“Come inside and get some breakfast,” she said, but knew she was fighting a losing battle. It was obvious before he’d even answered.
“First you have to see this sunrise, Al. It’s amazing—seriously, how do you not want to look at this every day?”
Because I have agoraphobia.
I have severe and crippling agoraphobia.
“You know how much I love sleeping.”
“I do know that. I have enjoyed you sleeping on me many, many times now. Last night was a particularly good example of your passionate relationship with snoozing.”
“Oh I didn’t...I really didn’t mean to nod off, I—”
“It’s fine, baby, it’s fine. You worked hard. You deserved a rest.” He paused. He paused so much she could practically hear him thinking. “Besides...I can’t talk. I lapsed into a coma about five minutes after that. And to be honest, I’m amazed I lasted that long. I think you liquidized most of the bones in my body.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing. It still feels like a good thing now.”
“It does? I was worried that I...seemed like a sex maniac.”
“And you think there’s something wrong with seeming like a sex maniac?”
“There is if you previously thought I was a timid virgin.”
“Oh I see, so you can’t be both?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you can.”
“I hope so, because it wasawesome.”
“Really? You thought it was that good?”
She could feel the tentative smile trying to spread out over her face.
And then he answered, and suddenly it was dying on the vine again.
“Come outside, lemme show you how good I thought it was.”
Of course she’d known they couldn’t keep talking like this. They’d already had an important conversation through a half-open door—they couldn’t make important physical contact through one. Some part of her still hoped, however. She still wondered if there was a way to get out of this, right up until he spoke into the silence she’d allowed to spool out for far too long. Suspiciously long, she thought. And she was right.
“You’re afraid to come outside, aren’t you?” he asked after a second.
It wasn’t a question. A question would have given her room to maneuver.
Instead she had to try putting it back on him.
“It’s not as though you’ve been real big on the outside, lately.”
“That’s absolutely true—I don’t have the slightest inclination to go anywhere. But when I use the word ‘anywhere’, what I’m really saying is toward people who are not you, and places that are not the place where you are. Whereas I think for you it’s more like...extreme fear of anything that’s beyond your front door.”
She wondered if she could get away with focusing on the brilliant parts of what he’d just said. The ones that made her heart swell to seventeen times its normal size, and caused her to smile even though she was sort of dying inside. He’d said that he only wanted to be where she was. He’d saidpeople who are not you. Surely she could just tell him what that meant to her?
Even though he’d said that other thing too.
She knew she couldn’t get around the other thing.
“And what happens if that’s right?”
