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“Is that something you do often? Run out on people?” She clutched the mug between her hands, letting its warmth comfort her.
He shook his head as he turned back to his breakfast-making. “No. The opposite, really. You have no reason to believe me, but I’m generally known as the kind of guy who sticks, long past when he should.”
“You’re right. I don’t believe you. But you’re here apologizing, and that’s a step in the right direction.” Wanting desperately to believe, she stepped farther into the kitchen, leaning against one of her countertops, the mug of coffee still clutched in her hands.
The deliberate way he put butter in the microwave seemed as much about procrastination as making pancakes, but if it was, he didn’t allow himself to wallow in it. With the microwave buzzing in the background, he faced Mina, again waiting until she met his gaze. “My wife committed suicide. She was clinically depressed. She had been fighting her illness for as long as I knew her, and then one day, she lost the battle.”
The microwave dinged. Coffee and the glimmer of an understanding had settled her stomach enough that she could help make breakfast, even if she wasn’t yet sure she wanted to eat it. She stood on her toes and looked in at the half-melted butter. Then she set the timer and sank back down against the counter, her nearly empty cup in hand.
Levi took a deep breath, and she realized that probably wasn’t the worst he had to say. “And I’m ashamed to admit that when you said you are HIV positive, my first thought was ‘Fuck. Am I only attracted to women who are going to die?’ And I didn’t want to face that battle again.”
Mina reached behind her for the glass of water Levi had poured for her and took a long drink while various reactions raced through her head. Finally she settled on the one response among many that she knew was true. “I’m sorry about your wife.”
She could sort through all her other feelings later.
“Thank you.” His shoulders dropped immediately. When he dumped the flour into the bowl and it puffed in his face, he seemed to relax. The microwave beeped again, and, as if they had been making pancakes together for years, Mina got the butter out, setting it on the counter next to him.
“You didn’t think I was dirty or diseased or...” She let the or speak for the nasty words that she didn’t want to repeat.
“No. When I left your house, I was only thinking of me. You, and what the disease meant for you, never crossed my mind.” Regret, and maybe embarrassment, colored the tone of his voice, but his face remained unreadable. “I reduced both you and Kimmie to your illnesses, and I’m sorry about that.”
The sincerity in his voice had her wanting to reach out for him, so she gripped her cup tighter. “Who are you thinking of now?”
“I need a griddle,” he said, then opened the cabinet Mina pointed at and got out the pan. The clang it made on the stove when he set it down made her wince and reach for another drink of water.
“Me,” he continued. “I’m still thinking of me, and I’m thinking that I’ve never met anyone like you. I’m thinking that I want to get to know you better.”
Mina wrestled with pleasure and disappointment while he cracked two eggs into milk he’d measured out, and she continued her silence while he poured in the cooled butter. She liked him. She wanted to like him more. But she also wanted him to be thinking of her.
Eventually she wrestled honesty to the ground and held on to it. “Okay.”
She wasn’t the only one struggling with her emotions. No matter that his face didn’t reveal anything, the methodical way Levi sprayed the griddle with oil and carefully plopped two scoops of batter on the hot surface had more to do with an internal struggle than pancake-making. He seemed too practiced at the pancakes to need to think so hard about the griddle. So she wasn’t surprised when he said, “That’s not the only thing I have to apologize for.”
“Oh?” Tension pressed the air from the room against her skin.
“I told my sister about your HIV.”
“It was not your secret to tell,” she said, her words brittle, breaking on the tile as they fell out of her mouth.
