“True, innit?”
Her lips part. Close again. When she finally speaks, it’s softer.
“…Is it wrong for me to protect myself?”
Bingo.
But that question isn’t for me. It’s for her.
“It is,” I say, “if you’re doing it by shutting yourself off from something good.” I take a step closer. “We have something good. We click. We get each other. We know how the other thinks, feels, works.”
She scoffs, but it’s thin. “We were arguing literally an hour ago.”
“That’s ’cause we know exactly what nerves to hit,” I say. “That’s familiarity, Frankie. Not incompatibility. And besides that’s got nothing to do with what we’re talking about. It’s a mute point.”
“Moot,” she cuts in automatically.
“Huh?”
“Mootpoint. Not mute.”
I stare at her. “That makes no fucking sense. Who came up with that?”
She rolls her eyes and turns away, already retreating toward the other end of the room.
I follow.
“Come on,” I say, softer now, less sharp. “There’s nothing to be scared of. You telling me big bad Francine’s too afraid of a little intimacy to experience genuine happiness with me?”
She stops walking but doesn’t turn around straight away.
“…The big comment was unnecessary.”
I exhale through my nose. “You’re deflecting.”
She finally looks at me. “You’re projecting.”
“Really now?”
“Yes.” Her voice is steady, but I hear the effort in it. “Because I can be intimate. I amveryemotionally exposed.”
“Uh-huh.”
She bristles. “I swear. I open myself upallthe time! To my parents, to Za, to my coworkers.”
I don’t raise my voice. I just ask:
“And me?…”
She goes quiet. Exactly.
“Can you hold me, Frankie?”
She turns, startled. “What?”
“Hold me.”
Her brows knit together. “Why?”
