The Next Step

Opening her eyes, Kara stares at their dark bedroom. Beside her, Dylan’s soft breathing, finally slowed into a rhythmic slumber, continues steadily. Normally, the sound is enough to pull her into sleep, but not tonight. No matter what she does, she can’t settle. Her mind continues to race, anticipation bubbling in her veins.   

Looking over at Dylan, she fights off the urge to brush her hand across his cheek, knowing that it will wake him up. It’s been a long emotional day; he should get some sleep. They both should, but it doesn’t seem like that is going to be an option for her. Right now, the darkness of the room has given her thoughts the freedom to wander in a way she doesn’t often allow during the day.  

Instead of seeking a distraction in him, she comforts herself by spinning the simple ring on her left hand. With the smooth metal gliding across her skin, she allows her thoughts to go where they want. For everyone else, she knows it would seem too soon, but it's different for her. She’s been waiting almost all her life for this; she’s ready. Honestly, it's a relief to know where her story is going.   

While it’s not close, not yet, she can clearly see it coming like never before. There are no more what-ifs. At some point in the not too distant future, it will happen. The thought soothes some of the unrest within her. There will still be some waiting, but there’s an endpoint in sight now.   

And yet, she still feels restless. She’s never been good at this part, not when it was waiting to open presents on her birthday nor when waiting to get a shot at the doctor's office. She’s always done better when there are precise expectations; timelines and plans. When she has those, the vastness of the unknown doesn’t feel quite so overwhelming.  

Letting out a soft sigh, she focuses on what else she knows now. When the list is unhelpfully short, she switches to what she can decide now, desperate to remove the feeling of unease that lingers under her skin. With her eyes closed, she tries to imagine what it will look like when the time arrives, filling in various details of the pictures as she goes.   

The first major unknown that she encounters is decorations. From there, she narrows that decision down to what type of flowers, sure that it will be an easy one. Something traditional, but not totally expected; something with meaning. For a second, she contemplates grabbing her phone off the bedside table and looking up an actual list before stopping herself. Instead, all the different flowers she knows flash through her mind like pages of a book, daisies, roses, tulips, until suddenly, her mind stops on a picture of a calla lily.  

Calla lilies, with long stems, tied together in a bow, spread throughout the room. She smiles to herself, pleased with the picture; it’s perfect. Almost perfect. She changes the color of the petals from the pure white she used to see every day in the neighbor’s front garden when she walked to school to a range of bright blues and soft pinks like the ones that grace the cover of her grandmother’s flower book. A little vibrancy is exactly what it’s going to need.  

Slowly, she drifts off to sleep, content for the moment that she has time. There will be more waiting and more decisions to make in the future, but for now, she can rest.  

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“This is the song.”  

“What do you mean?” Dylan asks, turning to look at her from his chair. The confusion lingers on his face for a moment and then he lets out a nearly silent oh.   

His back tenses and a crease forms between his eyes. She knows that he doesn’t want to talk about this right now and she gets it. At 19, they have remarkable little time to be the carefree young adults that they should be. Sitting in a dirty bar, even if it’s on a Thursday and not a Saturday, is a painfully rare occurrence.   

They should be focusing on the now and yet, she doesn’t let it go. She's not selfish about a lot of things, most things, but with this, she allows herself to be. Planning makes the waiting easier and she needs that small grace. “The song,”  

She can still see the tension, mixed with a twinge of exasperation that he tries so hard not to let her see, and part of her expects him to leave, to finally have reached his limit. It’s an expectation that she’s held onto for years, but one that he continues to prove unnecessary. He loves her. It's as simple as that, so instead of asking her to please let it go, he tilts his head to the side listening intently.  

“Come stop your crying,” he says after a moment, grinning at her, “Really? That’s what you want to go with.”  

“It’s probably fitting,” she answers with a gleam in her eye and a shrug. He shakes his head at her, but says nothing so she continues, “Besides, it’s mostly You'll be here in my heart. It's sentimental.”   

“I may not be with you, but you got to hold on. It's depressing.”  

An unexpected laugh burst from her lips. She didn’t expect him to be able to quote lyrics at her. “It’s Tarzan. Disney can never be depressing.”  

He allows himself to roll his eyes at her now that it's clearly in fond amusement and any lingering guilt over pushing the subject melts away. It doesn’t have to be heavy; he doesn’t make it heavy. “Right because the company that is known for killing off parents in the first few minutes just screams cheery.”  

“Hey, death doesn’t need to be depressing,” she tells him to which he levels her with the most unimpressed look she’s ever seen. Biting her lip, she hesitates before continuing, “The movies might start dark, but by the end, the characters always find their happily ever after. There’s nothing wrong with that.”  

“That’s shockingly hopeful. Who knew you had it in you?” Dylan responds sarcastically after a beat, but there’s a glimmer of something in his eyes that makes her look away uncomfortable.  

Kara runs her finger around the edge of her glass, gathering the condensation. “Don’t get used to it.”  

Lifting his arm up and over her shoulders, he pulls her into a half hug. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Okay, if you’re sure. This is officially the song.” 

“It’s not just up to me, you get a vote too.”  

“Oh, do I now?” he teases her.   

She snorts, “Well you are going to be the one there.”   

While she says it as a statement, there’s a hint of uncertainty to her declaration. They are young, there’s no denying that, and it’s been more than hard at times. The ring she wears on her finger is a promise that she'd never want to take back, but she’d also ever blame him for not being able to keep it.  

Almost as though he can see the trail of her thoughts, he pulls her a little closer, holding a little tighter and then kisses her quickly, “Of course, I will. I’m not going anywhere.”  

A smile works its way onto her face. With him by her side, maybe waiting doesn’t have to be so hard.   

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“Are you absolutely, positively sure that this is what you want to do today?” Alannah asks for quite possibly the hundredth time as she opens the store door. She’s her best friend and she wouldn’t trade her for the world, but sometimes, she doesn’t know when to quit.  

“Yes.”  

“Okay, but like really? It’s a beautiful day outside. We could spend it on the beach or check out that music festival? There must be some kind of party happening somewhere." 

“Those all sound horrible,” Kara responds, looking over her shoulder in disdain. 

“And this doesn’t?” Alannah asks, spreading her arms wide as if to say look at this place. Kara shoots her a look, nearly a glare. There’s nothing wrong with this quaint little shop. “Look, I’m just saying, you've got time still; this doesn’t need to be done today.”  

“I want to do this today.” Maybe she doesn’t have to, maybe she still has time, but she’ll feel better as soon as the decision is made. The time she has isn't infinite. She’d rather be ready.   

Alannah looks her up and down, trying to find what, Kara isn't sure, but she must find it. After a minute, she nods her head in satisfaction, a grin pulling at her lips, “Okay, let’s find you a dress!” 

Gathering up the series of options she’s already found, they head to the changing room. She slips behind the curtain, happily listening to Alannah’s chatter and manages to slip the garment over her head with only a slight bit of trouble.   

“Really? Black? Do you have to be so morbid?” Alannah demands when she steps out. She raises an eyebrow at Alannah because really, over a decade of friendship should have taught her that morbid is not a deterrent. “Okay fine, you can have black, but let us at least find you something that doesn’t look like it belongs to an 80-year-old.”  

Kara looks at herself in the mirror, pulling at the ridiculously high neckline. While she knows this isn’t exactly the most exciting way for two 20-year-olds to spend an afternoon, she’s glad that Alannah agreed to come. It would have sucked doing this alone. 

With that in mind, she doesn’t go back into the changing room. Instead, she walks over to Alannah, still looking disturbed by her fashion choices, and wraps her arms around her. “Thank you for coming with me.”  

“Oh my god, I can’t handle this level of sentimentality,” she complains even as she returns the embrace tightly. “It’s buying a dress; it’s not that big of a deal. Besides, I can’t let you go out looking like that.”  

She buries her face in Alannah’s bush hair to hide her happiness. Waiting actually hasn’t been that difficult.   

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Wrapping the thick blanket more tightly around her, Kara looks down at the notebook in her lap. The lists are long and detailed, but almost everything is crossed off now and just in time too. There's not much longer to wait.   

The bed dips down beside her so she spares a second to smile up at Dylan settling down on his side. Even though he was only gone for an hour, it seems like so much longer. The closer they get, the more unstable time feels, moving too fast in some moments, and then painfully slow the next.   

He looks back at her with a small smile and she knows he feels the same way. Thankfully, he was able to take some time off work, allowing them to spend practically every second of the last two weeks together, talking, planning, existing. Still, it doesn’t feel like enough. She could have a lifetime of this and never have enough. 

She pushes those types of thoughts away quickly though, refocusing on the notes in front of her. “We still need to lock down the food.”  

“Didn’t we do that last week?” he questions after a moment. 

Biting her lip, she doesn’t look at him, “Yeah, but now I’m not sure."   

“Kara.” Her name comes out like a sigh; a fond, loving sign, but a sigh all the same.   

“I just want everything to be right.”  

“It will be. I will make sure it is,” he reassures her gently like he’s done countless times.   

“I’m sorry,” she tells him anyway.  

He takes her left hand, interlocking their fingers; she returns the grip, years of muscle memory kicking in before she even has to think. She looks down at their hands, mesmerized by just how small her hand looks in his. “It’s fine.”  

Shaking her head, she shifts her attention back to him. “It’s really not. It’s a waste of time.”  

“Hey,” he says softly, too softly. When he starts to talk again, she looks back at their hands unable to face what she’ll see in his eyes, “nothing is wasted. Every moment is special, right?”  

His fingers twirl the band on her finger; a ring and a promise that she's even more sure now that he didn’t need to give her. Yet even though she never expected to get it, she is so thankful that she did. The smile on her face when she looks at him again is as genuine as they come. “Right.”  

“Great,” he grins at her, “now that’s cleared up. Don’t worry, the food will be good, I promise. I’ll make sure of it even if it means cooking hundreds of mini quiches myself.”  

“Oh god, don’t do that,” Kara responds in horror, “You’ll kill people and I know it might seem appropriate, but—”  

He cuts her off with a kiss, soft and sweet, filled with love. It lasts for an infinitely long second before she breaks it, unable to hold back her laughter.   

“I’m not that bad.”  

“The fire department was called. You really are.”   

She strokes her thumb back and forth across his cheek, enjoying the feel of his stubble rough under her fingers and the lingering mirth in his eyes. “I just don’t want food to be something that needs to be thought about on the day. There will be other things…”  

“I know,” he answers and it’s clear to her that he really does. He gets why it matters to her.   

They stay like that; her hands on either side of his face. One of his on her waist, the other in her hair. The list, and all it represents, sits at the end of the bed, but she ignores it. Her waiting is almost at an end; she can afford to have this moment.    

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Looking in the mirror, Dylan fiddles with his tie sitting crookedly on top of his suit. No matter what he does, he can never seem to get it to lie flat himself. If only Kara was here to help. He closes his eyes sharply and takes a deep breath, trying to get his emotions under control.   

When he opens them again, searching the room for inspiration, he feels slightly steadier. Or at least not a moment away from breaking into a million pieces. That feeling disappears though when he spots something sticking it out of a pocket in the suit bag. 

He walks forward with hesitant steps, knowing what he’s going to find before he even gets there. Still, his breath catches in his throat when he pulls a simple clip-on tie from its hiding place. God, she really thought of everything.   

A pained laugh escapes him as he presses the silky fabric to his face, overcome with the gesture, and with the day. The smell of vanilla washes over him and for a second, it’s almost like she’s standing there beside him. It soothes his nerves and calms the storm of emotions within him in a way that nothing else has.  

With another deep breath, he steps back towards the mirror, pulling the wrinkled tie off and replacing it with the new one. He looks at his reflection, avoiding his own eyes, not at all prepared for what he’ll see there and a pleased, half-smile finds its way into his face; perfectly smooth.   

The door opens revealing Alannah, a shaky smile on her face. “Are you ready?”  

He wants to say no, to tell her that there’s no way anyone can possibly be ready to do what he’s about to, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just offers his own shaky smile in response and then walks towards the door. Kara had a strict schedule for this and he won't be the one that messes it up.   

Alannah pats him comfortingly on the arm as he passes, but he doesn’t feel it. People smile at him as he passes them in the hall, whispering words of condolence, but he doesn’t hear them. He keeps his eyes straight forward, his steps steady until finally, he stops in front of a dark black casket.   

He doesn't look at her face, not wanting to see some lifeless imitation of the woman he loves. Instead, his gaze goes to her hands neatly clasped together on her stomach. His ring on her finger, looking lonely without its companion, catches his eye. He would have married her in a heartbeat if it was something she wanted. If they had just a little more time, she probably would have gone for it.  

Right now, he wishes that he pushed harder, told her more often that it didn’t matter how long they had left. If he had his own band around his finger now, maybe he would feel a little less alone. Or not. A thin piece of gold wouldn’t change what she meant to him. He runs his hand down his tie and tries not to have regrets. She wouldn’t want him to have regrets.   

He closes his eyes, unable to bear the sight in front of him any longer, and walks away. When he opens them again, determined to push his grief aside and make this day what she wanted it to be, he is surprised to find that connection he was just hoping for is right there.   

She's right there, in every detail, the music, the flowers, the food. He knows that planning this all out was comforting to her, that it allowed her to focus on something tangible when all the possibilities seemed endless, but looking around, he feels like it was also for him. She’s here with him even though she’s not and he’s thankful for that.  

The waiting is over, but he still has to take the next step.