He was quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t know.”
I turned to look at him. There was blood drying at the edge of his collar, a smear of it on the skin just below his jaw. Not enough that anyone would even notice, but I did because I had seen where it came from.
“You didn’t even hesitate. You didn’t flinch or stop or…” My voice broke. “Hebeggedyou.”
He kept me locked in his gaze. “He was playing both sides. I couldn’t let him go and possibly tell someone I was askingquestions. He was a liability. He was going to run his mouth, you could see it in his eyes.
“I saw his eyes after, Halo.”
“This is what it looks like. The things that keep me alive, that let me keep you alive.”
I flinched at that. “Don’t you dare make this about protecting me.”
“I didn’t want you to see. I thought if I parked facing the other way, you wouldn’t look back, and it would be so quick, you wouldn’t even notice.”
The wind picked up a little, rustling the flyers in the window. It was too quiet out here. It made the moment feel like a vacuum. Finally, I reached for the door and stepped out. He didn’t touch me, he just waited. I could feel his eyes on me the whole way to the entrance.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like insects. A tinny pop song played from some distant speaker. Everything felt off-kilter, too bright, too harsh. I grabbed a basket, clutched it tight in both hands like an anchor.
Halo kept close, but not hovering. I could feel him adjusting his distance with every step like he was giving me space, even if it was killing him not to close it.
I stared at a shelf of crackers for so long, my eyes went blurry.
“You like the rosemary ones,” he said quietly behind me.
I turned my head just slightly. “What?”
“I saw them in your apartment. You ate half the box in one night while you watched movies.”
I blinked. “You noticed that?”
“I notice everything.”
The weight of that settled heavily between us. I moved forward, pulling down a box without looking. I went through the rest of the store on autopilot: bread, peanut butter, trail mix, a bottle of Tylenol, shampoo. I was just putting things into thebasket that made me feel like a person. When we got to the refrigerated section, I paused in front of the eggs, even though I knew I couldn’t use them. The only hot food I had eaten was from the diner. Halo came to a slow stop beside me.
“You can ask me,” he said. “If it’ll help.”
“Will it?”
“No. But sometimes knowing the truth hurts less than imagining it.”
I let out a breath. “Do you always kill them?”
“No.”
“But you knew you were going to kill him.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
I finally turned to face him. “Does it ever get to you? The killing?”
He looked at me like I’d just asked if he ever slept. Like I didn’t understand the question. Then he said, “It gets to me when you look at me like that.”
My throat went tight. “I don’t want to look at you differently,” I said quietly, “but I don’t know how not to.”
He didn’t speak. He just waited. That patience of his – the same kind that let him stare a man down before taking his shot – was now stretched between us.
