“I didn’t know what to do,” I tell him. “I’m so sorry.”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “You are not my boyfriend.”
Florian used to run from me. We were never even friendly acquaintances. We were something worse than strangers, because he avoided me.
Boyfriends aren’t like that.
Boyfriends want to spend time with you.
“No,” I say finally. “I’m not.”
He sucks in a deep breath of air, and his face is the color I used to see in my mother before she would faint.
My eyes sting, and I blink furiously before I make this situation even more awkward.
How could I have let this happen?
How could I have not figured out some way to avoid all of this?
He was brain damaged. And I lied to him all the time.
His knuckles whiten around the back of a chair handle. I go to the water dispenser and get him a glass of water. The lemon-and-cucumber water seems overly cheerful, the bright scent unwelcome, and he frowns when I hand him the glass.
“It’s all fine,” I say.
He winces. “No, it is not.”
“Will you sit down?” I ask.
He hesitates.
“Please?”
He sits down in the chair. I shouldn’t feel a sense of relief. Maybe I don’t want him to collapse and hurt his head all over again.
I slide into the chair opposite him.
A ridiculous vase filled with eucalyptus is between us.
“What do you remember?” I ask.
“I remember this room,” he says miserably. “I remember running away.” He looks at me. “We weren’t together. Why were you at my bedside?”
The air is chillier, like my first winter in Worcester. I knew Florian wouldn’t have wanted me at the hospital. I should have told Coach that.
“Coach asked me to go to the hospital,” I say. “Your parents were not in Boston yet, and the team wanted someone there in case you woke up alone.”
“I thought?—”
“I know,” I say quickly. “And it made complete sense. It did.”
He places his fingers on the table, like he’s trying to keep them from trembling. “I am so embarrassed.”
“You shouldn’t be, Florian. Not at all. It was a completely rational thing to think in a completely irrational situation. You didn’t even know which country you were in!”
“No.”
“I need to apologize to you,” I say. “I am so, so sorry, that I couldn’t find the words to explain that we weren’t together. I’m so sorry. You must hate me.”
