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Everything I Did To Get To You – Ben Platt

Declan

A t what age is a person too old to have a leash attached to a backpack, and would it be socially unacceptable to buy one for my fully grown girlfriend?

Nora has given up on walking through the airport and her legs bang against my side as she holds onto my back like a spider monkey. Her sparkly pink backpack sits on my front, and I push a carry-on suitcase in front of me while I try to catch up to Addie, who was convinced we're going to miss boarding.

We’re two hours early for an eight a.m. flight.

“Where did Mommy go?” Nora asks.

“I don’t know,” I grumble, weaving through the crowd and narrowly avoiding a collision with a teenager walking with their head down.

You learn a lot about a person based on their airport habits, and this is a new crash course on Addie, who becomes neurotic the moment she steps into an airport. She was a drill sergeant at security, barking orders for our shoes to come off and to empty our pockets.

I’ve never felt such pressure in my life.

A head of copper hair appears from one of the small shops in the terminal, and Addie barrels toward us with arms full of snacks, drinks, and books.

Oh, shit.

I don’t have any more space to carry anything.

“Mommy!” Nora waves wildly, and Addie’s smile brightens as she reaches us.

“What did you buy?” I ask, though it seems like she bought everything they sell, and probably had to take out a personal loan to do so.

She falls into step with us, and we find a few empty seats by our gate. Nora slides off my back, and Addie drops her plunder onto the ground and flops down beside Nora.

“There are plane snacks, and drinks. I got this for you.” She lifts a fantasy book, a dagger weaved in vines on the cover. “And this for Nora.” She hands Nora a small coloring book with markers. “And this for myself.” She holds up a fancy eye mask and a king sized Kit Kat.

My lips quiver to hold back my smile as they both go through the snacks and divvy them up by person. Nora gets the Cheetos—because a kid covered in neon orange dust is just what we need—Addie gets the canister of sour cream Pringles, and I get the beef jerky and massive bag of gummy worms under the conditions I share with them both.

It’s not a fair deal, not by a long shot, but I let them have it.

Addie helps Nora pick a page from the coloring book, and they work together to draw in the lines of the jungle as I crack open the fantasy book. By the time I’ve made it to the part of the book where the character realizes they’re special, the flight attendants are starting to board the plane.

I gather our belongings and shuffle the girls toward the gangway. I’ve been hiding a teeny, tiny secret from Addie about this leg of our trip, and as we greet the flight attendants, I stop at the very first seats of the plane. Nora falls into the window seat without protest and peers out the window, but Addie watches confused as I slide our luggage above the seats, and guide her into the window seat on the other side of the aisle.

It’s only a few-hour plane flight to Orlando, and this allows her to relax a bit on her own before the chaos of a vacation with Nora and me.

“What?” Addie asks, adorably confused as I shove her down by the shoulders, drop her Kit Kat and eye mask in her lap, and place a kiss on her lips.

“Enjoy your few hours of peace and quiet,” I say, kissing her one more time before I settle into my seat.

She stares at me from across the aisle, and I wink, which causes a soft flush to hit her cheeks.

“Can I have my coloring book?” Nora asks, and I dig it out of her bag and wedge her bag of markers between our seats so they don’t spill on the floor.

Nora draws quietly and I continue to read, a wave of excitement washes over me. She’s asked an uncharacteristically small number of questions, too caught up in the new experience to question why we’re on a plane or what we’re doing in Florida.

The flight attendant makes the rounds before we take-off, and Nora squeals as the plane takes to the air.

Addie, on the other hand, is asleep and snoring before we reach altitude.

“Where are we?” Nora asks, face glued to the window of the taxi as we pull up to the hotel.

Addie and I exchange a look, and I nod. She should get to break the news.

“We’re in Florida,” Addie says, and the responding scream could power an entire city in Monster’s Inc.

“Princesses!” Nora yells, bright yellow dress bouncing as she sprints into the lobby, and we’re transported to an African safari, the hotel lobby full of dark wood and high arched ceilings.

Addie chases Nora around as I check in, and when we make it to the one-bedroom villa I booked, equipped with a full kitchen and Nora gasps and sprints around the hotel room.

Three park wristbands sit on the counter, and I drag our luggage into the main bedroom and drop it in the corner. Addie overpacked, but she was so excited picking out outfits for her and Nora, I couldn’t find it in myself to tell her she didn’t need twenty outfits for a five day trip.

Nora’s giggles filter in from the living room, and Addie wraps her arms around my waist, cheek pressed against my back.

“This is more than she could ever have imagined,” she whispers, hand trailing up and down my abdomen, “Thank you.”

“You need to stop thanking me all the time. I’m not doing anything out of obligation, it’s because I want to spoil her.”

“We’ll talk about that,” she says with a small laugh. I can already visualize our impending battle of how spoiled she can become before Addie draws a line. I think getting her a puppy might be the line. “I’m saying it because she might forget, but you deserve to know how much this means to her.”

I spin around to kiss her, grazing a hand up her back to tangle my fingers in her hair, only my fingers get caught in a mess of hair attached to the chain of her necklace.

“Let me help,” I say, spinning her around so I can gently untangle the dainty gold necklace from her hair. I tug, and Addie hisses. “Shit, sorry.”

“How did it get so tangled?” she asks, trying to tame the rest of her hair.

“No idea.”

“Decy,” Nora calls out from the main room of the hotel. I fiddle with the clasp of Addie’s necklace, attempting to unlock it, but I keep dropping it thanks to my fat fingers. She repeats my name a few times, but I’m lost in my task. “Decy!” Nora screams, and when I don’t turn quickly enough, she yells again, stealing the air from my lungs.“Daddy!”

Addie’s sharp inhale is all that follows my stomach plummeting to the floor.

With Addie’s necklace in my grip, we slowly spin to Nora, who stands in the doorway, cheeks flushed with annoyance.

She tugs on the thin strand of metal and it gives, falling into her palm with a chunk of auburn hair attached, but she’s not looking at that, she’s looking at me like deer in a headlights.

I crouch to Nora’s level, her crystal blue eyes piercing into my soul. Tears rim my eyes as I say softly, “You can’t call me that, sweetheart. I’m not your dad.”

The words crush my soul, because I love Nora more than I thought possible to love another human being. She’s consumed every piece of my heart that her mother hasn’t stolen. I would be honored to be Nora’s father. Her small mouth purses as she spins to Addie, who looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“But Mommy loves you and mommies and daddies love each other and you love me.”

Solid logic.

“I do. I love you and your mom very much.”

Nora will never question my love for her. I spent a majority of my early life questioning if anyone loved me, and until I met Alan I can’t say anyone did. I don’t want that for Nora.

It’s an isolating feeling, believing no one loves you.

But loving her does not make me her parent.

“So you can be my Daddy.”

“Declan,” Addie’s voice cracks. “It’s—”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You don’t want to be my dad?” Nora whispers, and when I meet her eyes, they’re swimming with tears. Emotion clogs my throat, but I shake my head.

“That’s not—” I don’t know what to say.

“Mommy said it’s my choice.” Nora crumples her dress beneath her grip, and my chest aches—a deep, sharp throbbing.

My eyes meet Addie’s, who are brimming with unshed tears, but her smile is enormous, and the disparity is jarring. “Nora, can you give us five minutes?” She looks like she’d rather get the stomach flu again, but Addie adds, “There’s a Kit Kat in my purse you can have.”

Nora holds up her hand with all five fingers outstretched. “Five. Minutes.”

When she’s gone, I collapse onto the king-size mattress, the weight of her words dragging me beneath the waves of suppressed emotions. Never in my life have I ever imagined someone calling me “Dad”, and now that it’s happened, I don’t know how I’ll ever recover from the way it made me feel—whole, wanted, loved.

Addie trails a hand along my neck, massaging the tightened muscles, and it’s then I realize that tears are streaming down my face and my hands hold a slight tremor. She hums softly as I work through the onslaught of emotions and when I can inhale a full breath, she speaks.

“She asked me a few weeks ago if we got married, would you be her dad.” She sighs softly. “I told her we were not getting married, but if we did ,” she gives me a wry smile, “it would be a decision between you and her. It freaked me out at the time, because what she was asking for is a lifetime commitment and I wasn’t sure—I didn’t know what I know now.”

She wraps her arms around my shoulders, clutching me tightly, and any words I could offer her catch in my throat.

“You are…” she fumbles, “not what I could ever have expected. Kind, confident, cocky, generous, great with your tongue.” The last pulls a soft huff of laughter from me. “You give without expectation of reciprocity, and you love with an intensity I’ve never experienced, but could never live without again.”

Addie crawls off the bed to stand in front of me and take my hand between her palms. “There is no man I know who embodies the qualities of a good father more than you. So if that’s what you want, then it’s yours. We’ve chosen you, Declan.”

Her lips meet mine in a soft kiss, and when we break, she swipes away a tear with her thumb.

“It’s been five minutes,” Nora calls out, sprinting back into the room with chocolate covering her face.

Addie chuffs softly, and I reach out a thumb to swipe it off her cheek.

Her blue eyes are wide and uncertain as she takes in my tears. Tiny fingers reach out and pat my cheek like a mob boss.

“Can we go to the pool?” she asks, and a loud, surprised laugh rips from my chest.

“Sure,” I say, knowing she could ask for the moon and I would find a way to wrangle it from the sky. “But, Nora, first I wanted to talk to you about what you called me.”

“Oh.”

“You can call me whatever you want,” I tell her, chest rattling with more nerves than the day I was drafted. “The choice is yours.”

She nibbles on her lip, and then so hesitantly, she asks, “Do you want to be my dad?”

“I would love that very much.”

“Okay.” She shrugs, like her question hasn’t flipped my world inside out, then moves to the luggage in the corner. “Can you blow up my floaty?” she asks, handing me the box with the arm floaties Addie packed.

“Sure, sweetheart.”

I’ll do that once I catch my breath.

Addie helps her find her swimsuit and as they disappear into the bathroom to change and put sunscreen on, I hear a soft, “Thanks, Daddy.”

I can’t shake a smile for the rest of the day, even when Addie dunks my head under the water at the pool and I spend five minutes with snot dripping from my nose.