“You should go.”
“I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“I’m fine. Go.”
He studied my face like he was trying to determine whether I was lying. After a few seconds, he nodded. “Okay. But I’m bringing dinner home. Real food, not whatever you were planning to eat out of a box.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” He stood, and I felt the loss of his warmth immediately. “Promise me you’ll be here when I get back. No disappearing into the lab.”
“I promise.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but his phone buzzed again. With a sigh, he grabbed his keys and headed for the door.
“Tanner?”
I looked up.
“I’m glad you let me help,” he said. Then he was gone, leaving me alone with half a mug of cold hot chocolate and the lingering ghost of his touch against my skin.
I made it another hour before the apartment got too quiet again.
Seth had texted twice: once to say the film review was running long, once to ask if I wanted Thai or Mexican. I’d answered Mexican and then put my phone face down because looking at it meant seeing the time and calculating how many more hours until he came home.
I shouldn’t be counting. Shouldn’t be this aware of Seth’s absence, shouldn’t feel like the apartment was wrong without him in it.
But I was, and I did.
I tried working. Pulled up my laptop and stared at the fluid dynamics problem set I was supposed to finish before Thursday. The equations swam in front of my eyes. I closed the laptop again.
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it faster than I should have.
Seth
On my way. Got extra guac because you never order enough.
I exhaled, something in my shoulders releasing. I typed back:Thanks.
20 minutes. Don’t disappear on me.
I won’t.
I meant it. Whatever had happened earlier, whatever had sent me spiraling into that article and then into dissociative paralysis, I couldn’t do it again tonight. Not with Seth coming home, not with the memory of his arms around me still printed on my skin.
I cleaned up the mugs—mine empty, his barely touched because he’d been too busy taking care of me to drink his own hot chocolate. Put the blanket back in its place. Tried to make myself presentable even though Seth had already seen me at my worst today.
When his key turned in the lock, I was sitting on the couch trying to look normal. Like I hadn’t been watching the door for the last ten minutes.
“Hey,” he said, kicking the door shut behind him. He had two bags of takeout in one hand and his duffel slung over his shoulder. He looked tired, a little sweaty from practice, and I wanted to pull him down onto the couch and keep him there.
“Hey, yourself.”
He dropped the duffel by the door and brought the food to the coffee table. “I got you the chicken enchiladas. And a truly unreasonable amount of guac, as promised. Maybe this way, you won’t eat half of mine.”
“I don’t eat half of yours.”
“You absolutely do.” But he was smiling, and the tightness in my chest eased a little.
