“I didn’t mean ...” I pause, not sure what I want to say, because I know I didn’t intend to make him feel like this. But he waves it off.
“It just got me thinking, when you asked why those were the cats’ names. It’s the kind of thing I would’ve known years ago. I’d probably have been the one to name them, to be honest. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”
“Well,” I say slowly, “it must be a constant reminder, living in her apartment.” It hadn’t really dawned on me how much that must be weighing on him every day to be in her space.
“We have so many memories there,” he says, tousling his hair like a nervous habit. “It’s a lot, but in a good way. I’m surrounded by her, and I think I needed to be for a bit. But it’s also why I want to change some things. I can’t just stew in it all. She wanted me to have the flat, so I need to honor that.”
“Did you want to move here?” I ask, suddenly curious.
I realize I don’t really know much about his job or his circumstances. It was never really relevant to therapy, so I don’t have that context. His work wasn’t a sore spot in his and Sarah’s relationship, and she never brought it up.
He sighs, the question lingering in the air. I don’t know how we got so heavy so fast from a conversation about cats. Maybe—fortunately or unfortunately—the therapist thing makes people get to the core of their stuff more quickly.
But then he turns and gives me a wry smile. “Well, for some reason my girlfriend broke up with me”—he chuckles—“and I was crashing at my sister’s house, so the opportunity to move to a place of my own was very appealing.”
I walked right into that one.
“I didn’t—”
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you when I saw you,” he says, cutting me off. I can feel my eyebrows rising, the surprise of that admission strange in the air. He rubs his hands down his face and takes a deep breath. “I was still pretty mad about the whole thing.”
“And now you’re not?”
He turns his head straight toward the skyline again, watching the clouds move and darken as he takes the question in.
“This month here has been sort of cathartic,” he finally admits. “Clearing out Nan’s things and resetting has sort of made me ... able to put the past in the past, I suppose. I obviously knew rationally you didn’t cause Sarah to break up with me. But it was just easier to believe that for a while.”
He’s still not looking at me, but I can tell there’s something palpable about letting that go for him. It’s almost as though his shoulders relax with the admission.
“I can understand that,” I say honestly. The therapist in me wants to ask so many more questions, but I stop myself. He’s not my patient anymore—and really, he barely ever was. It was so short, and I talked toSarah so much more than him anyway. I’d rather stick to trying to find a way to coexist as neighbors. “So do you think you’ll stay here? Or go back to London?” I ask, trying to switch gears a bit.
“Just making conversation or trying to get rid of me?” he retorts.
I shake my head. “You’re impossible.”
At that he grins, as though he’s enjoying baiting me. “I’m not sure, actually,” he replies, answering my original question. “I can work remotely, so it doesn’t really matter where I am. I could see myself going back to London—it’ll always feel like home, and my family’s there. But I really like it here. I’m not sure I understand everything about America or New York, but for now it’s suiting me.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“Like ... I’ve always known your health care system is shite, but I didn’t realize that eyes and teeth aren’t included,” he says, and I now have no idea where he’s going with this, but I find I want to go down the rabbit hole with him. “Who decided that? Who designed a system that was like, right, hearts and bums and ears are all under this one plan. But if you want them to make sure your teeth don’t fall out, that’s dental insurance. And if you want to not be blind, that’s a separate vision insurance. Why?”
I’m trying not to laugh at him, but it’s such a good point that it’s almost ridiculous. “I never thought of it that way,” I concede. “But you left out the brain. It’s even worse for mental health insurance—I get to deal with that all day long.”
“I’ll never understand it,” he says, tossing his arms up, both of us finally succumbing to laughing over the factual absurdity of what he’s saying but also, perhaps, our entire current situation.
I look around and notice it’s almost dark. My stomach growls a bit, and it makes me nervous. I look over at Eli, and he’s watching me with concern.
“Someone will come for us eventually,” he says, accurately guessing my mood shift.
“Not tonight, though,” I admit, despite not wanting to stare into the truth of the situation.
“Probably not,” he concurs softly.
“What are we going to do?”
“Twenty questions? Thumb wars?” He considers. “I don’t know—just whatever we can to pass the time and not go completely nuts while we overanalyze how long it’s going to be until someone looks for us.”
“Thumb wars?” I ask.
