She’d need never ask me. I would always be there for her. Always.
Even if she did not want to stay with me.
“Actually, would you open it for me?” She thinned her lips. “Weirdly, I don’t think I can do it on my own.”
Opening her delivery for her seemed a very intimate act. Though perhaps no more intimate than what we’d done beside the wrecked sled today. If she wanted me to do it, then I would.
I strode to the table, picking up the package and opening it. Inside was another box, even smaller than the outer one, as well as a paper letter. The letter I set aside. I would not be able to read it without the translation assistance of my data tab, and that felt a step too far. The communication was probably meant to be a private one.
I removed the smaller box, polished and metal, and opened it.
“What is it?” she asked, rather dully, as if she did not actually care to know but knew she’d better inquire anyway.
I knew exactly what it was. I recognized the shape of it from the images I’d seen in Tasha’s document.
My entire body cooled. Like I’d been plunged into a winter-stricken lake.
“It is an engagement ring.”
The air seemed to shatter then.
But it was not the air. It was Lualhati’s mug. She’d dropped it as if from numb fingers.
“What?!”
I turned and displayed it briefly for her before setting it down and grasping the dish towel. I kneeled at her feet, sopping up the spilled coffee. It was only when I was on the floor that she seemed to register what had happened to her mug.
“Oh! Oh, no,” she said, her voice warbling slightly. “Oh, look what I’ve done!”
“I will clean it up for you,” I said hollowly. “I will fix it.”
“It can’t be fixed,” she stammered, angry now. “Look at it! It’s ruined!”
She stepped past me, slamming the engagement ring box shut with a loud snapping sound. Then she took it, and the letter, into her room.
“Just throw it all away,” she said.
She closed the door and left me with all the broken pieces.
Lualhati did not emergefrom her room at her usual time the next morning. She was still in there when it was time to leave for the hospital construction site. She’d come with me every day so far. It did not occur to me that there would be a day that she would not wish to go.
But yesterday had been unusual. I’d lost control of myself and climaxed all over her.
And then she’d received that blasted ring from her fool of a former fiancé. I did not need to read the letter to know who had sent the thing.
I waited in the kitchen longer than I normally would have, hoping she might open her door. When she did not, I knew what it meant, and that I should simply go without her.
But I found myself calling to her anyway.
“Lualhati. It is time to go to the hospital.”
“OK!” she called from behind her closed door. “You go on ahead. I’ll see you when you get back.”
So she really would not come, then.
I did not like it. I spent far too long fantasizing about battering down her door – or simply opening it, I supposed, since I never did put a lock on it – and demanding that she come. Demanding that she go to the hospital.
With me.
