Page 25 of After His Eulogy
“I am not. I am not asking you to never come back. I am asking you to leave for tonight. I have to think.”
I nod.
I get up. I go to the door. I put on my coat. I look back at him. He is still in the chair. His face is still wet. He has not wiped it.
“Griffin.”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t say anything else.
“Go.”
I go. I close the door behind me. I go down the stairs. I walk home in the cold. I do not call Mendez.
SEVENTEEN
REECE
He texts me on Saturday at four-twelve. It has been five days. I left his apartment on Monday. We’ve been at the proseminar on Tuesday and on Thursday and we’ve done the thing. We sit across from each other. We contribute at the right moments. We don’t look at each other except when one of us is responding to the other. We’re bad at it but we’re getting better at it. On Tuesday I noticed I was holding my pen too tight at the end of class. On Thursday I did not notice that, which I am taking as a kind of progress.
The text says Come over.
That’s the whole text. No when. No why. JustCome over— and I look at the message for a minute, and I write backnow?
He writes back yes.
I look atyes. Sit with it a second. I put on my shoes, my coat. I leave.
He opens the door before I knock. He’s been standing inside the door — I can tell because the door opens too fast. No walk-to-the-door pause. No time-it-took-him-to-get-up pause. He was at the door when I came up. He heard my steps on the landing andopened it before I could knock. He’s been waiting for me to be on it. He looks at me.
“Come in,” he says.
I come in. He closes the door. He locks it. He stands in front of me in the entryway with his hands in his pockets, and the hands are not loose in the pockets, and he is looking at me.
“I have decided something,” he says.
“Okay.”
“I want to tell you what I decided.”
I keep my hands at my sides. I have been doing this for a month, this thing where I make my hands do nothing. It is a small skill. I am using it now.
“Okay,” I say.
“I’m not — I’m not going to forgive you.”
Something twists in my chest. I do not let my face do anything. He has been deciding what to say to me for five days. The least I can do is hear him say it.
“Okay.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to forgive you. I don’t know if I’m going to beableto forgive you. That’s not the question I’m answering tonight. I want to be clear about that.”
“I hear you.”
“What I am answering tonight is whether I am going to keep being in a room with you. Twice a week. For the rest of the year. Pretending I am not in a room with you.”
“Okay.”
