“This?” He gestures between us.
“Yeah. This.” I mimic the gesture. “We could pretend we’re just two people who got stuck in a storm.”
“We could.” He pauses a moment. “It would be a lie.”
I swallow. The room angles a degree.
“Tea?” he asks. “I can heat some more water.”
“It’s fine.” I don’t know what I mean. The tea. Me. Us.
He pushes to his feet anyway. A few minutes later, the kettle hums. He brings me a mug. I take it, and this time our hands don’t brush.
We sit again, not touching. I sip. He doesn’t. He watches me sip. Must be fascinating.
“Tell me something true,” he finally says.
“About what?”
“About you. About who you are.”
I think. What does he really want to know? What do I really want to tell him?
Nothing…and everything.
Finally, I settle on, “I tied twenty surgeon’s knots in a row this morning, and my hands remembered the song.”
“Song?”
“Yeah. I know it sounds silly, but it’s like a song you’ve known forever and you’ll never forget it. Even if you haven’t heard it in ages, it can come on and you remember every single word. Except that it’s muscle memory.”
He nods. Says nothing.
“But yesterday in lab I couldn’t do a single simple square without fumbling.” I stare into the fire. “I felt like a fraud.”
“You’re not.” He leans forward, forearms on thighs, hands hanging loose between his knees. “Sometimes the brain calls bullshit on the body. I should know.”
“You tell yourself that a lot?” I ask.
“Often.” His mouth turns. “More lately.”
We’re quiet. The tea cools. I put the mug down, scrub my palms on my thighs.
“Tell me something true,” I say.
He doesn’t hesitate. “I nearly called you every night this week.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because if I heard your voice…” He shakes his head. “If I heard you say, in your voice, that you weren’t coming, that you didn’t…” He sighs. “I didn’t want to be that man.”
Another gust hits the cabin. Somewhere a shutter slaps. Zach snorts in his sleep and rolls over, his back to the hearth.
I should go to bed. The sensible part of me, the one that makes lists and checks boxes and keeps scalpel blades counted, shoves from the inside. Get up. Walk away. Close the door. Sleep.
I don’t stand.
He doesn’t move either. The space between us is crowded with a bunch of stuff we haven’t said.
