The weight he knew too well began to press in until he thought he might be flattened down to the concrete under his feet. So much heaviness on him. And so cold.
When he managed to speak, his voice was gone, nothing to the words but a whisper. “I can’t do this.”
“Wh-what? You can’t do what?”
“I can’t wreck myself trying to become what you need.”
“But you are what I need. You already are.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t have had to find out about all this from an acquaintance. You would’ve told me.”
The light left her eyes. She said, “Let me fix it. Let me try again.”
She had never heard him. Maybe she’d convinced herself otherwise, but in reality she had never heard him, never accepted his condition even as she encouraged him to accept it. The truth was so heavy, he nearly collapsed.
“We can’t fix this,” he said.
Claire nodded slowly, and in her grief-dulled eyes the heaviness was reflected back to him. She felt it too. Then she was gone—darted out of the garage toward the visitor lot. He heard her car start. He heard her drive away. From inside her car, she never made a sound.
Tai dropped to the ground. He curled into a ball, knees up, arms around his knees, in the middle of the garage, on the cold cement floor. He rocked back and forth but couldn’t ease the pain that came back in a roaring wave, washing the numbness out to sea, leaving him more alone than he’d ever been in his life, because this time the one who kicked him out, who said he was defective after all… It was Claire.
A car entered at the gate. Before he could be seen sitting on the concrete, Tai got up and took the elevator to his floor. He went to the den and picked up his phone. Two in the morning? He’d sat in the garage for nearly an hour.
She hadn’t called him. Hadn’t texted him.
He felt like hiding, but he knew better now. He forced himself to make the call he’d promised to make.
“Hello, Tai,” Peter said.
At the kindness in the man’s voice, Tai’s legs gave out. He dropped to his knees on the carpet and wrapped his arms around himself as he had in the garage. Alone. So alone. Always alone.
“Tai?”
“I’m cold.” He’d lost all other words, all other thoughts, everything he’d planned to say, to ask.
“Where are you?” Peter’s voice was sharp, demanding.
He heard Tai. He understood. He lived in a body like this one. Tai said, “Home.”
“Good. Are you thirsty?”
“No, just…just really cold.”
“When did you last slake?”
“This afternoon. I mean, yesterday afternoon.”
“What time?”
“Four thirty.”
“Okay, good. Do you know what brought on the cold? Did you injure yourself or something?”
“I lost her.”
“Lost who?”
“She’s so afraid of being left, but I never would have left her, Peter. I gave her my word so many times, but she can’t believe me, and I can’t be bloodbound, and I lost her….” His body heaved a sob that came from his gut.
