Corrine says nothing. Her silence feels both peaceful and condemning. The air thick enough to choke on, with judgement, with my pain, with her own.
“I’m sorry.” I wipe at my face. “I shouldn’t have said that. That’s not why I’m here.”
“That is exactly why you’re here.” She kisses away a tear.
“She didn’t deserve that, Corrine.” My heart breaks again, more painful than the first time because now there’s scar tissue. “She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
The warmth of Corrine’s body moves closer and we lean against each other.
“Surrounded by her family? Listening to music that made her happy?” she asks.
“At all,” I say, stubborn. I feel small, a kid again.
She runs her hands through my hair. “Thank you for telling me.”
I rub the side of my face over my shoulder to rid it of dampness.
“I’m sorry I never asked you sooner,” she says.
The Blunts keep their home equatorial levels of hot. I’m in nothing but my boxers with the sheets pushed off the bed and the window cracked but I still feel like a furnace. Maybe this is why Corrine sleeps with the windows open, as a bit of rebellion.
Mr. Blunt came home this evening with the good news that Mrs. Blunt was awake but had begged him to go home to sleep and shower since he “kind of smelled a little bit.” When Corrine introduced us he didn’t seem fazed by the fact that some dude was in his kitchen wearing his wife’s apron and a pair of rubber gloves.
Stress does weird things to people.
I haven’t slept in a house this full in a long time. It feels crowded and loud even though I’m in my own bedroom, a spare at the end of the hallway, and sleep is a fairly quiet activity. One of the Blunts snores but it’s barely a distant buzz from here, like listening to the sound of a car or two as it passes by the side of the house.
The sound of footsteps is easy to recognize, though, and I sit up when they stop in front of my door. Corrine lets herself in. She shuts the door with a quiet click and stands with her back against it.
“Hey,” I say, for lack of anything better. There’s a small, pathetic part of me that hopes she’s here for something that involves my penis but I know better than to dream.
“Why are you here?” she whispers.
I pause. “I already told you,” I say slowly. “To help.”
And maybe to try to win you back, I don’t say.
“But...” She takes a step toward the bed. “I broke up with you.”
The way she says it, it’s like she’s asking for verification. “Yeah. I recall that. Vaguely,” I say with a thick layer of sarcasm.
She sits on the edge of the mattress; the brass frame makes a quiet tinkle. “I just mean, you had every right to be mad at me. To hate me. And you chose to help me instead.”
The confusion in her voice pisses me off. “You think I would leave you to suffer just because you hurt me? Do you think that’s the type of person I am?”
Her small, cold hand finds mine, fisted into the sheets in the dark. “No. I just... Thank you.”
Her other palm cups my jaw. She scratches the stubble there and I lean into her like a cat.
I squeeze her hand and admit the thing that I never would have admitted a few months ago. “Just because we’re not together anymore doesn’t mean I stopped loving you, Corrine. It doesn’t work like that.”
She sucks in a breath but stays silent.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I whisper. “I’d be surprised if you did.”
She lets out this small sound of pained protest. “Why?”
I shrug. “You don’t say things like that.”
