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She was waitingfor me outside the house, leaning slightly against the door frame. The cat sat at her feet, facing the street, its nose in the air like it was trying to smell the rain. As soon as she saw me turn into the driveway, she smiled and straightened, then grabbed it from the ground and cradled it against her chest.
“What are you doing here?” It was the same question she asked every time, and I was running out of excuses by now. The driveway was dark, but I’d done that trek so many times in the past few days that I could mostly walk it with my eyes closed. There was a dim orange light coming from the house, like she’d lit all the candles in there so I would be able to see everything.
Uh. Crap.She’s catching on.
“You might need my help feeding the cat,” I said and walked straight into the house, her steps following behindme with their regular cadence. She snorted, then laughed louder, the sound echoing in the large hallway. It was warm and pleasant. Cozy. It made me feel like I belonged there.
“You don’t even know where the food is.” She caught up to me, the cat jumping from her arms and running up the stairs and into one of the open doors that were visible from the ground floor. “You know that I can handle myself, right?”
“Maybe you’re scared.” I smiled. “And need a big, strong man to protect you.” I lifted my arm and curled my bicep, squeezing it with my opposite hand.
She quickened her steps and stood in front of me, lifting her hand and pinching my skin. Her body was warm next to mine.
“What’s that for?” I asked, lifting my hand to touch her bicep in that reassuring way we’d done dozens of times. She laughed, pushing my hand away from her and walking past me into the family room. The coffee table was covered in candles, almost to the point where it would be a fire hazard, and the flames flickered with our movements around them.
She sat on the couch, then lifted her legs onto the cushions, sitting sideways, facing me. She studied me while I lowered myself to mimic her position, eyeing me up and finally focusing on my eyes. I wanted to keep her gaze there, focused on me forever.
“I wish the power was back,” she said, leaning her head against the back of the couch and closing her lids, a sleepy smile on her face. “This is awful.”
“It’s not that bad,” I lied. Even though it had been brutal. The whole situation with the dark was getting out of hand, the panic setting in earlier and earlier every day as I hoped to whoever was up there that the blackout would hold off until I was asleep for the night. “I have the slider open at the house, and there’s a nice breeze.”
“Shit.” Lucía sat up and ran her fingers through her hair, dragging the flyaways up to the knot at the crown of her head. “I need to go water the plants.”
I chuckled lightly at her over-the-top reaction to having to do that small favor for her brother and sister-in-law. “What happens if they die?” I asked, genuinely wondering what the answer to that could be.
She shrugged, leaning her body back on the couch and shifting her legs so that they were angled towards the back cushions. “Nothing.” She scrunched her nose, a little nervous habit I noticed she had. She did it when she was thinking or talking about her family, probably because her brain told her something, but her heart told her to do the complete opposite.
“Then why are you stressing about it?”
“I promised I would do it, so… I keep my word.”
I nodded, taking stock of what she was saying. She did keep her promises, or that was how I remembered her from back then.
“I thought you were going to walk me through watering the plants.” I draped my hand across the back of the large sofa, inching my fingers closer to her. I felt my skinflush with embarrassment at the ask, almost begging for excuses to see her again.
She chuckled, her eyes drifting closed in a peaceful rest. It was hot and muggy. The candles didn’t help the situation at all, and she was probably exhausted from being in this big house all alone, trying to figure out what to do to cool herself down. I knew I was in the same boat, and that was why my body gravitated towards her. Both from the fear of not having her close but also from the dead silence of the dark and what her company meant.
“Yeah,” she rasped. A soft smile formed on her lips, the corners barely tipping up with the movement. “Sure.”
“How was your day?” I wanted to keep hearing her voice, those wonderful notes that came out of that mouth with the inexplicable power to calm me without even trying.
“Umm,” she said again. “Hot.”
A loud crack of thunder sounded in the distance, and the cat chose that moment to jump in between us, placing its soft body on Lucía’s feet. She curled herself into a tight ball and rested her head on the sofa cushions. My hand darted towards the cat’s fur and found a lazy rhythm in the cadence of my fingers. Lucía reached out her hand towards her feet, her eyes still closed. The movement seemed natural, practiced, almost automatic, like the only likely response to her cat sitting on her was to touch it.
“Luli.” My words were barely a whisper over the sounds of the rain hitting the terracotta tiles of the roof. Thunderrumbled far away, and the wind was blowing. Finally, there was a cool breeze coming into the house from the open windows. The curtain of water immediately took care of the heat, bringing much needed relief to this small town.
“Hmm.” More of a statement than a question.
It was on the tip of my tongue, to ask her if she remembered. If she ever thought of me, of Jazmín. Of those times we sat quietly in the dark together, not saying anything but talking about a million things at the same time.
But what if I hadn’t been memorable to her? Just another patient’s relative, and Jazmín just another patient. Just blips in her timeline, barely perceptible in the dark of that room. Fleeting moments that I was lucky to have for myself, but that she didn’t even cherish.
I moved slowly, my hand stretching a bit over the long cat hairs, my fingers itching to touch her. Our fingertips grazed the cat’s fur simultaneously, and a jolt surged through me, an electric current that ignited every nerve ending in my body. It had happened that one time back in the hospital, also in the dark.
Her eyes opened, the blue shining bright like the brightest mountain day I’d ever seen, the day we walked to Lighthouse Point. She angled her head at me and stared, the silence loud between us. My breath hitched, and I found myself unable to break away from her mesmerizing gaze. Dizzy with her attention.
I heard her breathing, erratic and the complete opposite of moments ago, when she was lying peacefully next to me,her lashes shading her cheeks. In that brief moment, the world around us faded into the background, the sounds of the storm no longer audible to me. I reached out my hand and curled it behind her neck, leaning towards her.
