Page 88 of On His Mind

She settles against my side. Not a lean, exactly — a shift, a weight, her shoulder against my arm and her knee not quite touching my leg — and the gap that’s been in every room we’ve ever shared is just gone, closed, her warmth all down one side of me. I go still with the book open on my knee, and every inch of where she’s touching me is lit up and loud. She smells like cold air and whatever she wears. I feel her breathe. I hold the book, so my hand won’t do anything else.

“I can’t understand it,” she continues. “That’s the point. Just read.”

So I read.

I read the words on the page very quietly — a man walking through a city he used to live in, the rain, a café that isn’t there anymore — my voice going quiet and even in a language I have not said out loud to another living person since I was a kid. She doesn’t move. She listens to the sound of it with her eyes half shut, and it’s just noise to her.

I get to the bottom of the page, and I don’t turn it. I keep going, and it isn’t the book anymore.

“Je t’ai regardée partir ce soir avec lui,” I say, in the same low, even voice, the same rhythm, so it still sounds like the story.I watched you leave tonight with him.

She makes a small sound, content, settling closer, and I keep going.

“Je savais pas que quelque chose pouvait faire aussi mal.”I didn’t know something could hurt this much.My voice doesn’t change. I keep it flat, soft, and story-like. “Je sais pas quoi faire de ça.”I don’t know what to do with that.

And then I say the thing I’ve never said to anyone in any language. “Je pense à toi tout le temps. J’arrive pas à te sortir dema tête.”I think about you all the time. I can’t get you out of my head.

“Je lis même plus le livre, mais t’en as aucune idée parce que tu parles pas français.”I’m not even reading the book anymore, but you have no idea because you don’t speak French.

I look at her.

She looks back at me and offers a small smile.

“Peut-être qu’un jour, je vais trouver le courage de te dire ce que je ressens vraiment. Mais en attendant, c’est tout ce que je suis capable de faire. Te lire un livre.”Maybe one day I’ll find the courage to tell you how I really feel. But until then, this is the best I can do. Read you a book.

I let out a quiet breath.

“C’est pathétique à quel point?”How pathetic is that?

I continue reading the book like nothing has changed, and she doesn’t know the difference. She leans her head back, and after a couple more pages, her breathing changes. It goes long and even, the way it did on a couch a year ago on Christmas Eve.

I keep reading after she’s asleep until my voice gets tired.

“Bonne nuit, Penelope.”

Chapter 28

Penelope

Iwakeuptoa ceiling I don’t know. There’s a loud sound. Maybe it’s a pan that was set down too hard, water running, a low voice, and then a louder one and a bark of laughter, a door. I surface through it slowly, my face in a pillow that doesn’t smell like my own, and for a second I’m confused.

I turn my head, and Percy is asleep beside me, on his back, one arm flung up over the pillow, his face turned toward me. I go still looking at him, because I have never once seen this. I’ve watched him not sleep — on FaceTime, in my chair, the boy who’s always awake, always the one keeping some kind of watch. And here he is, out, all the way under, his mouth soft, the line between his eyebrows that’s always there just gone, breathing slow and even, unguarded in a way I didn’t know his face could be.

He’s asleep.

Warmth fills my chest.

He’s finally sleeping.

I let myself look at him. I don’t know for how long, but I watch him for as long as possible.

Then he stirs and starts to wake up. His eyes slowly open. For one second, his expression is still soft with no guard. His eyes meet mine, and he searches my face like he’s looking for something. I look back at him. Neither of us moves. It’s the softest I’ve ever seen him.

Then a voice comes up through the floor, close, right below us. “Stanley! I swear––”

I watch it hit him. The softness drains out of his face, replaced with horror, and I start to understand his panic. The two of us go rigid in the same instant. Then he’s out of bed when he realizes how close we are.

He stumbles over his words, whispering. I can’t hear him as I sit up.