sleep if you can.I’ll make it up to you when you land in Miami.
I stare at the screen until the words blur, one tear sliding onto the glass. I want to reply, to tell him it’s fine, that I understand but that’s the problem.I do.I set the phone face-down, wipe my eyes, and pull the blanket up to my chin. The room fills with silence again, except for the faint echo of his message looping in my head:
when things matter.
Chapter 27
Truth Detector
You can call if you’re still awake.
But only if you promise not to psychoanalyze my insomnia.
It barely takes a minute before the screen flashes with an incoming call.
“Didn’t think you’d still be up.” he says, voice softer than the last time we spoke.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
He hesitates, like he’s listening for something under my voice. “Rough night?”
I lie, gently. “Just busy. Tired, the usual doctor-related insomnia.”
He doesn’t buy it. I can hear it in the small shift of his breath, but he lets it go.
“I thought you were going toa friend’s.” he says.
“I did. Now it’s home time. Responsibilities.”
“Fuck,” he murmurs. “Do those ever stop?”
It makes me laugh, just a little, the sound scraping out of me like it’s been buried all day. “Sadly it’s a permanent fixture of reality.”
A pause follows, the faint tighten of his breath through the line. “You know what doctor? I have a request. Will you humor me?”
He feels too close, like he’s speaking against my skin. I swallow. “Sure.”
“Whatever you’renottalking about,” he says, lower now, voice calm and certain, “Don’t think, justgive it to me. Breathe in deep and hand it over. Okay?” The request catches me off guard, it shouldn’t make sense but somehow I understand what he’s asking. At first, I resist, but something in his voice makes it feel easy, like a weight has been lifted. As the feeling passes over me, I let out a shaky exhale, and he catches it. “That’s it. Iknewyou’d get it. It’s a whole Tibetan monk thing, they say you breathe in suffering and exhale relief. Anytime I’m nervous or stressed before a show, it always helps.”
Before I have a chance to say anything, still stuck in the feeling of whatever just happened between us, he breaks the silence. “Better?” he murmurs. An image floods my mind before I can fight it, my head on his chest, his hand in my hair, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear. The thought steals my breath, and a small, involuntary sound escapes. “Sounds like you’re asleep on my chest,” he says, a smile hidden in his voice.
I laugh, a little embarrassed. “I must be drifting, if you told me a story I bet I’d besnoringnext.”
“That sounds like a challenge, abedtimestory?” He lets out a deep breath. “I never really had them read to me, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m shit at this.” There’s a rustle, the faint drag of sheets, and then his voice moves closer, intimate. Like he’s leaning into the phone just to see what it does to me. It does plenty. Heat blooms under my skin in places I don’t want to admit.
“I guess I kind of read them to myself. I used to hide in books and music whenever my parents weren’t around. I made stories intoplaces, inside. When the noise in my head got too loud, I painted with it. Myths, songs, scraps of language. Maybe my only trick is turning noise into something that pretends at meaning? When it’s really just a playground of the mind. People take the pieces they need from it, a turn at the jungle gym or swings here and there. It’s nice in a way. To share it. ”
A pause. “Jesus, this isterrible. Pretentious asfuck,listen to me. I’m shocked you’re still on the other end. First monks, now a diatribe on art. Maybe I couldsingyou a bedtime story instead?” He laughs, suddenly a little shy.
I smile into the dark, my throat tightening. “It’s a beautiful concept,” I whisper through a sleepy haze. “I remember that first show. Idefinitelyvisited your playground. I was always more a seesaw kind of girl, though. Or the slide, even if it burnt my ass in the summer.”
He chuckles, but there’s something tender underneath. “That’swild… that you were there.” A pause, gentler now. “Back then I just wanted to either feel something different orstopfeeling altogether. Glad my mess was useful to someone.To you.”
The silence that follows is soft, shared.
“Rafe?” I whisper.
“Mm?”
