“It wouldn’t have been settling,” I say, my voice small. “You’re…youwereeverything I wanted. Back then.”
He inhales sharply, and the sound is so startling, so raw, that one of my tears escapes, sliding down my cheek.
His eyes follow the movement, and there’s something haunted about the way he looks at me.
“Me too,” he says. “You were everything I wanted too.”
My chest aches, my mind reels. The past may have been different than I thought, but my present is still the same. Shake and my career and everything I’ve planned for the future. I don’t know how to reconcile all of it. Don’t know how to make all these discordant pieces fit back together in my mind.
The silence between us is loud. Heavy. But neither of us breaks it. Nikhil turns down the lantern, and we both lie back on the floor.
After a little while, my tears dry up and I think Nikhil’s fallen asleep until I hear him release a shuddering breath, one he tries to muffle.
It breaks me.
In the dim light, I spy his arm outside his sleeping bag, lying in the tiny space between us. I don’t say anything, but I shift a tiny bit closer, slowly reaching toward him until we make the barest contact. One he might think is an accident, a movement made in my sleep.
Just the back of my hand lightly grazing his.
10
My tongue is thick and heavy in my mouth.
And I’m cold. I’m so cold.
I shiver, burrowing beneath the covers, wrapping them closer around me. I’m seconds away from falling back asleep when something wet and icy lands on my forehead. I try to bat it away, but my arm seems stuck to the bed. I can’t lift it.
“Get it off,” I mumble, shaking my head.
“Shhh,” a voice replies, returning the cold, wet whatever-it-was to where it had been. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m not. I’m freezing.”
“Okay, then. You’re freezing.”
I frown. “Don’t make fun of me. I am.”
A hand coasts over my hair, leaving a trail of warmth in its wake. I wish it had happened slower. I wish it would happen again.
“I would never make fun of you,” the voice says.
I blink my eyes open. There’s a man standing over my bed. Helooks so familiar. For a couple seconds I can’t place him. And then suddenly, it comes to me.
“You look a lot like my husband,” I tell him. And for some reason, he laughs.
“Oh really? Are you married?”
I groan. “Yes, but I’m not supposed to tell anybody about it. It’s a secret.”
He laughs again, perching on the edge of the bed. “I need to check for a fever,” he says, showing me the thermometer in his hand. “Is that okay?”
“Sure, Doc.”
“Doc?”
I squint at him. “Aren’t we in a hospital?”
“Uh, no. Not exactly.”
