"I do," I say brightly, holding the surface together. "I could put plants on it. Herbs, maybe. Basil. I've always wanted to grow basil."
"Basil's easy. Full sun, water when the soil's dry." He nods like we're having a perfectly normal conversation. "You'd be good at it."
I'm moving a thousand miles away and we're discussing herb gardens like two people who have never touched each other in the dark, like we haven't memorized every sound the other makes, like leaving isn't going to tear us both apart.
I can feel Will watching us. He has listings in his hands, but he's not reading them. His eyes move between Callahan and me with a patience that is distinctly Will.
"What about the neighborhood?" I keep going because I can't stop.
"The reviews mention some noise on weekends, but that might just be college students. I can handle college students. I was a college student twelve months ago. I know how loud we get."
"Pull up the crime map," Callahan offers. "You can overlay it with the apartment locations."
I pull up the crime map. I overlay it. We look at dots on a screen that represent a life he won't be part of, a city he won't walk with me, streets he won't know.
He points at intersections and asks about street lighting. I answer with data I researched at two in the morning when I should have been sleeping, because sleep hasn't been coming easily lately. My brain won't stop running calculations. Time remaining. Miles between us. The probability of this surviving distance.
"The medical campus has a shuttle," I say. "Late night. For students coming off shifts. So I wouldn't be walking alone."
"Good."
One word. That's all he gives me. Good. Like the shuttle schedule is the thing that matters here. Like my safety is a logistical problem he's helping me solve and nothing more.
I know he doesn't like the idea of me walking alone at night in a city. I know it bothers him in that deep, protective place he tries to keep hidden. I know because I know him, because I've spent a year learning every silence and every way he holds himself when he's worried.
Why can't he just say it?
"Callahan." I close the laptop, my hands press flat against the lid. Those green eyes give me nothing.
"I think the Hyde Park place is your best option," he says. "Good location. Reasonable rent. You'll be close to campus."
"Callahan," I say again, trying to catch something in his expression, anything I can hold onto.
"The balcony one is nice too," he continues, like I haven't said his name twice, like I'm not sitting here silently begging him to crack. "But it's an extra fifteen minutes on the commute. During first year, those fifteen minutes matter. Go with Hyde Park."
I stare at him. He holds my gaze without giving me a single thing I can grab onto.
He's so good at this. So practiced at standing behind his own walls that you could spend a year loving him and still not find the door.
His chair scrapes back suddenly, the sound sharp in the quiet kitchen.
"I need air," he says.
The door to the backyard slams behind him. I bite my lip hard enough to taste copper, holding myself still because if I move, I'll shatter.
I start gathering my things, stacking papers with shaking hands.
"I shouldn't have come here to do this," I say. "It was stupid. I don't know what I was thinking."
"This is exactly why I asked you to come."
Will hasn't moved from his place, the listings folded neatly on his lap now, his weathered hands resting on top of them. "So you both could see how wrong all of this is."
I search his face, this man who has become something like a father to me, and feel the tears pressing against the backs of my eyes.
"There is no good solution, Will."
"There is." He says it simply, without drama or performance. He's lived long enough to know that most problems have answers if you're brave enough to look for them.
