“Feeling better?” Nikhil asks, catching me as I exit the bathroom.
“A bit.” I’m still tired, but the moving around helped me wake up. Helped me cut through some of the fatigue.
I settle back under the covers, and the two of us are quiet for a while. Awkwardly avoiding each other. He’s messing with things in the drawers. I can hear them open and shut repeatedly. I’m pretty sure he’s taking clothes out, refolding them, and putting them back in, but I don’t watch too closely. I don’t want him to catch me looking. I’m pretending to be busy, examining the cracked screen on my phone intently. As if staring might bring it back to life.
I don’t know how to broach conversation with him. Before I got sick, we both peeled back layers, exposing our truths about the past, but he rebuffed my earlier attempt to bring it back up. And now I’m scared to mention it, unsure if I evenwantto. Maybe he regrets telling me all the things he did. Or maybe we’re just both experiencing vulnerability hangovers.
What we probably need right now is space, but that’s hard to find when you’re trapped in a house together. Though at least we’re no longer confined to the closet. In fact, whyishe here? There are plenty of other rooms he could be in. I’d dart out right now if I could. If I had the strength. I’d run to the kitchen or the living room or the guest bedroom. Though I guess the guest bedroom isn’t really an option anymore. I wince, feeling a touch of guilt.
“How’s the guest room?” I ask.
Nikhil turns around, his hands clutching a balled-up pair of socks.
“When you went to grab my phone earlier,” I clarify. “How did the guest room look?”
“Oh. Fine.”
“Really?”
“Uh, no.” He separates the socks, then refolds them back together. “But it’s better than I thought it would be. Some water got in, but nothing compared to if it had flooded. And there’s some glass and stuff, but once I clean it out and replace the window, it’ll be fine.”
I clear my throat. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” I’m about to offer to help with the cleaning, and then remember how I almost collapsed earlier just trying to get out of bed. I won’t let him clean it alone though. I’ll just have to make sure he stays here until I’m back to full strength. So he doesn’t try to sneak off and do it by himself.
“Since the power’s back we can watch some TV, right?” I nod toward the flat-screen on the wall.
He grunts in response. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a positive or a negative sound until he hands me a remote a few moments later.
The screen turns on, showing a local news channel. There’s a reporter standing in the middle of the street, water up to her knees.
“Though the storm’s lost some of its intensity,” she says, “a lot of streets throughout the city are looking like this. As you know, it’s not abnormal for us to get some flooding during a storm, but city officials have no estimate on when the water might recede. In the last press conference, they explained that due to the significant amounts of rain we experienced before the hurricane, our groundwater levels were already high. With the level of rainfall we received in the past twenty-four hours, there’s simply no place for the waterto go. So, if you’ve evacuated, stay put. The worst of the storm may be over, but with these roads, there’s no way for you to get back right now. And if you stayed, well, you’ll be staying in place a little longer. We’ll do our best to keep you updated on any developments and—”
“That’s been the only update for the last few hours,” Nikhil interrupts. “That no one has any idea on when the flooding will go down.”
Great. My odds of getting home soon are looking slimmer and slimmer. I flip through the channels, desperate to find something else. Something to take my mind off of things. But every channel seems to be showing the same images. Flooded streets. Abandoned cars. Homes partially underwater.
“Do you have Netflix?” I ask. “Anything streaming?”
He walks over, taking the remote from my hand and pressing a few buttons until that familiar red logo appears.
“Thanks,” I say, as he hands it back to me.
To my surprise, he doesn’t return to his pretend organizing of the dresser. Instead, he walks around the bed and sits on the very edge of the side farthest from me.
“What are you going to watch?” he asks.
“I’m not sure.” I’m scrolling, trying not to seem too curious, too interested in what Netflix is recommending to him. Or what it thinks he needs to “continue watching.” What are his tastes now? Have they changed? When we were together, Nikhil was always insistent that he could never watch anything too serious or too dark before we went to bed. Otherwise, the images would stay with him, and he couldn’t fall asleep.
I’d thought it was so cute. But either he’s changed that rule or he’s been watching stuff in the mornings or afternoons because there are a lot of documentaries in his queue right now. History. Investigative reporting. Politics. And is that…
“You’re watchingGilmore Girls?”
“Uhh…yeah.”
I look over at him, and he shrugs. “It’s a good show.”
“I know that,” I say. “It’s agreatshow.”
A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. It is.”
