I’m laughing and it feels like medicine in a way that the actual medicine they’re giving me here never can.
He packs up the cooler when we’re done, organizing the leftovers. He’s been here enough times that the space feels partly his too as he moves around the room. He fixes the window shades exactly right, wipes down my tray table and centers the trash can.
I watch him and try not to think about Jacksonville and the coming weeks. And the fact that after tonight, I have one more visit with Benji before Dante arrives. Before Benji’s Miami world walks into this hospital room.
Before the nurse comes, Benji pulls the cream off the nightstand. “I was planning to go light up the nurses for not taking better care of you,” he says, pumping cream into his palm. “But I guess there’s no point now if you’re leaving. They’re lucky.”
I don’t tell him he doesn’t need to do the cream. Why would I? It’s the best part of my day. He does my hands, my forearms, my shoulders. I close my eyes because if I keep them open, he’ll see what he’s doing to me and I’m not ready for him to see that. My whole body above the waist goes still with the effort of not reaching for him. I’m dying to touch him and I can’t. I can’t think about that. This is all going to be over very soon anyway.
Then he lifts the blanket. Same as last time. No announcement, no asking. He just goes to my feet because Benji doesn’t stop halfway through anything. I open my eyesbecause I have to watch this part. Watching is the only way I know he’s touching me. His thumbs press into my arch and I see the skin move under his fingers and there’s nothing. No signal. Just the sight of hands on a body that doesn’t know they’re there.
He finishes and pulls the sheet back over my legs. He caps the bottle, sets it on the nightstand, and sits back in the chair. His cheeks are flushed and he doesn’t look at me right away.
The nurse appears at eight and smiles at us. Benji sighs and he stands.
“Visiting hours are over. Time to go. Have a blessed evening.”
Benji’s eyes shoot to mine. “Thank you,” he says. “You too.”
The nurse leaves. Benji grabs his bag. The fluorescent light behind him catches the edges of his blonde hair, and he looks exhausted.
“Want to keep talking in the car?” I ask. “I don’t like the thought of you driving two hours in the dark on that highway.”
His face lights up. “Of course, I do! I’ll call you from the car. You know me. I’ll talk all day and night.”
I grab my phone. His call comes ten minutes later. We talk for two hours straight and don’t hang up until he’s safely inside the condo. It’s becoming our new thing. Texting all day back and forth. Talking two hours on the way to visit me, then two hours back.
I try not to wonder when will be the last time I see him.
Will it be tomorrow? The next day?
I don’t know the exact day.
I know it’ll be soon.
I put the phone down and close my eyes. I can still feel his hands in the places where they landed on skin that works, his thumbs in my palms, his fingers on my forearms, the warmth on my shoulders and the back of my neck, all of it still humming.
And I do something I haven’t done before. I imagine the rest. I imagine feeling his hands on my feet, the press of his thumbs into my arch, the long stroke up my calf. I’m trying to make my body remember something it never felt.
It doesn’t work.
The legs stay silent.
Chapter 16: Benji
I’m standing in the condo’s shell-pink bathroom at five forty-five in the morning in sweatpants, brushing my teeth with one hand and scrolling vendor emails with the other, when I decide Mickey needs to see this bathroom.
I’ve been describing it to him for days. The pink, the crack in the mirror, the water pressure that could be defeated by a garden hose. He laughs every time I mention it.
I want him to see the actual physical reality of what I’ve been complaining about because the pink is worse than words can convey. It’s not blush pink or millennial pink or any pink that a designer would recognize as intentional. It’s the pink of a bathroom that was tiled in 1987 by someone who was either colorblind or making a statement and the statement was “I hate everyone who will ever use this room.”
I hold up my phone and take a photo. The flash bounces off the pink tile and the cracked mirror and the sad little shower. I check the photo before sending and it’s perfect. The full horror of the shell-pink bathroom is captured in one image. I send the photo.
Benji:I present to you the shell-pink bathroom in all its glory. This is where I’ve been getting ready every morning. Notice the crack in the mirror, the mildewed grout situation, and the particular shade of pink that I can only describe as “retired flamingo.”
I put the phone down, pull a shirt over my head and start on my face. Concealer under the eyes because the dark circles are winning. The bruise on my cheek has finally fadedto the point where I can cover it completely. Thank God. I have a final walkthrough with Callie today and showing up to a client meeting looking like I lost a bar fight is not ideal for the professional image.
My phone buzzes.
