He let the silence settle as something they were now in together rather than something that separated them. Outside, the city made its distant noise. A siren somewhere, fading.
“I have one more question,” he said.
“You’re pushing it, Baxter.”
“You know my last name? That’s more than I know about you.”
“Sorry, buddy.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Win some, lose some. What’s your question?”
This had bugged him for four months. “Why did you sneak away from the hotel that night in Boston?”
The longest silence yet. He lay back against the headboard and looked at the dark ceiling and listened to her not answer.
“I left because I wanted to stay.”
“That’s what you told me at the fundraiser. I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Well, it’s the truth. I wanted to stay. I was lying there and you were asleep and your arm was...” She stopped. He heard her breath catch, just barely, and then she controlled it. “I don’t know how to explain it. Being there with you mattered. And things that matter are things you can lose.”
He closed his eyes.
The words sat between them on the open line, carrying the weight of every locked door and side exit and empty pillow she’d left behind. He didn’t rush to respond. He let her hear that hewasn’t filling the space, wasn’t deflecting, wasn’t charming his way past the thing she’d just handed him.
“Waking up and reaching for you and finding you gone…” he said. “That stayed with me. I need you to know that.”
She didn’t say anything. He didn’t need her to.
They were quiet together for a long time. He could hear her breathing even out, and his own matched it, and the silence between them stopped being absence and became something that had its own shape.
“I should go,” she said finally. Soft. Almost reluctant.
“Yeah.”
“Goodnight, Isaac.”
“Goodnight, Fallon.”
The line went quiet.
Isaac set the phone on his chest and stayed where he was. The room was dark. The bed was empty on the other side. He put his hand flat against the mattress where no one was sleeping and left it there.
Whatever this was between them, it had stopped being a game.
He wasn’t sure it ever had been one.
