“Your mom coded.”
“I already told you that.”
“And you were alone.”
“I’m always alone.” Her voice is flat, exhausted. “That’s how this works. I’m alone at the hospital, alone with Winters trying to get me fired, alone with your shoulder that you keep fucking up because you can’t follow basic?—”
“You’re not alone anymore.”
The words come out quieter than I intended.
She goes very still. “What?”
“You’re not alone. Not with this. Not with your mom. Not with Winters.” I lean forward slightly, our knees pressing harder together. “I fucked up Friday by not following you inside, but not because I didn’t want to. Because I wanted it too much and didn’t know what to do with that.”
“Roman—”
“I don’t know how to want someone the right amount.” Theconfession costs me, but I keep going. “Not so much that I scare you off. Not so little that it’s just physical. I just know that watching you carry everything alone is killing me, and I can’t keep pretending I’m fine with it.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Then something in her face shifts from exhaustion to anger.
“You don’t get to decide that for me!” She’s whisper-yelling now, pushing up from the floor.
I stand too, and suddenly the closet is way too small. We’re inches apart, both breathing hard.
“You don’t get to decide what I can handle or what’s too much or what the right amount is.” Her voice is shaking. “You kissed me like that—like you were dying for it—and then you walked away like it was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing. I left because I wanted you too much!”
“That’s not a reason!”
“Yes it is!” I’m almost yelling now too, all the restraint I’ve been holding for weeks breaking. “You called me under-brained the first time we met and I think about you constantly. Not just sex—though Christ, I think about that too—but the way you bite your lip when you’re concentrating and how you look at 7 AM when you think no one’s watching and?—”
“Stop.”
“—and your mom is dying and you’re barely holding on and I couldn’t add to that. I couldn’t be another thing you have to manage.”
“I wasn’t asking you to be something I manage.” Her voice breaks. “I was asking you to come inside. To let me have something good while everything else falls apart.”
“Marnie—”
“No. You decided. You chose for both of us.” She scrubs angrily at the tears. “And now I have to see you every day and pretend I don’t know how you kiss. Pretend I don’t think about it. Pretend my body doesn’t remember exactly how you felt pressed against me.”
We’re staring at each other the air between us charged with weeks of tension and want and fear.
“Then stop pretending,” I say quietly.
“I can’t! You’re my patient!”
“Then I’ll find a different PT.”
“Winters would fire me immediately.”
“Then I’ll?—”
“What? What will you do, Roman?” She’s shaking now, from anger or exhaustion or both. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re really good at wanting me when it’s safe. When you can walk away. When you can control it.”
“You think this is control?” I gesture to my shoulder, then at the space between us. “I tore my shoulder again because I couldn’t handle you ignoring me. That’s not control. That’s pathetic.”
