Page 274 of The Lies We Play

I stop breathing again.

He says it simply. As if he has had ten years to reduce his theology to one sentence.

Wherever Liv and you are.

Not here.

It’s you.

Her.

I stand because if I stay seated, I might do something unforgivable, like cry in front of him without understanding why.

Creed stands with me.

Our hands separate.

His thumb leaves my wrist last, with a reluctance so quiet it feels indecent to notice. The second he is gone, cold pours into the place where he had been. Not outside cold. Interior cold. Ten years of it, concentrated into one inch of skin.

“Tomorrow,” he says, “we can figure it out tomorrow. Then the rest of the week.”

“Tomorrow,” I repeat.

My voice sounds unfamiliar.

“We will,” he says.

We.

The word enters the room and doesn't ask permission.

I have not had a tomorrow in years. I have had appointments. Medication schedules. Meals observed by staff. Donor breakfasts. Legal meetings. Quiet evenings where my family spoke around me as if I were a painting with a pulse.

Tomorrow is different.

Tomorrow assumes I am still here.

Tomorrow assumes someone expects me.

I take one step toward him.

Creed doesn't move.

I lift my right hand.

I am going to touch his face.

I have not decided to.

I have.

Both things are true.

My hand rises from my side, and his eyes follow it. He doesn't flinch. He doesn't lean in. He lets me come to him exactly as far as I can. On the schedule, my body is setting. In the silence of a man who has waited ten years and decided, in this hour, that one more minute will not be what breaks him.

My fingers touch the side of his jaw.

His pulse beats up into my fingertips.