I remembered the surge of pride that had nearly choked me. How certain we’d both been, standing in the sunlight of a world that hadn't yet broken us. We were so sure that we had all the time in the world.
Now, time was all I had. A vast, frozen ocean of it, and nothing to fill it but the cold weight of a name etched in metal.
Three years. Three years since I’d held his hand, heard his laugh, felt his arms around me for the very last time. Three years of learning to live without him, of building a life around the hole he'd left, of waking up every morning and choosing to keep going even when I didn't want to.
Some days it felt like a lifetime ago. Some days it felt like yesterday.
I rewrapped the badge. Tucked it back into the scarf. Closed the drawer slowly, like I was putting them both to bed.
I pressed my palms against my eyes until the burning stopped, so I could breathe without my chest hitching, then I could stand up and pretend I was fine.
While it was happening to me, across the hall, I heard Cal's door open and close. Footsteps, heavy and familiar. Then silence.
I stood in the middle of my apartment and listened to nothing. The refrigerator hummed. A car passed on the street below. Somewhere upstairs, someone was watching TV, the murmur of voices filtering through the ceiling.
I checked my phone to see the time. It was 11:07 PM.
My thumbs moved before I could stop them.
Lucy
Can't sleep.
I stared at the message, hovering over the send button. This was stupid. He'd just left. He was probably exhausted, probably already in bed, probably trying to get some rest before his next shift. I should let him be. Should handle this on my own. Should stop relying on him for every small thing, every moment of weakness, every night when the silence got too loud.
My instincts took over, and I pressed send anyway.
Then immediately wished I could take it back. What was I doing? What did I expect him to do,come running every time I couldn't handle being alone? He had his own life. His own problems. His own grief that he carried just as heavily as I carried mine.
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Then nothing.
I set the phone down. Picked it up. Set it down again. Told myself it didn't matter, that I'd just go to bed, that I'd figure out how to sleep on my own the way I had for the past three years.
Five minutes later, there was a knock at my door.
I checked the peephole. Cal, still in the same clothes from earlier, holding two mugs. Steam curled up from them, visible even through the distortion of the peephole glass.
I unlocked the deadbolt. The chain. The original lock. Three separate motions, three separate sounds, and I thought about how I used to just turn one handle and walk through. How I used to not care about locks at all.
"Tea," he said. Like that explained everything. Like showing up at someone's door at 11 PM with two mugs of tea was just what you did when someone texts you two words in the middle of the night.
I didn’t answer. I simply stepped back to let him in.
He moved past me into the apartment, and I caught his scent as he passed. Soap. Something woodsy underneath.
We ended up on my couch. The small one I'd bought secondhand when I moved in, the one with the sagging cushion on the left side and the stain on the armrest I'd never been able to get out. It barely fit two people. Our shoulders touched the moment we sat down. Neither of us moved away.
Cal handed me a mug. The tea was perfect. Not too hot, not too sweet. The exact right amount of honey. Of course it was.
"You didn't have to come over," I was always denying him.
"You texted."
The simplicity of it undid me more than any grand gesture could have. He asked no questions and didn’t hesitate. He didn't make me explain, or justify, or pretend I was fine when I wasn’t. He just said, 'You texted,' as if that were reason enough. Like being me was enough.
We sat in the half-dark, the only light coming from the streetlamp outside my window. It cast long shadows across the floor, turned everything soft and gray. I could hear the building settling around us, the distant sound of traffic, someone's TV playing two floors up. Now they were normal, just sounds. Only a short while ago, those very same noises made me feel agonized and alone. But now, with Cal beside me, they changed. Now it felt almost like peace.
