Chapter 20: After

Ten minutes.

I have been counting because counting is what I do now. Ten minutes since he pressed his forehead to mine. Ten minutes since his hand was on my jaw. Ten minutes since I thought the single syllable oh and meant it with my entire chest.

Neither of us has moved.

His forehead is still against mine. His hand is still on my jaw. His thumb is still on my cheekbone, and I have been breathing the same air as him for ten minutes, and the air in the small room is warm, and the small room is very small, and the small room has become, in the last ten minutes, the entire world.

I am aware, in a way, I have not been aware of a thing in a long time, of the exact placement of his hand. The pad of his thumb on the bone is just below my eye. The way his fingers sit along the line of my jaw, not pressing, just there, just held. The way his palm is warm against the side of my face. The way his wrist is steady. The way his hand does not shake. The way his hand, which is a surgeon's hand, which is a hand that has been in ten thousand chests and ten thousand abdomens, is being completely still on my face, and is the most still it has ever been.

His breathing is the loudest sound in the room. He is breathing slowly. On purpose. The way a man breathes when he has been holding his breath for a long time and is finally, finally being allowed to let it out. I can feel the rise and fall of his chest, even though we are not touching anywhere except his forehead and his hand. I can feel the small, slow wave of him. I can feel the small, slow wave of him being a person.

I do not want to move.

I want to be a person who is not moving for the rest of my life. I want to stand in this small PT room in Silverlake with this man's forehead against mine and his hand on my face and his breathing in my chest until I forget I was ever a person who was not this. Until I forget I was ever a person who had been on the 405 in a Honda Civic, or who had been in a recovery room saying I take my coffee like I take my men, or who had been a person who had a tan line and a sticky note and a small private vocabulary that no one in the world knew about except the two of us.

I want to be this. Just this. Just a forehead. Just a hand. Just ten minutes of breathing.

Okay, I whisper.

It is the first word either of us has said in ten minutes. It is the smallest word in the world. It is a word that does not mean anything. It is a word that means everything. It means I am here. It means I have been here. It means please do not stop.

He breathes out. Long. Slow. The kind of breath that is half a sigh and half a confession. The kind of breath a man breathes when he has been holding something in his chest for six weeks and has finally, finally, been allowed to set it down.

I say it again because he has not moved, and I need to know that we are still in the same conversation.

Okay.

He pulls back.

He pulls back an inch. Just an inch. Just enough that he can see my face, and I can see his. His hand is still on my jaw. His thumb is still on my cheekbone. He is looking at me the way a man looks at a thing he is not sure is real. The way a man looks at a thing he has been imagining for two weeks and has now, suddenly, been given, and is afraid of, and is not going to let go of, and is not going to name, and is going to keep.

His eyes are dark. Tired. Honest. The kind of honest that is not a thing a man does on purpose. The kind of honest that is just a face that has stopped being able to lie.

We need to talk, he says.

About what?

He does not move. He does not blink. He looks at me for another long second, the kind of long second that has six weeks in it, that has a foam heart in it, that has an umbrella in it, that has a sticky note in it, that has a bowl of soup in it, that has a small handwritten check on her birthday in it, that has a doorbell at three fifteen a.m. in it.

About the fact that I just quit my job for you.

What? You did not quit your job.

I quit you as a patient. There is a difference.

He says it like a man who is aware of the difference. He says it like a man who is aware of every difference there is because he has been counting them the way I have been counting them for six weeks.

He steps back fully now. His hand falls from my face. The cold air of the small room rushes in where his hand had been, and I have to stop myself from reaching for it, from putting my hand where his hand had been, from holding the warm spot for as long as I can.

He runs a hand through his hair. The dark hair I have been thinking about. The dark hair that was slightly damp the night he came to my apartment. The dark hair that is, right now, in the small PT room, sticking up in four different directions because he has been running his hands through it for two weeks. He runs his hand through it again. He looks wrecked. He looks like a man who has been awake for fourteen days and is now, finally, in a position where he can stop being awake for fourteen days and does not know how.

Emma. He says my name. He says it the way he has been saying it. The way that is the whole conversation. The way that has the sticky notes in it, and the foam heart, and the eleven forty-seven p.m. text. If I stay with your doctor, I will keep lying to myself. I will keep finding excuses to be in rooms with you. I will keep touching your knee and pretending it does not feel like this.

Like what?

He looks at me.

Like I want to keep going.

The room is silent. The room is the quietest room I have ever been in. The room is so quiet I can hear the clock. I can hear the parking lot. I can hear his breathing. I can hear the small hum of the building. I can hear the small sound of my own heart, which is a sound I have been hearing for six weeks, and which is, right now, the loudest sound in the world.

He steps toward me again. Just one step. He stops. He is one foot away. He is the same distance he was before he pulled back. He has put himself back into the exact position. The position where his hand was on my face. The position where he is too close and not close enough.

Like this, he says, very quietly. Like this. The way I just stood in this room and touched your face for ten minutes. The way I did not want to stop. The way I did not want to do anything but stand here. The way I have not wanted to do anything but stand near you for six weeks. The way I drove across Los Angeles on a Friday night in jeans because I could not sleep. The way I had a coffee delivered to a room in a paper cup with a foam heart because a woman who was high on morphine told me she liked her coffee sweet. The way I have not been able to stop thinking about you. The way I have not been able to stop looking at you. The way I have not been able to stop wanting to touch the small scar on your knee. The way I have not been able to stop wanting to say your name. The way I have not been able to stop wanting to stand in a room with you and not be your doctor and not be a professional and not be the man who is supposed to keep his hands to himself.

He stops. He is breathing hard. He is the man who was in my kitchen five days ago, except he is not in my kitchen. He is here. In a small room. With his hands at his sides and his face honest and his voice at the bottom of his chest.

I am done lying about it, he says.

I am standing one foot away from a man who has just told me he is done lying. I am standing one foot away from a man who has just told me he has not been able to stop. I am standing one foot away from a man whose hand was on my face for ten minutes, and whose forehead was on my forehead, and whose breath was in my breath, and who is now looking at me with a face that is not hiding anything, and I am a woman who has been wanting this for six weeks, and I do not have a single thing to say.

I have nothing to say. I have run out of words. I have used up every word I had. I have used okay and don't and why are you doing this and why are you here and pick something, and I do not have another one, and I do not need another one, because the only word that would be true right now is his name, and I am not going to say it, because I have said his name so many times in the last ten minutes that I have worn it out.

I am not going to say it.

He is going to have to do this.

He is going to have to pick the next thing.

I am going to stand here, one foot away, in this small room, in this small moment, and I am going to wait for him to pick the next thing.

He looks at me.

He looks at me for a long time.

I do not know what he is going to do.

I have no idea what he is going to do.

He looks like a man who has been awake for fourteen days.

He looks like a man who has been awake for three years.

To be continued...