Kat’s an adult. She’ll be fine. But if I have to see the disappointment on her face when she wakes up, if I have to see pity, I’m not sure I can take it.
I get dressed. I run a comb through my hair, not that it does anything. I order an Uber since my truck’s still at the bar, brush my teeth, pour my coffee into a travel mug. I write her a quick note. I get my phone and my wallet and I’m almost free, one hand on the doorknob, when there’s a rustle behind me.
“Silas?” she says, my name slurred with sleep.
I stop. I could run, but she’d come after me. I stare at the paint on the door in front of my eyes, because I can’t turn around and look at her.
“Are you—” she says, and then stops short. I can hear more rustling.
“Coffee table,” I tell the door. “Next to the cat, I think.”
A brief pause.
“Uh, hi,” she says. “Can I have those? Thanks.” She clears her throat. “Are you going? Why are you staring at the door?”
For now, she sounds more confused than angry.
“Yeah. Sorry. I’ve gotta be somewhere. I left a note.”
“This just says I’m leaving,” Kat says, after a moment.
“It’s not a lie.”
“Wait,” she says, and fabric whispers and rustles, the sound of her standing. I wonder if her thigh is still red where I slept on her. I wonder if she hates me for it.
“What?” I ask. I close my eyes even though I feel like I’m drowning in panic and self-revulsion and the fear borne of those two things and of the fact that after all these years, after all the therapy and treatment and support groups and meditation and self-help, I still feel this way.
Now she’s walking toward me. Stopping a few feet away. I don’t turn around. I can’t see her see me like this.
“Are you at least okay?” she finally asks, bewildered.
The flood churns around me, tentacles flailing, but I’ve been here before. I know this monster. I know it well enough to hold it back for the next few minutes and take a breath and make myself sound as if I haven’t got a care in the world, like I’ve practiced again and again.
“Of course I’m fine,” I say, like I’m about to start laughing. I smile at the door. “Never better.”
“You got hit in the face and slept on the couch,” she says.
“Happens,” I tell her.
“Silas,” she says.
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out."
“Silas.”
“What?”
“Turn around.”
I don’t.
“Please?”
I’m fucked if I do and fucked if I don’t, so I do.
Kat’s standing there, arms over her chest, hair wild. She’s wearing my t-shirt and it’s too big on her, off-center, half her collarbone exposed. She’s got pink lines on the side of her face and the moment she sees me, her eyebrows go up.
“You look like shit,” she says, not gently. “Do you want some ice or—”