Page 31 of When The Noise Stops

My eyes had been on her face. Then I looked, because she asked.

"No," I said.

"I don't see a problem," she was thick in all the right places. Soft curves and warm brown skin.

Her lips shook.

"Then why do I still feel like I have to prove something?"

"Put your dress on."

"No."

"Lila, please."

"I don't want to be covered up right now. Shut up," she slurred. Then she said, "Am I doing too much right now?"

I picked the dress up off the floor and sat on the far end of the couch with it in my lap. If I said yes, she'd crumble. If I said no, she'd keep going. There was no right answer.

"You're drunk," I said.

"You're hurting. You're not too much."

"Tell me I'm not too much," she whispered.

"Tell me I'm not too big. Tell me I'm not—"

"You're not. You're so fucking perfect."

She just stared at me for a second. Then her face crumpled. The tears came fast and loud, the kind of crying that came from somewhere deep.

"I hate him," she said.

"I hate him for what he did to me. For what he made me feel about myself. For the way I still hear his voice in my head every time I look in the mirror."

I stood up. Approached her like you'd approach a cornered animal. My hand went to her shoulder. I didn't want to spook her.

"I know," I said.

"I was so young when I married him. I didn't know anything. I didn't know what love was supposed to feel like. I thought that was it. I thought that was all there was," her voice broke.

"And then I got out. And I ran. And I'm still running. I'm still scared. Every day. Every single day."

My hand moved to the back of her neck to steady her. I could feel her pulse racing.

"I know," I said again.

She looked up at me. Those big brown eyes, glassy.

"You're so nice, Knox. You know that? You're like one of them good people who make people feel stronger. You make me feel stronger. And you don't even ask for nothing in return."

She sighed. Stared at the ceiling like it had something to tell her.

"I read this one poem about men like you," she said, her voice soft now. Slurred but trying to be clear.

"'But kindness lives beyond the memory of him who gives.' You be on some Edgar Allan Poe type shit, Knox," she declared.

She was crying the entire time. I kind of wanted to laugh when she said the thing about Poe, but I held it in.