I do, thought Nora, and it felt like her heart broke into a million pieces, thinking of Will, a kid himself, without both of his parents. Reaching out to the person who’d been, apparently, the only family he had, and getting nothing in return.
“Nora,” he said quietly, and she swallowed again, knowing already they’d gone too far with this conversation. She could feel the way it’d led them right back to what they’d been trying to avoid, all through this temporary, allergy-prompted truce.
“Yeah?” she whispered, knowing already what he was about to say.
“I haven’t changed my mind. About the apartment.”
She nodded, wondering if he was watching her silhouette, too.
“I believe everything you say about this place. Everything you showed me.”
She meant to nod again, to stay propped up. But there was a stinging pressure in her head—behind her nose, behind her eyes—and she started sinking, by degrees, back into her pillows.It’s your sinuses, she lied to herself.You probably need more medicine.
“But I can’t be here,” he said, and she closed her eyes against a wave of something so potent, so recognizable, something no medicine could fix. Grief, again. For Nonna. For this place, and the way it would inevitably be different now. For Will.
“This is a place where a lot of things changed for me,” he continued. “And not for the better.”
It was hard to hear it. To hear that her experience of this place—the exact opposite of his, really—wasn’t anything sacred, or anything universal. It was hard to face that something she loved so much, something she’d tried to preserve so much, could be something so painful to someone else. She felt small and naive. She felt chastened.
“Right, of course,” she said. “I get it.”
He cleared his throat, and the mattress shifted again, because—yeah. His confession—ithadbeen the end of something. It was right for him to leave. It was right for them to move on from this, to call off this feud. When he stood, he stayed by the bed, and she regretted letting herself lie down again. Whatever he said next, it would probably feel like instructions. Maybe that’s what he’d do.Drink water, take your pill every four hours, watch your fever.Doctor-patient, and nothing else between them at all.
“I’d appreciate if you don’t tell anyone else,” he said, which might as well have been instructions. “About Donny. It doesn’t do any good for them to know.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said. “I won’t.”
Embarrassingly, she hadn’t even really been thinking about her neighbors, about what she’d say to them. But of course she’d have to find some way to explain, and she would be a model patient; she would do exactly what the doctor ordered. She’d deal with her own feelings about Donny—and what she’d learned about him—privately.
“I meant what I said before, back at the start of this. I don’t mean to cause you any trouble. Or anyone who lives here. I’m a responsible person. I’m a practical person.”
The way he said it—she got the sense that he really needed to believe it. Like he had some reason to doubt it, even though for the whole time she’d known him, he’d always seemed like both. That hot bowl had beenrealpractical, for example. Drinking water, that was something responsible people were always into.
Her face heated with memories—welcome-wagon schemes and flower crowns and poetry scrolls, emails to reporters and crying over kittens anddroolingon this poor, beleaguered man. She felt like the most irresponsible, impractical person alive.
“I know that,” she said. “And I’m sorry about . . . everything. All the food, and the poetry. I’ll stop. And I’ll—I’ll get that article canceled, I promise.”
He was quiet for a long time, and then he said, his voice soft again, “So far as sabotage goes, it was all pretty clever, Nora. I might even miss it.”
She had to bite her lip to keep from another irresponsible bout of tears. Maybe that decongestant gave her PMS. That was definitely it, she decided (impractically).
He moved then, came around to her side of the bed and lifted her water glass. “I’ll go get you some more before I go. You should take another dose of medicine, too. But better if you do it with breakfast.”
“No, that’s okay,” she said, too quickly, finally finding the energy to halfway sit up. “You don’t have to do anything else. I’m going to get up for the day. Early riser, and all that.”
He set down the water glass, a clink of finality. “You’re sure?”
“Definitely sure. I feel loads better.”False, she thought.Now you feel worse. Differently worse.
“All right. I’ll . . .” He paused, seemed to rethink whatever he was going to say. “I’ll see you,” he finished, exactly like his first golden-hour goodbye.
He turned to go, and she held herself still, waiting. She definitely wasn’t going to get up, not yet. Four a.m. could honestly go fuck itself. She wasdonewith it. She was going to lie back down as soon as she heard her front door shut behind him and sleep for as long as she could.
But he didn’t go.
Instead, he turned back around and held out his hand.
She blinked at it, then up at him. Did he . . . want toshake her hand, to end this? Like a professional goodbye, or maybe some kind of weird gentleman’s agreement that would remind her not to get any more ideas about wrecking his rental property? Honestly, after everything they’d talked about, it felt insulting enough that she almost wanted to take a pass.
