“What if my body reacts?”
“That reaction is information,” she said. “It is not consent.”
His gaze flicked toward me.
I nodded.
“And if I want to continue?”
“Ask yourself whether you genuinely want the next thing. Not whether you can endure it.”
The words landed visibly.
Noah read the lines again.
“I think I’ve been asking whether I can get through it.”
“That turns intimacy into another form of endurance.”
His face went still.
“Yes.”
“You have endured enough.”
Traffic murmured faintly below the windows.
Noah’s eye shone.
He looked at me.
“Do you want to wait outside?”
“No.”
I answered too quickly to disguise how much I wanted to stay.
“No. Stay.”
“I’m staying.”
He pressed our joined hands against his thigh.
“I want to try.”
“Only if trying means discovering something,” I said. “Not proving anything.”
His mouth moved.
“You stole that from her.”
“I improved it.”
Dr. Whitcomb smiled.
“You communicate well.”
“He communicates well,” Noah said. “I become furious and put vegetables in cabinets.”
