I think about Gerald and his sunflowers sitting on my desk at work, and I think about Ravita asking what I'm thinking about.
I'm thinking about her. I’m always thinking about her. I am only thinking about her.
I'm thinking about how happy I am in the dark with her sleeping next to me.
I'm thinking about forever, which is a dangerous thing to think about someone you've only known a year.
She sleeps with my hand resting on her ribs, her breathing deep and real.
CHAPTER 10
THE FRAMEWORK
I wake up before her and lie still.
The apartment. The grey-blue light through the curtains at 7 AM on a Saturday. The sound of the radiator ticking. Lena's hair across the pillow, dark against white cotton. The shape of her shoulder under the duvet. The warmth where her body ends and mine begins. Her hand resting near mine on the mattress.
I get up without waking her. I find my shirt on the hallway floor. We didn't even make it to the bedroom until the third time we moved. I pad barefoot to the kitchen.
She’s my girlfriend now. And I need to make sure she’s glad she’s with me.
So I make her hot chocolate. Two marshmallows. Stacked, not side by side—she said that once, that she likes them stacked because they melt differently. A ridiculous amount of whipped cream. The aerosol kind, because it's all she has.
I make breakfast. Scrambled eggs—creamy and soft. Toast with avocado.
Coffee for me—black, no sugar. The exact opposite of her hot chocolate.
She appears in the kitchen doorway in a T-shirt that comes to her mid-thigh, bare feet, sleep-creased cheeks. She looks at the two mugs on the counter and the breakfast on the table and she has a big smile on her face.
"You made me breakfast!"
"I did.”
"Rhonda."
"The whipped cream is the aerosol kind. I'm sorry."
She takes the mug. Wraps both hands around it. Sips. Closes her eyes.
We eat breakfast. She compliments the eggs. We sit across from each other and I'm trying to remember how to breathe normally.
Then I set my coffee down.
"I want to talk about last night," I say. "I think we need to talk about what this is."
"Sure." She sets her mug down too, mirroring my gesture.
"I want this," I say. "I want you. But I want it to be ours."
"Ours?"
"I want it to be just ours."
She's quiet for a moment.
"You want to keep this a secret," she says, frowning.
"I want to keep this private. But I don’t mean it to sound like I want to hide you."
