Finch.

“I want to watch the show tonight,” Eleanor is telling me. This is very different. More than often she just wants to lay down backstage and listen.
“Oh, what’s the sudden change of heart, Birdie?” I ask.
“I haven’t watched you perform in a very long time. I think I miss that,” she is saying, looking up at me from under eyelashes. I smile.
“Awe, thank you dear. You can watch.”
It’s true she hasn’t watched in a long time. I know why she hasn’t.

“Birdie, how come you don’t watch the shows anymore? Why do you stay backstage?”
“I don’t like all the stares I get when people see me with you after the show. I don’t like all the touching. I don’t like all the noise. It makes me tired and uncomfortable. It’s unbearable, I don’t know how people do it.”

I understood this, and never said a word of it. I still understand it, and I still don’t speak of it.

And when the lights come on, they are so blinding. And it’s just me and this guitar, three men behind me who will cover up my poor vocals and heavy heart.
I am wishing that I can see Birdie, out in that dark sea, but I can’t.
So I am putting lips to microphone, and I whisper and I close my eyes.
And I sing as best I can but really it isn’t any good, though the people seem to love it.

“You are beautiful Nicholas Dakota Neily!” Birdie shouts as she throws her arms around me. It’s the loudest I’ve heard her speak in a very long time.
I hold her now, trying not to think, to just breathe. My eyes are closed.
“You like the show?” I ask.
“Oh, God, yes I did Nikki!” Birdie is exclaiming. Her eyes are wild, untamed and lovely. I smile, because I can’t not.
“Thank you Birdie,” I say.
“You know the best part?” She is asking.
“What’s the best part darling?”
“You look so fragile up there when you sing. Your innocence and hesitating makes it so beautiful. There is no other word to describe it Nikki. Very, fragile. That’s what it is, fragile. Fragile, like a little glass doll. It’s so exquisite.” She is whispering the last part, her lips close to my ear. It’s so strange, I could say the same about her.
“I don’t know about that,” I say, a little laugh there.
“Well, I know you aren’t really innocent,” she is saying with a smirk. I smile too. “But you are fragile, up there. And down here,” she continues. Her blue eyes wander around my face. I can’t stop smiling.
“I love you,” I whisper. I don’t usually say it out loud, I don’t know how she takes it.
“Love you too,” she says. I barely hear.