Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(54)

It’s perfect.

The freezing cold wind and the bright sun and the blazing-hot sandwich and Evan’s hip alongside mine on the wall, all perfect. We eat like children eat, fast and unself-consciously, ignoring the napkins piled on our knees.

I ball up the foil, and Evan takes it from me to lob into the big trash can, then leans back and opens the potato chips, tipping the bag toward me first.

“Thanks,” I say, taking a handful.

It’s kind of an all-inclusive thank-you. “Of course.”

“I’m sorry about all the other times.” But I wince, because this feels like the very last moment on earth for an apology, and his solid hip pressed against mine is messing me up, reminding me so keenly that I’m a human, with a human body and human feelings, that it’s like I need to get out all the feelings between me and Evan at the same time.

His eyebrows smash together again as he looks out over the courtyard.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything, Jenny.”

He said my name. That makes everything worse. When you’re lonely and afraid, it can be almost terrifying to be well fed and treated kindly and acknowledged by another human being.

Because, what if you find that you need all that food and kindness and acknowledgment?

Particularly if you might, maybe, need food and kindness and acknowledgment from someone like Evan, whose messy hair and crinkles and absurdly long arms and firm hip are growing on me.

“Just the same,” I try, choking the impulse to put my arms around him and melt into his neck and ask him to rub my hair, “I’ve been stupid.”

He just keeps looking across the courtyard, like something was going to sprout out of the middle of it any minute, and shakes his head. “No.”

“No?”

“I think it’s probably impossible for you to be stupid.”

“Why?” I blurt, but before I can tell him that never mind, seriously, I’m not fishing for compliments, he throws his handful of potato chips behind the wall and turns his body fully toward me.

“Do you know what I wrote in my notes, the very first meeting we had?”

I think of how I had sat, slouched in my chair and refusing to look at him when he did my intake. “I probably deserve to know.”

He leans over and tips his head so I am looking into his eyes. The winter light shines through his blue irises and makes them look silvery. His cheeks are flushed. “You do deserve to know. I wrote, fiercely intelligent. It was the very first thing that I wrote, right at the top of your chart notes. Basically, the exact opposite of stupid. I knew you were angry, sad, but what I noticed, what was noticeable over absolutely everything else, was how goddamned smart you are. I thought about you the entirety of the week after our intake and before your first visit. I wasn’t sure, actually, that I would be up to giving you anything you needed, that I had the skills or the smarts to match you.”

I think I make a noise, of absolute protest, or embarrassed distress, but Evan just leans in closer and puts his index finger on my elbow, so I can feel the points he’s making, a little press with every word he says.

“I knew I was going to fuck it up for a while, is what I’m saying. I knew I would have to follow your lead. You’re not”—he tips his head up and looks at the sky, shaking his head—“you’re not stupid. I’m learning, too. I’m not ahead of you, you’re ahead of me.”

“The blind leading the blind,” I say, before I think better of it.

He laughs. “Maybe. But that’s the other thing. Right now, today, you’re not blind, whatever that means. You have a limited field of vision, you have vision differences, but all those brains, God, you showed us today that you’ll never, ever fail to see.”

And now I can’t look at him. I can’t.

Because I still won’t cry in front of Evan.

I grab the potato chips, instead, and then reach in for a big handful, and they are the most delicious potato chips in all the world. We eat all of them.





Chapter Four


Second Inch


I crank the heat as soon as I get home from therapy with Evan. The wind hasn’t died down, and I think the snow has picked up, but it’s hard to tell when it’s so windy. It’s two buses from my place to the huge medical center, and I almost fell asleep in the second one.

The one-block walk from the stop to home wakes me up, but my muscles feel stuporous and heavy and my eyes are gritty—from the wind and from the crying I didn’t do, probably.

More good tears than sad ones, though.

My brain is worked up, however, buzzing, from the session with Evan. From our lunch in the courtyard.

What he said.