“On the floor.”
It’s a terrible idea. We both know it. He stands, disappears into a hall closet, comes back with two big blankets and a pillow. He spreads one blanket near the hearth and tosses the pillow to me.
He glances at the couch.
Then at the blanket near the hearth.
Then at me.
He says nothing, simply walks back to the hall closet and returns with another blanket and pillow. For him. For the couch.
Except he lays the pillow down on the blanket spread on the floor. “You take the couch,” he says.
“No.”
“I insist.”
“I insist.”
My sister, Sam, and I used to sleep by the hearth every Christmas Eve when we were little, hoping we could catch a glimpse of Santa Claus. We never did.
I could tell Henry this story. Say I like sleeping by the hearth. That I prefer it to the couch.
I don’t.
“I guess we’re at an impasse, then,” he says.
We lie down like children at a sleepover. Henry pulls the second blanket over us. The fire snaps. The storm rages.
He’s close enough that I can feel the heat from his body. Not touching. Not quite. If I turned my wrist two degrees, I could skim the back of his hand with my knuckles.
“Tabitha?” he says into the dark.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For telling you we had no future like it was fact. For making you think things that weren’t true.”
My throat tightens. “I accept your apology.”
The storm shifts a note lower.
“When I asked for you,” he says, quieter. “It wasn’t just the drugs talking. It was me.”
I bite my lip. “I know.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
I know because Angie told me that Henry said he was going to drive to Boulder for me. Before the accident.
Should I tell him I know?
If only I’d known that when Marjorie asked me to come…
We go quiet. I close my eyes because watching him not touch me is worse than not seeing him at all.
His hand moves a fraction. His knuckles find the edge of my blanket. It’s nothing. It’s everything. My skin prickles.
