Page 138 of To Have and to Stalk
He lifted me up into his arms.
“Hey,” I said. “I can walk.”
“I know.”
He carried me out of the bathroom and into the living room, where he’d set up a pillow and fresh blankets. The room looked like it had been cleaned as well.
“Are you doing laundry?” I asked as he set me on the couch, noting the telltale buzzing of our machine. He plugged in a heating pad and turned back to me.
My heart was too full as he placed it on my stomach. Emotion stretched the sides of my heart like an overfilled water balloon about to burst.
Calder settled down next to me, pulling my head into his lap. He traced his fingers in my hair, gently. Calmly. Like this was a normal thing.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he lifted the remote and turned on the TV.
“You said you don’t like being alone when you’re sick.” He settled into the couch, lifting his legs up on the ottoman, still gently massaging my head.
“But…” One of the most frustrating things about fatigue was I could think, but I couldn’t speak.
When I explained I had chronic fatigue to people, they imagined the kind of tired you got before bed.Thatfatigue would be better—there was an end point. When you werechronically tired, fatigue existed like lead in your body. Even gravity was too heavy.
The closest thing I had to compare was a really bad flu. Your body was exhausted, your mind depleted, you hallucinated.
And eventhatwasn’t right.
“Don’t waste energy talking,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His fingers paused in my hair.
I remembered reading something about replacing yoursorrywiththank youso that you trained your mind not to feel badly for accepting things, but instead grateful. I’d successfully managed that with work emails.
But this?
I didn’t know how to be grateful. I was too ashamed.
“This isn’t what you signed up for. You wanted one night.”
“Yeah,” he said, voice far off. “I did.”
He resumed playing with my hair, navigating the television.
The shame in my stomach acidified at his words.
He must have felt so burdened.
“I should have let you go,” he continued, casually, as he scrolled through my streaming options. “But the problem is I can’t. I’m starting to want things I’m not allowed to want.”
His eyes lowered from the screen to mine, and he pushed a stray strand of hair out of my face, behind my ear.
The air throbbed and undulated between us like on a hot summer day.
“Now,” he said, eyes returning to the television. “I think you said it was a crime I hadn’t seenGilmore Girls.”
chapter
forty-seven
