“You’re right,” I say. “They’re not the same. Yours is worse.” I sit with that for a second, because she deserves me actually sitting with it. “I’m not gonna tell you you’re wrong to be scared. You’re not. But I’ll tell you what I am, since we’re being honest.”
“What?”
“Everything I touch for too long ends up on fire. Ask people from the three schools I’ve been to.” I make myself hold her eyes. “You’re the most careful thing I’ve ever been near. And it’s obvious, I should be the one walking away, for your sake, and a little for mine, but I keep not doing it. So if you want to be the smart one for both of us, I won’t fight you. But don’t tell me it’s because you don’t want it. Lie to your dad. Lie to the team. Don’t lie to me. You never have to lie to me, Jasmine, no matter what your truth is.”
She’s quiet for a long time. The bad fluorescent light over the landing ticks. She hates that light. I wish I could rip the fucker out for her. I watch her decide to ignore it.
“I don’t want to stop,” she says finally, so low I almost miss it. “That’s the problem. I have run the scenario six different ways, and the answer keeps coming back the same, and I hate it.”
“Yeah.” I almost smile. “Me too.”
“So what do we do?”
“We’re careful.” I shrug. “Real careful. We’re already good at it. You’ve been invisible your whole life, and I’ve spent mine watching for the thing that’s gonna hurt me before it knows I’m there. Between the two of us, we’re built for a secret.”
That gets the corner of her mouth to turn. Barely.
“I’d need rules,” she says.
“Of course you would.”
“I mean it. Actual rules. I don’t know how to do anything without them. Without a structure, I’ll spin out and ruin it myself before my father ever gets the chance.”
“So we make rules. Go. Rule one.”
She straightens up a little, and I watch the fear hand the wheel over to the part of her that organizes things, which is the part that keeps her alive.
“Nothing in this building during work hours,” she says.
“Little late for that. I kissed you in a conference room on Tuesday.”
“Rule one starts now.”
“Fine. Rule one.”
“Rule two. Nothing in writing. No texts that say anything. If my father ever has a reason to look, there’s nothing to find.”
“Done,” I say quickly. “I hate texting anyway.”
“I mean it. Nothing cute. Nothing a person could screenshot and hand him.”
“Jasmine, I have never sent an emoji in my life.”
“Good.” She smiles. “Stay that way. Rule three. The second this actually threatens his program or your eligibility, it stops. No discussion. You go back to a name on my caseload, I go back to invisible, and we never speak of it. After all, this is not a forever thing.” She says it fast and flat, like ripping tape. “I need you to agree to that one out loud.”
It was hard for me to hear, and it bothers the fuck out of me more to say, but I realize it’s the deal that will keep whatever this is between us alive. “Agreed.”
“You agreed to that fast.”
“You needed me to, so I did.”
She blinks, like that doesn’t compute, like a man doing a thing just because she needed it is foreign to her.
“Okay, then, that’s it,” she says after a second. “That’s the list.”
“That’s your list.” I wait until she’s looking somewhere near my face. “I have my own rule.”
“You don’t get a rule.”
