I turn my palm in his and trace the line just below his thumb, the one that always gets a little raw when he over-grips his stick. He notices and makes a show of flexing like a cartoonstrongman. I roll my eyes and the act breaks something tight inside my chest in the best way.
“Hey,” he says, softer. “Look at me.”
I do. The monitors blur into a constellation behind his shoulder. He looks like a man trying very hard not to scare away a bird. “We’re going to walk out of here and argue about commas and paint chips and whether Sophie is allowed to put a glitter cannon in the nursery,” he promises. “We’re going to be bored together sometimes. I want all the boring.”
“Me too,” I admit, surprised by how hungry I am for dull. “I want a Tuesday that’s just a Tuesday.”
“Hot take,” he says, “Tuesdays are elite.” He kisses my knuckles like punctuation. The monitor obliges with a lazy, compliant line. I let the sight soften instead of command.
When the next wave of pain tightens low and stubborn, I ride it the way we practiced—inhale, hold, exhale—eyes on his, not on the green. It eases. The room approves by doing nothing dramatic at all.
I can live in this kind of quiet. I can let the numbers be their own weather and keep my gaze on the horizon we’re building one breath at a time.
My phone buzzes against the tray table with the obstinacy of a fly that won’t find a window. Not the soft calendar chime. Not Sophie’s three-note chaos. This is the long, insistent drone of a number my contacts don’t recognize.
I don’t look. I’m learning. It keeps humming. Jason tips his head, question in his eyebrows.
“Unknown,” I say, already tired. I flip it face-down anyway, like I’m putting a lid on a pot that boiled over hours ago. The buzz drills through plastic. I can feel my shoulders inching up toward my ears.
“Want me to answer and say we’ve both joined a monastery with spotty reception?” Jason offers, deadpan.
“Tempting,” I admit. The phone pauses, then starts again. A banner flashes before the screen goes dark—just enough to catch the wordscommentandoff the recordand a station logo that thinks it’s entitled to my pulse.
Heat pricks behind my eyes in that way that has nothing to do with tears and everything to do with fury wearing worry like a coat. I imagine the person on the other end, thumb hovering over send, deciding that tonight is a good time to ask for a quote because the public conversation needs me more than I need sleep.
I pick up the phone, unlock it, and swipe to the power slider. “Not tonight,” I tell the rectangle, like it can hear me. “Not here.” The screen goes black for real this time. The quiet it leaves is bigger than it should be.
Jason watches me, then reaches into his hoodie and pulls his phone out like he’s removing a splinter. He powers it down without flourish and sets it next to mine. Two small dark mirrors, finally reflecting only us.
He leans in, voice a warm thread. “Room’s ours,” he says. No victory lap. Just a statement of fact.
A nurse passing by catches the gesture and gives a little approving nod that feels like someone stamped a permission slip. “Best medicine we’ve got,” she murmurs, adjusting the IV pole. The monitor answers with its complacent ocean. My chest loosens the smallest satisfying click.
I didn’t realize how much noise I was holding until I put it on the counter and told it to wait outside. The absence makes space for simpler things: the squeak-sigh of Jason’s chair as he settles closer, the soft slide of his palm over my knuckles, the guitar still threading the air from his abandoned playlist. The room shrinks to fit exactly the people in it.
“Boundary,” I say, testing the word like a stretch I prescribe to rookies who don’t listen the first time. “We did a boundary.”
“We did,” he says, faux-solemn. “Ten out of ten. Would set again.”
I huff a laugh that feels like a good cough, clearing something tight. My shoulders drop the last half inch. I can feel my body deciding it’s allowed to rest because the perimeter is finally guarded.
Somewhere beyond the curtain, an intercom mumbles a code I choose not to decode. In here, Jason’s thumb resumes its lazy path along my forearm. I let my eyes close for a breath, not because I’m checking out, but because I’m checking in.
When I open them, he’s watching me like he’s memorizing this angle too. “Hi,” he says, as if we’ve just arrived.
“Hi,” I say back, and mean it. The room is ours again. We let it be.
With the phones asleep, the room expands to fit ideas. Not plans—the kind that get eaten by life—but futures small enough to hold without dropping.
“Okay,” Jason says, conspiratorial, pulling the rolling tray closer like we’re about to commit light fraud. He steals a stack of the brown paper napkins tucked under the plastic water pitcher and clicks a pen he must have charmed off a nurse. “Top five things our kid needs that aren’t clothes.”
“Shelves,” I say immediately. “Low ones. Sturdy. For board books and whatever he collects like a dragon.”
He writesSHELVESin all caps like it’s a tattoo. “Number two: game-day ear protection. Industrial-strength, tiny headband included. He can come to warmups, but I’m not letting him ruin their hearing just to watch me miss an open net.”
“You don’t miss open nets,” I deadpan.
He tips the pen. “Thank you for your support.” Scribble. “Number three: a nightlight that makes stars. Like a planetarium exploded gently.”
