I walk to the edge of the overlook. There's a low stone wall here, natural rock that keeps you from getting too close to the drop-off. I lean against it, trying to catch my breath, and he comes to stand beside me.
Too close.
Not touching, but close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him, close enough that if I shifted my weight even slightly, my shoulder would brush his.
I don't move.
Neither does he.
The gap between our bodies is the loudest thing in the world.
I start counting without meaning to. The distance. Four inches. Maybe three and a half. My lips move silently with the numbers, and I hate myself for doing it, but I can't stop. It's what I do when I'm nervous, when I'm scared, when I'm feeling something I don't know how
to name.
Three inches.
Two and a half.
"It is beautiful," he says quietly.
"I come here to think.” I’m surprised to hear myself sharing this, albeit shyly.
“About what?”
Everything. Nothing. Kansas. My father. The courtroom. The judge's voice saying ‘life without the possibility of parole.’
But most of all, the one thing that I can’t stop thinking about is the letter I received from him months after.
Don’t ever visit me.
The memory makes me swallow hard. And I find myself shoving my hands deep into my pockets. “Just...life,” I finally say.
We stand there in silence. The wind picks up, cutting through my coat, and I shiver without meaning to.
"You’re cold," he says.
"It's February in Wyoming. Everyone's cold."
He makes a sound that might be a laugh, low and quiet. Then he shifts, and suddenly he's standing slightly in front of me, angled so his body blocks the wind.
"Better?" he asks.
I can't speak.
He's close now—closer than before—and I can see everything. The ebony depths of his eyes in the gray afternoon light. The strong line of his jaw. The way his hair falls slightly across hisforehead. The small scar above his left eyebrow that I've never noticed before.
Two inches between us.
One.
He's not touching me, but I can feel him anyway. The warmth, the presence, the way he takes up space in a way that should be overwhelming but somehow isn't.
My heart is doing something structurally unsound.
“Thea...”
He reaches up as he says my name, and my breath catches.
