”
Claire finally got a good breath into her lungs. Her brain worked hard, trying to process all of this. She noticed one other pale green wooden frame resting on the coffee table in front of Delilah. It was far smaller than the ones on the walls, maybe a five by seven, and it was facedown so Claire couldn’t see the image.
“How . . . how was your show at the Whitney?” she finally said.
Delilah looked surprised. “Is that really what you want to ask me right now?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I just . . . I’ve wondered.”
Delilah’s eyes lit up. “It went well. Really well.”
Claire smiled. She couldn’t help it. She wanted good things for Delilah, even if those good things didn’t include Claire. But then again, Delilah was here. She was in Bright Falls, in Claire’s store. Curiosity and confusion warred in her mind.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Delilah laughed, the sound small and a little nervous. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Claire took a step forward, then another and another until she found herself sinking into the chair across from Delilah, the coffee table in between them.
“So?” she asked when Delilah didn’t continue.
Delilah swallowed and nodded, then scooted to the edge of her chair, lacing her hands together. “First, I wanted to bring you these photos.”
“You could’ve mailed them.” Her tone came out harsher than she intended. Or maybe not. She felt her defenses rising, and maybe they needed to. She didn’t think she’d even admitted it to herself yet, but this woman broke her heart when she left two weeks ago. She wouldn’t go through that again. She’d already been there so many times with her dad, with Josh. So whatever Delilah’s game was here, Claire wasn’t playing it.
Delilah took a deep breath. “I could have, but that brings me to my other reason for coming here.”
“And what’s that?”
“You.”
Such a tiny word, but it landed like a bomb. “Me.”
“You.”
“What about me?”
Delilah looked down at her boots as though gathering her thoughts. She chewed on her lower lip like she did when she was nervous, and Claire had to force herself to stay put, to not go to Delilah and touch her face, tell her it was going to be okay. She needed to hear whatever Delilah was going to say, and she needed Delilah to tell her on her own. Claire couldn’t help her with this one.
“What about me, Delilah?”
Delilah reached for the frame on the table, sliding it into her hands and staring down at whatever image there was behind the glass.
“After I left,” she said, “I didn’t have much time to think about anything. The show at the Whitney was coming up, and I knew I couldn’t blow it. I worked night and day getting photos ready, and then, when it was time for the show, time for everything I ever wanted, it didn’t feel like I thought it would.”
Claire frowned. “What do you mean?”
Delilah glanced up at her, eyes clear and bright, almost feverish, like maybe she hadn’t slept very well in a couple of weeks either. “The night of the show was everything I dreamed. But it also wasn’t, because I was . . . I was doing it all alone.”
Claire felt something in her chest start to crack, but she rolled her shoulders back, lifted her chin. “I’m sure you could’ve found a date.”
“Oh, I’m sure I could’ve too.”
Claire pressed her mouth flat.
“But I didn’t want a date,” Delilah said. “I wanted you.”
Claire shook her head, but she could feel those all-important defenses crumbling one by one, her eyes already starting to sting. “You left,” she said, because it was all she could think to say. “You left without a single word of explanation.”
Delilah nodded. “I did. And it was a mistake and I’m sorry.”
Again, so simple, those words, but the way her voice curled around them, Claire found herself believing them, which was dangerous.
“And the bet?” she asked. “Did you really try to get close to me to annoy Astrid?”
Delilah watched her, and Claire held her breath.
“Yes,” Delilah said after a second. “It was a shitty thing to do, and I won’t make excuses for it. But I swear to you, Claire, after we kissed that first time at Blue Lily, it was only about you. About us. Probably even before that. You were so beautiful and sweet, but I was never very good with beautiful and sweet. I didn’t know how to . . . I don’t know. Accept it. Treat it well.”
Claire’s eyes filled, and she shook her head. She appreciated the honesty, but it still stung that this whole thing had started out as a game to Delilah.
But it hadn’t ended that way, had it? It hadn’t even progressed that way. Claire knew that was also true, because she felt it, because Delilah was sitting in her bookstore. She’d come back. She’d come back for Claire.
Delilah got up, photo frame still in her hands, and rounded the coffee table until she was right in front of Claire. She sat on the table, their knees barely touching, and leaned into Claire’s space, just a little. Just enough that Claire leaned too, her body instinctively wanting to be closer.
When she was settled, Delilah flipped the frame around so Claire could see the image. It was in full color, a selfie of two women lying on their backs in a bed, dark hair a mess against the white and lavender linens, smiles on their faces, cheeks pressed to cheeks.
Claire and Delilah.
Delilah and Claire.
Claire remembered this photo, that last time they spent in bed before everything went pear-shaped, after their roller skating date and Delilah had spent the night. The next morning, they’d made love and then slipped on tank tops and underwear and eaten bagels in bed. Afterward, Delilah had grabbed her phone and taken photo after photo of the two of them, tickling Claire to get her to laugh, kissing her senseless to get her to be serious.
It was the perfect morning. The perfect way to wake up. The perfect everything.