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I look at him.

"I have never…” He stops. Starts again. "Growing up my mum took care of me. But after I left home, in my twenties, I managed it myself. With Maya I managed it mostly myself because I didn't want to be… I didn't want to be too much." His voice is not entirely level. "And this week you just… you were there. Every time I woke up you were there. And it wasn’t…” He stops. "It didn't feel like too much to you. I could feel that it didn't. I didn't have to watch myself. I didn't have to manage how sick I was being or how often I asked for things or whether I was taking up too much space. I could just… be. Be sick. Be me. And you were just there." He pauses. "And I didn't know that was something I needed until you gave it to me and I…”

He stops.

He puts his forehead against mine. Just that. His forehead against mine, his eyes closed, the Patrick who has no walls at all.

"Thank you," he says. Quietly. "For staying."

I look at him. At the full weight of what he just said and the cost of saying it.

I put my hand on his face. Just for a moment. Then I say: "Go shower."

He pulls back slightly. Looks at me.

Then he smiles, and goes.

I look at my desk.

I think about what he said.

I think about it for quite a long time.

Then I get up, go to the bathroom, and check whether we have enough paracetamol.

We do.

I order more anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

PATRICK

Winter settles over Amsterdam the way it always does — grey and unhurried, the light going earlier, the canal outside taking on the flat grey quality of a city that has decided to turn inward for a few months.

I find I don't mind at all.

The apartment is warm. Jan is at his desk most evenings. I am on the sofa or in the kitchen or occasionally at my own desk if I have editing to finish, and the arrangement of two people who live together and work from the same space has quietly become just: the arrangement. Neither of us planned it. Neither of us needs to name it.

We have been in this apartment together properly, officially, with my address registered here and my name on the doorbell, for a few weeks now. The grandmother's lamp is in the corner where it belongs. My books are on the shelf beside Jan's, reorganised by subject and then alphabetically, which I find faintly absurd and have decided to leave alone.

The grocery app on both our phones is synced — Jan's system, which means it is colour-coded and categorised by aisle. I have added things to it. Jan has not commented on this. The third drawer has my tea.

Jan has a cleaning schedule. I did not know this until I moved in. The apartment gets cleaned once a week, divided by room: bathroom on Monday, kitchen on Wednesday, floors on Friday. Jan did not ask me to participate. I participate anyway. It is my apartment too and also I cannot watch Jan clean the bathroom and simply sit on the sofa. It would be wrong. Jan, when he first noticed me doing it, looked at me for a long moment and said nothing and went back to the kitchen.

This is the shape of a life.

On a Tuesday evening in November I am on the sofa watching Jan at his desk and thinking about Switzerland.

I found it the week after we moved in — a hotel in the mountains, an outdoor pool, the kind of view that makes you understand why people choose to live somewhere cold. Jan has never been skiing. I know this in the way I now know most things about Jan: because I have been paying attention.

I have not told him this is the plan. The destination is a surprise. When I mentioned we should do something after Christmas in Brno and before New Year, Jan pointed out that New Zealand was already booked for January — were we not doing enough travelling? I said yes, and that the answer was still yes to this. He looked at me with the expression of someone who has decided to trust me and is filing this decision carefully for future reference. He also checked our calendars and confirmed we were both free. Which, of course, I already knew.

I am, quietly, extremely pleased with the plan.

"Patrick," Jan says, without looking up from his screen.

"Yes." I put my phone face down without thinking. Too fast.