Page 63 of Never Alone

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"The floor. I have a sleeping bag from camping. I have a pillow. The carpet is fine."

"Cole—"

"I'm not letting you sleep on the floor, and I'm not making you sleep next to me. The floor is fine."

He said it the way he said all the things he'd been saying since I'd asked him for help. The way that didn't invite negotiation, but also didn't impose. He had come up with the answer that protected the boundary. He was offering it.

"Cole. It's your apartment."

"It's our apartment."

"You signed the lease in both our names because I needed it for the petition. The rent is yours."

"I don't think that's the math we're doing."

I looked at him. He still had the dish towel in his hand. He hadn't looked away from me. The kitchen was very still.

"Fine. The floor."

"Fine."

"Until we figure out something better."

"Sure."

We dried for another minute.

"There's one more thing," he said.

"What?"

"The visitation. The supervised visits."

"What about them?"

"I want to be the one taking him."

I set down the wet plate I'd just rinsed. It clattered on the steel.

"Cole."

"He's going every other Saturday for four hours. I'll drop him off. I'll pick him up. I'll be in the lobby the whole time."

"That's a lot to ask of you."

"You didn't ask. I'm telling you."

"Cole—"

"Tessa." He set the towel down. He turned to face me fully. "I'm not letting you sit in that lobby every other Saturday. I'm not letting you be in a building with him for four hours, in a parking lot, around the corner, anywhere."

The kitchen had gotten very quiet.

"I'll do it," he said. "It's not your job to do that piece."

I didn't say anything for a second.

He had cleared all the ground around me before I knew I was standing on it. He had thought through what it would cost me to be in the same building as Nicholas every other Saturday for the next year. He had thought through what it would do to me to come back to the apartment after dropping Noah off and try to be a person between then and pickup. He had thought about it before I had been able to. He had decided.

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