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It was a quiet ride back to her apartment from the hospital. I could tell she had a lot weighing on her mind, and the last thing I wanted to do was say the wrong thing. I knew that I couldn’t even begin to fathom knowing how she felt about what had happened. I could tell she was taking it hard just by the way she looked distantly out the window. All I knew was that I was here for her, and I didn’t want to make things worse.
When we got to her apartment building, I parked and walked her inside. Standing at her apartment door, I stood facing her and braced my hands on her arms. “I’m here if you need anything, Zia.”
“Thank you, Dylan. Really, thank you. I don’t know where I’d be right now if you hadn’t been there to save me like you did,” she said.
We stood there for several seconds, saying nothing but looking into each other’s eyes. I could tell that there were a lot of emotions behind her eyes, but all I could do was wrap my arms around her to show her she was safe with me.
* * *
After I had gone home that morning after dropping Zia off, I crashed, sleeping several hours before waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares that I hadn’t gotten to Zia in time. The first thing I thought of after I woke up was how she was doing.
It was almost nine in the evening, so I decided I’d get dressed and run over to her place to see her. It was cold and I knew it might be late when I left, so I took my truck, even though it was just a couple of blocks away.
When I got there, I knocked on her apartment door and Clara answered.
“Hey, Dylan. Are you here to see Zia?” she asked.
“Yeah, is she here?”
“I’m afraid not. I think she went down to the Book Shelf,” Clara answered.
I nodded. “Okay, thanks,” I said as I turned to walk back in the direction I’d come.
I went back down to my truck, drove over to the Book Shelf, and within a few minutes, walked in to find Zia sitting alone at the bar. She had several empty tumbler-sized glasses in front of her, which was my first indication she may have had a little too much to drink.
She had just pulled her phone out and looked like she was about to text someone.
“Zia?” I said as I approached.
She looked up, but not in my direction as she lifted a hand to her forehead.
“Zia, are you okay?” I sat on the bar stool beside her.
She looked over at me and her eyes went wide with surprise. “You’re here? How did you know where to find me?” she asked.
“I went by your apartment to see you, make sure you were okay, and Clara said you were here. So here I am,” I explained.
“You came for me.” She had the slightest hint of a s
lur as she put extra effort into enunciating each word. That was my second indication that she had had too much to drink.
I grabbed my wallet out of my pocket and handed my debit card to the bartender to pay out her tab. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
We walked out together and I helped her into my truck. Once I got in and got the heat going, I noticed her left hand was resting on the center console with the other hand holding the door handle as though she were trying to steady herself. She shivered from the cold, so I reached out to touch her hand to gauge her temperature.
“You’re so cold. Here,” I said as I shrugged out of my jacket and put it around her. Then I took her hand in mine and held it, resting my other hand on the wheel as I drove us the short distance back to her apartment.
Once we parked in front of her building, I walked her up to her apartment, our fingers still interlocked. When we got to her apartment door, I didn’t want to say goodbye yet, but I also didn’t want to overstep my bounds, especially with her being in the inebriated state she was in at that moment.
I felt a sense of responsibility to protect her and care for her. I knew after the events from the previous night, her emotions were in a fragile place, or she wouldn’t have attempted to drown them in alcohol.
I wasn’t sure if it was the chill from the cold night air we had just come in out of without wearing my jacket, or the electricity shooting through me from the place our skin made contact as we continued to hold hands, approaching her apartment door. Maybe it was a combination of both, as a shiver went through me.
“You’re freezing,” Zia noticed. “Come inside for a while and warm up before you go,” she said as she opened her door and pulled me inside.
I hesitantly followed, still unsure of whether it was a good idea. What was the most that could happen?
It was dark inside the apartment, and Clara was nowhere in sight. Zia pulled me straight into her bedroom, closed the door behind us, and switched on a lamp sitting on the nightstand beside her bed. It cast a dim illumination across her room, lighting up her features just enough to see the gleam of an unnamed emotion in her eyes. I deemed it wishful thinking to call it desire.
