I sit back. The alternative involves taking her hand.
“The therapy helped with the survivor’s guilt. So in that respect I just really miss my brother.” A single huge tear rolls out of her eye and then another, but her voice doesn't waver. She grabs some napkins and wipes her cheeks. “Sometimes I even feel good about being alive. Like I don't wish I was dead, I just wish he was here with me.”
“That makes sense. What's going on with column B?”
She sighs and sits back too. “It involves being angry pretty much all the time.”
“Ah. I can see that.”
“Yeah?”
I lean forward and show her the healed cuts on my knuckles. “Punched a tree a few months back.”
She leans forward and runs her fingers over my hand. I ignore the heat and focus on the noticeable scars that cover her own skin.
“I was walking with a limp for so long that I thought I'd done permanent damage to my hip,” she says.
“How's the hip now?”
“Fine. But sometimes when I have a shitty dream and I wake up, I fall back into the limp for a few minutes.” She laughs, then chugs the rest of her beer. “I feel like we’re Army buddies sharing our old war stories.”
She’s not wrong. A lot happened that night and neither of us have recovered from it. “Tell me what you need,” I say.
She shakes her head and then tips the bottle back to claim the last few drops. “I can't.”
“Why not?”
“Because it's delusional and selfish. So I settled for flowers. I wanted to thank you and the nurses who took care of me. And even Sheriff Bingham who actually tried to keep me informed.”
“Tell me what you need,” I say again.
“I can't.”
I give up and move on. Pressuring her is useless. And a dick move. “When do you head home?”
She shrugs. “Whenever I want, I guess. I planned to see my brother’s girlfriend in San Francisco before I head back, but ya know. No job, no rush.”
And no boyfriend to get back to, I think.
“I don't know. I want to get to know you better,” she says. “I want us to be close.”
“I think we are close.”
“But it's weird. I don't know you.”
I nod. Clearly I'm not the only one struggling with this.
“I looked for you online. You're hard to find.”
“I'm not on social media and my photography is under S. Olsen.”
“Did you look for me?”
“No.”
Pain flashes in her eyes for just a second.
“It was for the best, I think.”
