Page 122 of 56 Days
He’s unsure whether or not it’s okay for him to sit down beside her so he hedges his bets, sitting on the couch but at the opposite end, leaving plenty of space between them.
“How are you feeling?” she asks.
“Okay.”
“Did you sleep?”
Not really, he thinks. He tossed and turned, and he lay awake in the dark, and even though every limb was heavy with exhaustion and his eyes were stinging and his temples throbbed—even though all he wanted todowas go to sleep—his body, for whatever reason, wouldn’t let him in.
“I got a little,” he says. “I dozed. Where did you go? Over the weekend?”
“Home. Where else could I go? There’s a lockdown, remember.”
With everything that’s going on, he’s not sure he did.
“What time is it?” he asks.
She leans forward to tap her phone, illuminating the screen.
“Seventhirty-five,” she says. “On Easter Monday.”
He’d forgotten about that, too.
There’s a part of him that would like to keep going like this, talking as they are, suspended in limbo.
But a larger part of him has to ask the question, has to know:
“Are you back?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, she leans back, sighs. “I don’t know what I am, Oliver, to be honest.”
He risks moving a little closer.
“I can’t say this enough, I know, but Iamsorry. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I just didn’t see another way. If I told you that up front, if you knew—”
“Would you ever hurt me?”
He recoils as if she’s slapped him. “What?”
“You can’t blame me for asking.”
“Ciara, I would never—”
“But how do I know? I don’t know what you’re capable of now, do I? And I was living with you and absolutely no one knew I was here. Well, except for ajournalist, as it turns out. What about her, by the way? What are we going to do about that?”
Thewesends a balloon of hope rising in his heart, but remembering Laura pierces it instantly.
“She can’t legally print my name,” he says.
“What about your picture?”
He shakes his head,no. “It’s my identity that’s protected, so anything that might lead to the discovery of that...”
Ciara nods slowly, as if considering this.
“I know this is all a lot to take in,” Oliver says. “I just want you to know—and I’m probably the only person in the entire country who can say this—but these last couple of weeks... they were the happiest of my life.”
Silence.
