"It may still come back," Caleb says.
"I know."
"If it does, we handle it."
We.
The word is not a plan. It is better.
"No statement today," I say.
He looks at me.
"I don't want to speak because they scared me into it," I say. "I want to speak when it's mine again."
His face softens. "Good."
"After the season."
"After the season."
The statement still exists. The date still does not. For the first time, that feels less like delay and more like choice.
I text Dana.
I apologized.
Her reply comes before I can put the phone away.
Did you do it badly?
I look at Caleb. "My sister wants to know if I apologized badly."
"Did you?"
"Probably."
"I accepted."
I type:
Professionally.
Dana:
Gross. Proud of you.
I do not tell her not to say proud this time.
At Caleb's apartment, the door closes behind us and I do not flinch.
Progress is humiliatingly specific.
We stand in the entryway for a second. Shoes by the door. Clementines in the bowl. Kitchen light on. The room is the sameas it was before everything broke, which should be impossible and is somehow the point. Rooms do not save you. They wait to see who you are when you come back.
"Water?" Caleb asks.
The first night, he asked that and sounded like a hotel check-in.
