Page 153 of The Professor's Wife

“I’m sitting right here.”

“You know what I mean.”

I looked toward the window.

Outside, a delivery truck blocked part of the road while two cars waited behind it. One of the drivers leaned on his horn. The delivery worker raised a hand in apology and hurried faster.

Everything felt impatient.

The whole world seemed louder lately.

“I’m tired,” I said.

Tristan watched me for another moment. Then he called the waitress over and asked for the bill.

“We haven’t finished.”

“I have.”

“You’ve eaten four fries.”

“They were big fries.”

Despite myself, I smiled.

He caught it, but the concern didn’t leave his face.

We paid and returned to the camper.

Tristan pulled back onto the road while I watched the town pass outside my window.

A woman stood at a bus stop with a child asleep against her shoulder. A man argued into a pay phone. Two teenagers shoved each other beside a convenience store, laughing until one of them stopped laughing.

There had been a time when I could look at people without wondering what happened after their doors closed.

Now I watched too closely.

I noticed hands.

Voices.

The way someone’s body changed when another person looked at them.

The way a smile disappeared.

The way a woman glanced at a man before deciding whether she was allowed to keep speaking.

Maybe there was something wrong with me.

I had spent so long searching rooms for danger that I no longer knew how to stop.

“What were you looking at?” Tristan asked.

“People.”

“I got that much.”

I continued watching the road.