The Sinner

I snorted a laugh; my dork game was strong, but the dream clung to me, whispering possibilities.

Impossibilities, I insisted. He’s a demon and I’m…

I didn’t know what I was. Someone who was holding a tiny flickering candle in a vast, dark cavern—I could see only bits and pieces, but the darkness hinted at something so much larger and deeper. My aching sense of loss. My endless search for love in books.

Scientists search for the truth but what if the truth was too incredible to believe?

The office was a bustling hive of activity. Before nine, I had a pile of papers on my desk, logistics to be worked out. Guy Baker came by with a manifest for his upcoming trip to Sri Lanka. His smile was as warm as ever, but he didn’t linger to chat. It was as if his drunken serenade hadn’t happened.

He probably wishes it hadn’t.

Jana leaned over from her cubicle after he’d left. “What are you doing for lunch?”

I nudged the Macy’s bag at my foot. “Returning this dress and getting a new one. As per Ms. Taylor’s orders.”

Jana pursed her lips. “Want some company?”

“Um…sure. If you want.”

“I want.”

At noon, we headed to the department store, but Jana steered me into a Greek deli on the way.

“Let’s eat first,” Jana said. “I’m starved, as usual. Don’t believe them when they say you can eat whatever you want while breastfeeding and not gain weight. Lies, all lies.”

I managed a smile and waited for the anxiety to grip my stomach. The kind that usually came at the prospect of sitting in front of someone—eating in front of someone—and having to barrel through a conversation without making a fool of myself.

But instead of a squeezing fist, the anxiety was a pinch. I’d survived dinner with Guy and Abby, and I supposed having a demon as an on-again off-again roommate had a way of making lunch with a coworker look like child’s play.

We ordered our food at the counter, the deli smelling of freshly baked phyllo—the owner made his own right there on site—and took our number to a table near a window.

“So,” Jana said, her blue gaze direct but warm. “We’ve worked together for two years, and this is the first time we’ve hung out, Abby’s makeover notwithstanding.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I’m just as guilty—”

“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’ve asked me to lunch or coffee a bunch of times, but I’ve been too shy to say yes.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you said yes. But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or self-conscious for being shy. Or is it introverted? Or both? I don’t know that there’s a difference.”

“There is,” I said. “Introverted people don’t hate socializing but draw more energy from being alone. I used to be able to go to parties and talk and have fun, but they’d leave me mentally exhausted.”

A waiter brought our food and departed.

“And shy?” Jana said, taking a bite of one of the dolmas we ordered to share.

“Shy is more like fear. Or self-consciousness. It comes from…” Demons. “Negative self-talk, I guess. I’ve made peace with my introversion, but the shyness has been isolating.”

I poked at my salad and years of that isolation were suddenly right in front of me, so I could feel every second of it.

“Sometimes the loneliness is so much, and the silence is so loud, I read romance novels until my head aches, and I think until it feels like I’m drilling into myself. Like excavation. As if I’m mining for memories I don’t have, certain that there is more to me than this. There has to be. But I can’t find it. Whatever it is, it’s always out of reach. I drop a stone into the well of my heart and I keep listening for it to hit something real. But it never does.”

I blinked out of my thoughts to see Jana watching me, her jaw slack.

“Oh my God, sorry,” I said, my cheeks heating. “I don’t know where that came from. I just…dumped all that in your lap.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s really okay. That’s real talk, Luce, not bullshit chitchat, which I hate. I’m sort of honored that you said that to me. I get the impression maybe you needed to get it out.”