Page 57 of On Dry Land

He contemplates me, eyes losing some of that childish joy they’d had downstairs while we were breaking glass and turning serious. The hand he reaches in my direction surprises me enough that I reach back, jolting when his fingers wrap around my wrist.

“Come stay at the cottage,” he requests and then ruins the offer by adding, “It’s yours.”

It is not, in fact, mine. It’s a space that was there when I bought the place. A space I decorated for my sister and has never once been used until Spencer stepped through the door. It’s his. His bathroom, his kitchen, and his bed. His four walls that are meant to be a safe space for him, and him alone. That cottage hasn’t been mine in nearly two months. And, foolishly, I had been hoping to be invited inside because I’d earned that trust, not because I engineered it by destroying the better option. Swallowing, I resist the urge to pull my arm from Spencer’s grasp.

It would be nearly impossible to maintain any sort of distance living in that cottage with him. A calculated risk, weighing the inevitability of emotional destruction the likes of what just happened downstairs against Spencer curled against me in bed, breathing softly; against those eyes being the first thing I see in the morning, and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep.

“I’ll pack up my things,” I tell him, leaning down and accepting the kiss this earns me, smothering the burn of want that ignites before it can breathe.

Spencer asks if I have any specific plan in place for renovating, and I do my best to give him polite answers. I’m suddenly not in the mood to talk, but I’m also reaching the point in this relationship where I feel as though I need to soften certain parts of myself to make them more palatable. I don’t want to push him away, and being myself seems to be the most effective way of doing this. Perhaps he picks up on my desire for silence anyway, as he quiets down and simply helps me pack. Helps me pack and touches me, that is.

When he walks behind me, he puts an unnecessary hand on my back like he’s letting me know he’s there. When I hand him something to toss into the bag at his feet, he brushes his fingers against mine as he takes it. And when I find myself staring at him and he catches me, he crosses the room, puts a hand on my neck, and pulls me down to kiss my cheek. I hope he’s not anticipating reciprocity. Casual intimacy has never been my natural tendency, and I’m not good at recognizing the moments it’s expected of me. By the time I’ve caught up with the way I’m meant to act, the moment has passed, and my partner is disappointed.

But I wonder, as Spencer, smirking, grabs the box I keep my toys in from the bathroom, if perhaps I’ve gotten lucky and stumbled upon the one person actually happy to provide affection and receive so little in return. A couple of mornings after he’d spent the first night, I’d woken up feeling groggy and sore again like I’d been comatose and not just asleep. I couldn’t ever recall being so relaxed that it required actual conscious effort to move my limbs, to open my eyes and check I hadn’t been dreaming. I hadn’t been. Nor had I dreamed the nights before.

Sex has always felt like a step-by-step program I needed to follow, and while I probably cannot claim to be a great lover, I know at least I’m an efficient one. I’ve never left anyone wanting or unsatisfied, and as I’d lain there with Spencer, his breathing synced with mine, I’d let myself worry. How could it be that someone could be satisfied giving so much and getting nothing in return?

“Sex together feels just as good for me as it does for you,” Spencer told me when I asked him, the sun hitting his eyes just right to bring out the gold flecks in the brown. He’d wiggled closer, expression near glowing, and I hadn’t been able to look away. I don’t think I’d ever seen him look so happy or open or comfortable. “Maybe even better.”

I could believe that he thought that, but I can’t believe that it could be true. Even now, walking down the stairs behind him, there’s a comfort in myself that I’m not used to experiencing. So often, I feel as though I’m just an actor in my own life, resigned to my fate and no longer trying to push the plot in a direction I prefer. I’ve stopped fighting against myself and stopped caring about everyone else. I found a man with personality traits opposite of my ex-husband and forced myself to cultivate attraction. I settled into that relationship just in time for it to end, and then I went to the bar and found someone even less emotionally available, but a warm body nonetheless. And now, somehow, I’ve found myself pulled into the orbit of someone I actually like and who, so far, seems to like me back. It’s as though I didn’t look far enough ahead in the script, and now I’m just as surprised as everyone else by the plot twist.

Adjusting the strap of the bag over my shoulder, I reach for Spencer before he can head for the back door. He glances back, surprised, but smiles.

“Should we grab food?” I nod toward my kitchen, still somewhat intact.

Spencer nods and treads a route over the wreckage on the floor. The man has been incredibly stubborn about buying his own groceries since starting work with Rudy. I can appreciate the independence, but I’m also wondering if he’s buying, and so eating, enough. He’s told me multiple times how he’s trying to save the money he earns, which means he’s not spending it on groceries. He’s still rangy and thin like a junkyard dog; as far as I can tell, he’s put on five, maybe ten pounds since he got here. Watching him dump my stash of snacks into a garbage bag before going to the refrigerator to look in there, I wonder if maybe this will work out perfectly. If we’re suddenly sharing such a small space, there won’t be any way for him to separate what’s mine and his. I’ll be able to force-feed him by proximity alone.

“We’d better check on your demon,” Spencer says, hefting the trash bag of groceries over one shoulder and laughing softly when he steps over a broken leg from one of the barstools.

The snowmen are nearly melted, sitting crooked and grotesque on the lawn, eyes drooping and mouths curved into a grimace. As he always does, Spencer fixes the bowler hat as he walks by, shooting a grin over his shoulder at me before traipsing on.

I keep behind him, walking a little slower. I’d decided early on that I didn’t care if Spencer was in my house, didn’t care if he destroyed or stole anything. His physical presence doesn’t concern me nearly as much as his psychological one—there’s very little he could do to me bodily that I feel I need to be worried about, and an unfortunately long list of damage he could do emotionally. More than I had planned on permitting, that is for certain, and more being added on each day I continue to take advantage of his presence here. People can only hurt you when you allow them to, and at this point, I might as well be prostrate on the ground in front of him, begging to be trampled.

But me inviting him into my house holds different meaning and repercussions than him offering the same favor to me. Spencer doesn’t have a house. He has a backpack and, right now, a space to keep it in. A space to sleep in. A space he has, thus far, barred me from. I haven’t pushed for entry, and I wouldn’t have done so no matter how unlivable I’ve just managed to make my own house. The cottage belongs to Spencer.

Spencer, who told me the other morning that he still woke up frightened when he didn’t sleep with his shoes on, immediately worried that they’d been stolen off his feet; who slid a heavy chest of drawers in front of the door for fear that I’d try to sneak in at night. Spencer, who, every time I see him in town, interacting with others, keeps his body angled toward them, never showing anyone his back if he can help it; who scans each and every room he enters, looking for possible exits.

That’s the Spencer this cottage belongs to, and that’s still the one, at least partially, standing in front of me unlocking the door. Perhaps I’m not the only one struggling with whatever this mess between us is. Perhaps I, who finds an incredible amount of solace in being alone, am not the only one wary of inviting people in, and unsure what to do once they’re inside. And indeed, it’s that exact reluctance I see reflected in his eyes when he gets the door unlocked and turns to look at me.

“I can stay up at my house, Spencer,” I tell him firmly. I don’t like feeling as though I’m only being invited in because he’s got it in his head that I own it and so he has to. As much as I hate myself for the desire, I want to be asked in because he wants it. I want him to make a consenting decision that doesn’t factor in money or power or ownership rights. I can lie to everyone else, but I can’t pretend to myself that I don’t want to be chosen.

“No,” he says immediately, frowning, expression picking up some of that stubbornness I’m so used to seeing from him. “Here is fine. I don’t—I want you to. I mean, if you want.”

This last is added on almost as an afterthought. Like it’s just occurred to him that I’ll be the one suffering if I’m crammed into a small space with him. I watch as he cracks the door slowly enough that the kitten won’t slip through unnoticed if she tries to make a run for it. Apparently having located her, he straightens and lets the door fall wide, stepping through and beckoning me to follow.

“Sleeping,” he tells me, pointing at the bed and the little black shadow curled up in the center.

I stop in the doorway, leaning against the frame, and try to fight down the wave of sorrow that rises as I look around the room. Spencer hasn’t unpacked. In fact, other than the kitten sleeping on the comforter and the hiking backpack propped against the far wall, there is no indication that someone lives here at all.

Spencer, following my gaze to his pack, blushes. It’s something I’ve never once seen him do and, for whatever reason, makes me feel a little worse.

“I’m just used to living out of the bag,” he says quietly. “That’s all. It’s easier to keep everything in one place.”

Frustrated—not with him so much as myself and the world and the whole fucking situation—I wait until he meets my eyes. I’d thought we were past the days when I could look at him and see any measure of fear in his gaze.

“I’m not going to kick you out, Spencer. If I want you to leave, I will give you time to do so.”

“No, I know, it’s just…” His jaw works as he thinks for a moment, apparently trying to put words together in a way that might adequately explain something I have no hope of understanding. Just as quickly as it came, my frustration evaporates. Closing my eyes, I sigh.