When My Heart Joins the Thousand(43)



He squirms, and I wonder if his arm is hurting him.

Then I notice something hard pressing against my thigh. “Oh,” I say.

He scoots his hips away from mine. His blush is visible even in the dim light. “Sorry.”

I remember that night in the motel room. The way his breathing quickened when he looked at me. His gentle, tentative caresses. The warmth of his hands.

Under the blanket, I lightly touch his thigh, and his muscles tense. I don’t plan the words, my next words; they just come out. “We could try again, if you want.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.” My hand rests on his thigh.

He’s silent, unmoving, not even breathing.

“Stanley?” The end of his name curves up a little in a question.

He takes a slow, deep breath and lets it out through his nose. “You remember, before, I told you I felt like Frankenstein’s monster? It wasn’t really a joke.”

After more than fifty breaks, it would be surprising if he didn’t have a collection of scars. “So.”

“You haven’t seen me. Whatever you’re imagining, it’s worse.”

“They’re just scars.”

He swallows; I hear the click in his throat. Lightly he touches my shoulder. His hand slowly slides down my side, along the curve of my waist, to rest on my hip, a gentle, steady weight. I can feel the outline of his fingers, even through the thin denim of my jeans. I wait, holding my breath. A part of me wants to pull away, because even now, that simple contact is almost overwhelming. Waves of sensation pulse through my whole body, as if I were nothing but a collection of raw nerves. The instinctive fear of human touch is still there, pressing against the base of my throat. But there’s pleasure, too—a slowly undulating heat.

Then his hand slides away, leaving a cold spot on my hip. “I don’t know if this is the best time.” He gives me a small, apologetic smile.

I nod. I don’t leave the bed, though; I don’t want to.

Gradually his breathing slows. “Alvie?” His voice is drowsy, faraway.

“Yes.”

“Earlier, when we fought those guys, you were hissing and growling. And stomping your foot.”

“Rabbits will do that sometimes, when they’re threatened.”

“Oh.”

I expect him to ask more questions, but he just dozes off, as if that’s all the explanation he needs.

For a few minutes, I lie still, listening to him breathe. He’s very close and very warm. Though I’m feeling the physical symptoms of exhaustion—dry eyes, headache, a heaviness in my limbs—my mind is wide-awake. Maybe it’s the discomfort of being in a strange bed, the unfamiliar texture of the sheets, the scent of him clinging to the pillow. I turn my face and breathe it in deeply, holding it in my lungs. Particles of his, mingling with mine.

After a while, my bladder starts to ache. Carefully I slide out of the bed. Stanley stirs and murmurs something incoherent under his breath, but he doesn’t wake. Moonlight filters through the curtains, lighting the way as I tiptoe out of the room and down the hall.

On the way back from the bathroom, I pass a closed door and pause. Just a guest room, Stanley said.

I try the door. It creaks open, and I peek in.

The walls, the curtains, and the bedspread are patterned with bunches of pink roses. There are a few necklaces strewn on the dresser. A hairbrush. A stick of deodorant. A floral-patterned blouse hanging inside a half-open closet. And rows upon rows of porcelain figurines inside a huge glass cabinet—children, puppies, kittens, birds, all staring at me with their disproportionately large, inanimate eyes.

I take a few steps inside and touch the pillow. There’s a thin layer of dust that comes off on my hand. On the table next to the bed stands a picture—a blond woman and a tiny blond boy in a blue polo shirt, maybe five or six years old, smiling up at the camera. Stanley and his mother.

Her room. Her things. Left untouched all this time.

Outside the window, a cloud passes over the moon, and the shadows shift. For a moment, the covers on the bed seem to ripple, as if a breeze were blowing through the room, and the hairs on my neck stiffen. I retreat, easing the door shut behind me, then quietly slip back into bed with Stanley and curl against his side.





CHAPTER NINETEEN


“You seem to be in good spirits today,” Dr. Bernhardt remarks.

I sit across from him in my living room. Today he has a clipboard and a thick folder. “I’m in a good mood.”

His eyebrows climb toward his receding hairline. “I can’t remember the last time you’ve said that.”

I shrug. It’s true. Over a week has passed since that night with Stanley, and the whole time, I’ve felt strangely light—euphoric, almost. But I’ve avoided mentioning that to Dr. Bernhardt. After our conversation outside the apartment—after he warned me that I was becoming codependent—Stanley is the last thing I want to discuss with him. “What’s in the folder?” I ask instead.

“Ah.” He consults his clipboard, then pulls out a stack of papers. “I just wanted to go over a few things. When you meet with Judge Gray, obviously, you’ll want to present yourself as professional and mature. She’ll probably ask a lot of questions about your job, your living situation, that sort of thing. Let’s do a practice run—I’ll pretend to be the judge, and you answer my questions. So, Alvie. How do you like living on your own?”

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