Always am. What were they doing?
Watching some figure skater walk by. Rodriguez is calling her the ice queen.
Roman
That’ll end well.
He asked her what the equivalent of a hat trick is in figure skating.
Roman
Jesus. Poor girl.
Dinner tonight? Your place?
Roman
I’ll cook
You don’t cook
Roman
I’ll order food and call it cooking
I smile at my phone.
Dinner. Normal. Like we’re just together. Like this is what we do.
When did that happen? When did Roman become the person I have dinner with, who visits my dying mother, who texts to make sure I’m okay?
When did I let him get that close?
The answer is I don’t know. It just happened. Somewhere between me resetting his shoulder and him edging me on that road trip, he just became part of my life.
The thought should terrify me. After Dad. After years of keeping people at a distance.
But mostly I’m just tired of being scared.
See you tonight.
Roman
See you.
I set the phone down and look around the gym. The mats where Rodriguez and Almardon were stretching. The window where Rodriguez was watching Juliette walk by. The foam rollers they actually used this time.
Normal. All of it completely, beautifully normal.
Mom was right. I needed this. Not just the work, but the reminder that life is still happening. That Rodriguez is still strikingout with figure skaters. That Almardon is still giving him shit. That Roman is still texting to check on me.
That I’m still here. Still capable of showing up and doing my job and having dinner plans.
I can do this. Both things at once. The grief and the living. The fear and the letting people close anyway.
It’s not much. But right now, it feels like enough.
22
