The Most Beautiful Thing I've Ever Seen (Short Story)

by J. Will Cairns

The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Ever Seen

No matter how hard I tried to wish them away, the tears wouldn’t stop, streaming down my face as I ran deep into the woods I used to play in. My mind would not stop echoing the same things, over and over. ‘How could I be so stupid?’ was the main one. How could I have been so stupid, not only to do it, but to get caught? Hell, my first mistake was having the bright idea to do it in the first place. I guess I do deserve to have my whole world crashing down.

Take deep breaths. It’s going to be okay, Daisy. The words of my mother cut through the echoes of my questions for just a moment. When I got home earlier today, I was already a mess, but Mom didn’t know why. Well, she has to know by now. As I continued to run, I nearly tripped over a root. I stumbled, but continued to move. After a few more minutes, I stopped and looked around. I no longer knew where I was. That was exactly what I wanted.

“You lost?” I just about jumped out of my skin as someone spoke to my right. I looked over to the stranger.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” said a boy, about my age or maybe a little older, sitting on a fallen tree. I normally wouldn’t talk to strangers in the woods, but he seemed sad, and he was cute.

“I- uh, well, yeah,” I stammered. I took a deep breath, and wiped the tears from my face, gathering myself. “But I want to be,” I added.

“Me too,” he said in a long, drawn-out way. He threw a small rock as far as he could. The boy ran a hand through his curly dark hair. “Sit down, it’s pretty,” he gestured next to himself on the tree, and looked around, taking in the woods, ignited by the afternoon sun. I did the same. The sound of dozens of singing birds filled my ears. It was beautiful.

“It is beautiful,” I said. I sat down. He chuckled quietly to himself.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing, I just don’t use that word very much.”

“What, ‘beautiful’?”

He waved his hand and said, “forget it.”

At that point, I couldn’t help but laugh. I had never heard someone say such a thing.

“Why don’t you like that word?” I couldn’t help but ask.

The corners of his mouth turned up a little, and then back down. “When I was a kid, I always wanted to go to the grand canyon. We never had the money to, but there was this one time my mom saved up some gas money and took us to see the Mississippi River.”

I realized he still hadn’t looked me in the eyes. He stared into the distance. I noticed his dark brown eyes. They looked sad—but not just from reminiscing—as if that was just the way they were.

“Mom kept saying ‘isn’t it so beautiful?’ and I wasn’t having it. I threw a fit, I kept saying, ‘It’s not beautiful, it’s just pretty. It’s not the Grand Canyon,’ things like that.”

All of a sudden, he sniffled, and looked the other way.

“It’s okay,” I said, “you don’t have to tell me if it makes you sad.”

He looked straight ahead and nodded. “I just– my mom, she was beautiful. Nothing here comes close.” He ran one of his hands from his forehead down his chin and stared up at the trees. We sat in silence for a long moment. I was okay with the silence. It was nice to be around someone who wasn’t disappointed in me.

I considered what he said.

“What if pretty and beautiful aren’t two different levels of beauty, but two different things entirely?” I asked.

“Hmm.”

“Some things are pretty; like that bird over there, and that single ray of sun hitting the leaves in just the right spot.”

“And some things are beautiful,” he said.

“Like your mom.”

“Well, she was pretty too. She was all of it.”

I didn’t have anything else to say, so I let the memory of his mother fill the air for a moment.

“What’s your name, anyway?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Daisy.”

He chuckled. “Like Daisy Buchanan. What are the odds?”

“And you are?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“My name is Jay.” At this moment, I would have looked in his eyes to see if he was telling the truth, but he still refrained from eye contact.

“You’re right, I don’t believe you.” I paused for a moment. Maybe I did believe him. “It’s nice to meet you, Jay,” I said. Who cares if he’s lying?

“It’s nice to meet you, Daisy Buchanan.” Jay stood up. “Do you want to walk around some? I know there’s a waterfall somewhere in these woods, but I’ve never been able to find it.”

Following Jay seemed like the only sensible thing to do. “Sure,” I said.

Jay led the way, and I followed him. I was pretty sure he didn’t know where he was going. I was okay with that.

“Sorry about that, a second ago,” said Jay apologetically. “My mom died when I was still really young. I’m usually able to talk about it without–”

“It’s okay.” I gently placed one of my hands on Jay’s shoulder to comfort him. He stopped walking suddenly. He closed his eyes. “It’s okay,” I repeated gently, lightly rubbing his shoulder. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Jay took a long, focused, deep breath. “Okay,” he started, “Are you actually named for Daisy Buchanan?”

“I am, actually, my mom loves that book.”

“It is a great book, I think it’s written very…”

“Prettily?” I offered.

Jay chuckled. “Exactly.”

“And you?”

“I’m named for the bird. It was my mom’s favorite.”

We both took a second to laugh at the fact that we were both named for one of our mothers’ favorite things.

Jay and I continued walking, to nowhere in particular, discussing literature as we did. I learned that he hated Shakespeare and had never read anything by Jane Austen. He knew who I was named after, though, so I decided to give him a chance. Plus, he was cute.

We didn’t say anything about our actual lives for what must have been an hour, until he asked me the one thing I hoped he didn’t.

“Why’d you run away into the woods, if you don’t mind me asking?” I knew he’d ask sooner or later, and part of me wished we could have kept talking about literature, but he said, “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay, you know?”

All of a sudden, I thought I heard rushing water in the distance. “Shhh,” I said.

“What?”

“Do you hear that?”

Jay closed his eyes and listened hard for a moment. He gasped, excited. I grabbed his hand.

“Come on,” I said, running towards the sound. I looked back at Jay, and he was smiling. For a moment, he looked really happy. But there was still a sadness in his dark eyes.

We reached a wall of rock about twelve feet tall, and the sound of the water came from the top. Jay and I looked at each other, and without saying a word, we both started to climb. It didn’t take me long, I’d been rock climbing for years. Jay struggled a little, but he made it close enough for me to offer a hand to help him up. He refused, initially, but was having trouble reaching the ledge. I kept holding out my hand, and eventually he took it, shaking his head, disappointed in himself.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Yeah.” I took it in. In the middle of the woods I used to get lost in for hours when I was a kid, there was a twenty-five foot waterfall. A rushing stream ran into the falls from the woods, which extended as far as we could see. The rock wall slowly descended into a hill from the top of the falls, but it still stood about five feet above the stream below. It was like a–

“Canyon,” Jay muttered. “It’s like a canyon.”

I still couldn’t believe my eyes, and I was having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that the woods continued at the top of the small cliff. It was like a brand new world, one we had just discovered. One no one else knew about. One where no one else would find us.

“It’s so pretty,” I whispered, refraining from using the word reserved for Jay’s mother.

“No,” Jay whispered. “It’s beautiful.” A small tear rolled down the side of his face. On pure instinct, I brushed it away for him. He closed his eyes and brushed the side of his face on my hand, so I kept it there. I moved it around to the other side of his head and gently rested it on his neck. I placed the side of my head on his shoulder. I didn’t really know why, but then again, I did. It was the only sensible thing to do. Slowly, I sat down, and he followed me. I kept my hand on his neck, and gently brushed the ends of his hair. I rested my head on his shoulder again, and he gently lay his head on mine. I didn’t know exactly how he felt, but this was the most peace I had felt in a very long time.

We didn’t move for ages. It could have been an hour. It could have been longer. We just sat there, listening to the rushing water, as if it was washing us clean of everything we had ever been, ever known, or ever done.

“Jay,” I eventually said, gently.

“Yeah?” he whispered.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“It’s just that–” I was trying to find the right words. It sounded so dumb in my head.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice a bit stronger than a whisper.

“I cheated,” I confessed, “on a test.” Why would I tell him that?

“That’s why you ran away?”

I nodded and quietly said, “Yeah. I got caught. The principal told me I could be expelled, and I thought my mom would disown me and I wouldn’t get into college–”

“Hey,” he said gently, cutting me off. “None of that matters now.”

“I– I had no choice.”

At that very moment, Jay looked me in the eyes for the very first time. His face transformed into a mixture of sadness and regret as tears began streaming down his face. At first he was fighting it, trying to wipe away the tears, but before long, he was sobbing.

Through choked sobs he cried, “Neither did I! Neither did I!”

I wrapped both my arms around him and stroked his hair as he wetted my neck with warm tears. “I know. Shhh. I know. It’s okay,” I said, soothingly. Whatever he’d done, it had to be worse than cheating on a test. But that didn’t matter now.

Jay cried as if he never had before; as if everything he had ever felt was spewing out. I kept stroking his hair and whispering reassurances. Before long, I was crying too, and I felt his arms wrap around my back. I didn’t really know why I was crying, but then again, I did. There we sat, two strangers wrapped in each others’ arms, letting it all out. Everything we hadn’t let anyone else see.

Even when both of us had run our tear ducts dry, we didn’t move. Jay’s face remained planted on my neck, and mine rested on his shoulder. We just sat there, holding each other. After a few minutes, our breathing returned to normal and our muscles began to relax, when all of a sudden a voice reached out from below the rock wall.

“Who’s up there?” a man’s voice demanded urgently. Whoever it was, he couldn’t see us from where he stood below the cliff. I opened my mouth to respond, but Jay reached up to cover my mouth. He looked me dead in the eyes and shook his head, telling me to be quiet. I heard the buzz of a handheld radio, and the voice said “This is Sheriff Morris, calling for backup. I may have found someone in the woods. Over.”

“Sheriff Morris, where are you?” said a woman’s voice from the radio.

“By the waterfall, but I’m stuck below the cliff. I don’t think I can climb, but I’m going to try to get a better look at the top,” he said.

My heart was beating rapidly. I didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t be after me, could they? Had Mom reported me missing? Were they after Jay? All I knew was I didn’t want to be around anyone, except the only person who had ever seen me for who I really was, and liked what they saw. Before I could devise a plan, Jay took me by the wrist and led me between a tree and a small bush near the ledge of the falls. We lay on the floor of leaves and pine needles, and peered through the bush. At first, we didn’t see anything, but after a moment a short, stocky man wearing a sheriff’s badge and holding a small revolver came into view. As soon as we saw him, we crawled back and pressed our heads down into the pine needles, hoping he didn’t see us.

Jay’s face was centimeters from mine. “I didn’t have a choice,” he barely whispered. “Listen to me Daisy, whatever they say about me, I didn’t have a choice, okay?”

My mind was spinning with a million questions. What had he done? Or not done? Why was there a sheriff after us with a gun? Whatever it was, I didn’t care. Should I? Everything about what he said was sincere. Even if it wasn’t, as far as I was concerned, Jay was innocent.

His dark, sad eyes stared deep into mine. They were like mirrors, reflective from all the tears that had spilled out of them. I could see myself in them, so I looked at her for a moment. My messy brown hair was full of pine needles, my neck was damp from Jay’s tears, and my face—my face looked some way it hadn’t in a very long time. I didn’t look happy, exactly, but I looked free in a way, and more like myself than I ever remember. Whatever he’d done, I didn’t care, because in the reflection of this stranger’s sad eyes, I was more alive than ever before.

“I believe you,” I whispered softly. I smiled at him, kindly and genuinely. The corners of his mouth turned up, just slightly, and his eyes looked a little less sad, just for a moment. “Let’s go,” I said. Jay nodded and we began to crawl away from the ledge a few feet, so the sheriff couldn’t see us. We carefully stood up, and slowly backed away from our canyon.

“Freeze!” shouted a woman’s voice from behind us. We both stopped dead in our tracks. “Ma’am, step away from him! He’s dangerous.” Was it over, just like that? Was that the only handful of moments of peace I would ever have?

“Don’t listen to her,” Jay whispered. I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

“That boy is a murderer, young lady,” said the officer in a grave, low voice. “Step. Away. From him.” My heart felt like it dropped all the way to the bottom of my stomach.

Jay closed his eyes and let out a sharp breath. There was a deep pain on his face. “If we could just tal–” he started to say.

“Get on the ground!” the officer shouted.

Jay flinched. “Please,” he pleaded.

“I’m going to try to climb up,” shouted the sheriff from below the cliff. Jay whipped his head around and must have seen that the officer behind us was distracted, because in a split-second, he began to sprint straight for the waterfall.

“Freeze!” the officer shouted again. “Don’t you jump! I’m warning you!”

He didn’t care about her warnings. He didn’t care that she had a gun. He planted his foot on the edge of the cliff above the waterfall, and leapt straight out into the open air, bringing his body into a diving position. Everything about it was graceful. He was free. It was the prettiest, most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

My entire body shuddered as a gunshot echoed through the woods. I let out a scream as if I’d been shot, but she wasn’t aiming at me. I tried to make my legs move, but I was frozen for what felt like an eternity. The world stood still as Jay flew down into the water. When I heard a splash, my legs began to move, as if by their own power. I ran for the ledge, frantically looking for Jay in the rushing water. There was no sign of him. The officer shouted at me; something about a gang, the word ‘murderer,’ but I wasn’t listening to her. I closed my eyes and breathed in the fresh summer air. All I could hear was the rushing water and the singing birds. All I could feel were Jay’s arms wrapped around me, my head on his shoulder, and his dried tears on my neck. All I could see was his kind smile, his beautiful sad eyes, and how free he looked when he dove off the waterfall. My head spun, my heart pounded, and I didn’t know what to do, so I did the only sensible thing I could think of.