Deleted it. Patronizing. He'd stood in the elevator with his fear visible and his lips parted, and I'd been the one who came apart.
I typed:I'm sorry.
Stared at it.
Deleted it.
I wasn't. Every time I tried to regret what happened, my brain fought back.
The cursor blinked.
Three words. I could do three words. Three words were a controlled amount. Three words were manageable.
Kieran:Don't regret it.
I sent it.
Seconds passed. Or minutes. I wasn't counting, which meant I'd stopped being able to count, and that meant—
My phone buzzed.
I lifted it. Didn't breathe.
Heath:I don't.
Two words.
That was it. No,but we should becareful, orwhat does thismean, or any of the thousand reasonable responses.
I don't.
Heath Donnelly, who checked his skate rivets three times and played like every shift was an audition. That Heath Donnelly had looked at what happened in the elevator and come back with two words that left no room for misinterpretation.
He wasn't going to pretend.
He wouldn't make it easy for me to pretend either.
I exhaled and turned off the TV.
The room went dark except for the parking lot amber on the ceiling and the faint green glow of the clock: 12:14.
Thirty minutes since the elevator. Thirty minutes since every carefully constructed wall between who I was and who I wanted to be had proven as sturdy as drywall.
Fifty-three feet down the hall, Heath was awake.
I closed my eyes.
Tomorrow I'd put on the suit. Say the right things. Perform the version of myself that had given no one a reason to look deeper.Tomorrow I'd sit on a bus three rows behind Heath and look at the back of his neck and know what his mouth—
I couldn't finish the thought.
That was new. In twenty-three years, I had never once been unable to finish a thought.
I lay in the dark and contemplated what it meant.
Chapter seven
Heath
