Simon can hear her fussing with drawers behind the screen as he lays out the dressing supplies on the coffee table.
“Don’t look,” she calls sternly.
“I literally have my back to you.” Maybe that’s her bedroom. It feels strangely intimate, this compact space. Not many windows—he would feel claustrophobic, living here. “Do you have soup, or something like that?”
“Soup?” Dressed now in black sweats, she emerges, skirts the coffee table and clambers slowly onto the couch, pulling her bare feet up. Her face is wiped clean, the trauma colors around her right eye cast into rude relief. “I have nothing. There’s, like, beer and eggs and sauerkraut in the refrigerator.”
“I only mean that it’s good to have something warm when your body’s still in shock,” he suggests gently.
“I had soup for breakfast.” She scrapes her dark hair back with her fingers. She seems more relaxed in her own space, at least. The baggy sweats emphasize how petite she is—she usually disguises it with the tough clothes and tougher talk.
“How’s your pain level?”
She looks upward. “Hm, well, my face feels like it got slammed into a wall ...”
“Funny.”
“I know.” She squeezes her nape. The damp ends of her hair make spots of deeper blackness on the fabric of her sweatshirt. “Look, I have a pretty high pain threshold, so it’s hard to judge. My neck and ribs are kinda sore. Headache’s coming along. The stitches are stinging, I think that cream is wearing off. Otherwise, I’m okay.” She scratches at the pale skin beneath her collar. “Iamconsidering that beer, though.”
Simon’s not sure about alcohol. He moves to sit on the coffee table in front of her, leans forward to examine her face. “Your concussion markers are varied. Your pupils aren’t too big, but you passed out. You’ve got headache, nausea, dizziness, but no blurred vision.” He thinks about it. “I’d like to give you a painkiller. I have some Vicodin upstairs that I take for headaches, if you can sit here for five minutes without keeling over.”
“Sounds better than a Schlitz.”
“Hold on.”
Simon exits, takes the stairs two at a time to his apartment, lets himself in. Through his own apartment windows, the dying light; sunset is less than an hour away. In the bathroom, behind the mirror, the pack of Vicodin. He assesses his supply, pops three tablets out of the blister pack.
When he closes the cabinet, his own face in the mirror is a shock. Good grief, he really does look like a bum. He tears off his sweatshirt, leaving only his white waffle weave Henley above his brown pants. Splashes his face at the basin, dries off, tames his hair, returns to Nomi’s apartment.
As he lets himself in, everything seems very quiet. “Are you still awake?”
“No, I’m dead.” Her droll voice reverberates up the corridor.
“Hilarious.” That comment stays under his breath. He gets a glass of water from the kitchen, digs up a pair of scissors from a drawer. He rounds the leather sofa to set the scissors on the coffee table and hand her the glass, along with two pills. “Take these. There’s another one in reserve if you need it later. Then let me finish putting the dressing on—I’ve got to wash my hands first.”
After a quick trip to Nomi’s bathroom—more plants, of course, endless plants—he returns to perch in front of her on the coffee table, drying his hands on a towel. “If I were a real doctor, I’d suggest you need medical supervision for the next twenty-four hours because you’re a concussion risk.”
“I’m fine. I took a hit, but I’m okay.” She’d be more believable if she didn’t look so wiped out. She glances away. “And listen, I’m sorry for calling you an asshole and saying you’re fucked up, or whatever the hell I said earlier. I appreciate that you tried to warn me, and now I appreciate you doing triage on my face.”
“I said forget it.” He keeps his tone casual but firm. “You want to pay me back? Take a head injury seriously. As someone who’s experienced a head injury, I’m kind of sensitive about it.”
“I’m taking it seriously.” But she seems focused on something else as he preps the dressing. “I’ve got a question. You said you don’t know if you’ve tailed someone before today?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’m paranoid, and I’ve been trained in this stuff, and I didn’t see you.” Her dark eyes are intent.
He carefully peels the paper wrapping off the Band-Aids he needs. “Like I said, I just tried to stay out of sight.”
“Sure. But how did you know how to do that? And how to do it so well?”
“I’ve actually got no idea.” He pauses. But maybe talking about it will bring some relief. He’s going to have to reveal more about his personal quirks eventually—if she hasn’t already figured them out from reading his notebooks. “It was like the Italian speaking. I kind of did it without thinking. Before I even noticed it was happening, I was doing it.”
And it had felt familiar. He’d recognized it, like muscle memory. Like you’d recognize the swaying steps of a dance you did once, long ago.
But it’s worrying. He used to think, whenever new skills and thoughts and behaviors emerged, that it meant his old identity was coming back, that memories would soon follow. The memories never came, though. All he’s left with are these disparate, uncontrolled elements of what he can only assume is his former self leaking into his everyday life.
He doesn’t like it.
