Eighty-two days left. Time’s a-wasting.
But for the first time since my diagnosis, sunrise doesn’t bring dread with it. Just this calm, easy, floaty feeling, half-warm and half-cold and not at all unpleasant.
“Thank you for the surprise wake-up,” I tell him. “Sorry if I was a little ungrateful at first. You were right: This was worth it.”
Bastian looks at me for a while. I go through that weird human experience of watching someone else watch you and wishing you could crawl inside their head to see through their eyes, think their thoughts, breathe their breath.
Then he sighs. “You’re welcome.”
I want to ask him what happens next. Where do we go from here?
But the sunrise is too beautiful, and he’s too warm, and I’m too tired of overthinking everything.
So instead, I just lean my head against his shoulder and let myself exist in this fragile, perfect moment for as long as it lasts.
It does come to an end eventually. When the sun is high enough that the world no longer feels like it’s just ours, and joggers and dogwalkers keep passing along the lake’s edge to remind us that there are in fact other people on the planet, we disentangle.
“Guess that’s that,” I say.
“Yeah. Guess so.”
“We’ve got work today.”
He nods. “Yep. We do.”
“I can’t be late. My boss is a real asshole.”
Bastian chuckles. “Need me to kick his ass for you?”
“I’d pay good money to see that,” I giggle in response. “He deserves a good ass-beating.”
“Couldn’t agree more.” Bastian helps me out of the trunk. He follows me around to my side of the car and holds the door open for me.
I wouldn’t exactly call him a gentleman, but this is one act of chivalry he never fails to perform. Every time he does, a strange thrill shoots through me. Feminism is nice and all, but a big, strong, handsome man holding open your car door justdoesthings to a lady’s insides.
When I’m settled, he closes the trunk, then comes around to get behind the wheel. “Drop you off back home?” he asks.
“Yeah. Gotta shower off the musk.”
“Whose musk?” he asks in mock offense, hand plastered to his chest. “Mine?!”
“No, theothercaveman who dragged me out of my cozy bed and into the freezing cold.”
“Hm,” he grunts. “I’ll keep an eye out for him then. Sounds like he needs his ass kicked, right after your boss.”
I roll my eyes as I suppress another giggle. Bastian puts the car in drive—and as we pull away from the lake, with the sun high and bright in the rearview mirror, he puts a hand on my thigh, too.
I wish the drive would last forever if it meant his hand would stay there. But we come to a stop in front of my apartment a few short minutes later. I unbuckle my seatbelt, mumble a goodbye, and start to get out.
“Thanks again,” I say.
“Anytime.”
He says it sort of gruffly, and as I look back at him, I see the early signs of his usual mask settling back into place. I wish that didn’t depress me the way it does.
I also wish I wasn’t longing for some silly sort of goodbye. A kiss is out of the question, of course—all of our hanky-panky thus far has taken place in the darkness, and it seems to me like that’s the only place it belongs. But my body just yearns forsomesort of closure to one of the weirder nights of my life.
I get nothing, though. He says nothing. I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing, too. I just get out of the car and start the cold, lonely shuffle up to my building, with a pile of my marshmallow layers draped across my arms.
