“You’ve made it this far.” I laugh under my breath, but she doesn’t.
Her fingers tap against the paper in an anxious rhythm. I know better than to tell her to relax. She hears pity in anything close to softness when she’s in this state.
“Alek, I need my life back.” She looks past me toward the window. “I need noise. Work. To do something useful other than watch you make cool game interfaces.”
“Youaredoing something useful.” I sit next to her on the couch.
Her eyes cut to mine. “Healing? Trauma therapy?”
“Staying alive seems very useful to me.” I place my hand on her thigh.
A small exhale leaves her, almost a laugh, almost not. She drops the papers on the couch.
Gratitude. Proximity. Need. Recovery.
Maybe all of this. Her confiding in me, our growing friendship and even the way she reaches for me at night is built from circumstance. Maybe I’m convenient. Safe. Filling time inside a room she can’t yet leave.
I squeeze her knee and remove my hand.
“What did your friends say?” she asks.
I glance back. “About what?”
“About you disappearing.”
“Jamie says I’ve gone domestic.” I lean back. “Daniel thinks I’ve finally had sex and have lost the will to do anything else.”
Her laugh comes quick this time, real enough to loosen something in me. “And?”
“He’s probably right.” I shrug. “Although, he also told me to stop hovering.”
Her expression sharpens. “Youarehovering.”
“I’m trying not to.” I feel my face pinken.
“Why?”
Because I’m in love with you and every hour with you feels borrowed.
Instead I stand to get back to work. “Dunno. New territory.”
She studies me for a second. “Fair.”
A little while later, she falls asleep on the couch with one arm flung over her face. I let her rest.
I also sit in the chair across from her and pay bills.
Her bills.
I already handled the hospital and Insurance. What remains are the rest from the ugly stack of unopened envelopes she refuses to sort through: rent, utilities, phone, credit card balance. All shoved into her worn tote. I tell myself I only want to see due dates.
Then, I pay all of it.
Seven, maybe eight thousand total. More money than she can absorb right now.
To me it means rearranging a few transfers. For her it means oxygen.
I know she might hate it, but I do it anyway.
