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I roll my eyes but smile so Michael knows I’m not actually annoyed.
His worry feels nice even if it’s exaggerated. For most of my life, it felt like no one cared.
The curtain swings open. The metal circles holding it up screech as they’re yanked to the side. “Hello. I’m Dr. Ivanov. How are you doing, Miss—” The male voice stalls, and I realize why when I look over.
“Alex?” I gasp.
Alex looks impassive. He was always good at schooling his emotions in the limited time I spent around him.
Just like—
I stop that train of thought in its tracks. But Alex’s silence is saying everything his expression isn’t. So are his eyes, which are taking in everything about my appearance, narrowing in on the hand I rewrapped in a bloody dish towel for the drive here.
“Lyla.” He finally speaks, stepping forward and jerking the curtain shut behind him with a second screech.
Michael glances between the two of us, clearly confused. “You know this guy, Lyla?”
We haven’t reached the stage in our relationship where we know each other’s friends or family. Tonight was the first time he’d even been over to my apartment.
“Yeah. We, uh, we went to college together. I knew him freshman year.”
Until he disappeared along with the person I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with.
“Oh, really?” Michael looks mildly intrigued. “You went to UPenn?”
“For a bit,” Alex responds, glancing at the clipboard in his hands. Probably the form I filled out.
“Where did you transfer to?”
“Harvard.” Alex’s tone is short.
He drops the clipboard down on the bed beside me, revealing the paper clipped to the front is, in fact, the form I filled out.
A metal tray and short stool get rolled over. Alex perches on the stool, carefully unwrapping my hand from the towel and inspecting the cut across my palm.
“What happened?” he asks, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.
I wince as he prods at the skin around the shallow slice. “The knife slipped. I was chopping cucumbers for a salad.”
Alex says nothing, just tears open a packet of gauze.
“This didn’t seem necessary, but Michael thought I should get it looked at.”
“Your kitchen looked like a crime scene, Lyla,” Michael tells me.
Alex stands. “This will heal faster if I give you a few stitches. I need to grab some supplies. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” I say, but he’s already gone.
Michael raises a brow. “Friendly guy.”
“We only had one class together. I’m surprised he remembers me at all.”
Only the first sentence is a lie.
I could count on my fingers the handful of times I met Nick’s best friend.
Michael laughs, then shakes his head. “I’m not.”
