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“I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“I still walk into rooms and forget what I’m looking for, then realize it isn’t there.”
Jessica’s step catches once. I keep my eyes forward.
“But I am getting better,” I say.
Or I’m trying to.
That part I keep to myself.
By eight-thirty, I’ve decided to tell him.
By eight-forty, I’ve decided that’s insane.
By eight-forty-six, I’m standing in the dining room with the laptop open on the table—it’s safer than the theater—and pacing end to end like a cat in a cage.
Baxter is seated at the head of the table. Barret sits on the floor beside him, ears lifted, concerned by movement that doesn’t involve treats or leashes.
“I’m handling it,” I tell them.
The laptop screen has gone dim but not dark. My reflection hovers in it when I pass too close.
I look better than I feel. Jessica noticed, and that should have pleased me. It did, for roughly four seconds, before I understood why.
Looking better doesn’t mean I’m improving. It may simply mean I’ve become interested in being seen by someone I should never let see me.
I stand there, one hand on the back of a chair, hearing Clint’s voice from memory.
I smile before I can stop myself.
The cam show isn’t the problem now. Not the lie, either. The real problem is the smile I see behind my eyes, and the way my body now anticipates him.
I used to anticipate Renny. Not in the romantic way people describe, but my body knew his rhythms. Car in the drive. Keys in the bowl. Voice in the entryway calling out something funny and pointless.
His arrival gave shape to the evening. Now the evening waits for a green dot beside a fake name.
I know what I could write.
Bentley84: I need to tell you something.
Then when Clint answers, because he would answer, probably with a joke, probably with enough impatience to protect both of us, I could keep going.
Bentley84: My name isn’t Bentley.
No. Too abrupt.
Bentley84: We’ve met.
Awful.
Bentley84: I know who you are.
Worse.
Bentley84: I’m Paul Benton.
