Chapter 11
They sat in the living room for two hours.
I heard fragments through my headphones. Easy laughter. Shared references. The familiar cadence of people with history.
At one point, she made coffee for him.
When he left, I took off my headphones and pretended to be deeply invested in an article I wasn’t reading.
Chloe stood in the middle of the living room for a moment, then went to the kitchen and turned on the sink.
She stood there longer than anyone ever needs to stand at a sink.
“Old boyfriend?” I asked finally.
“Four years ago,” she said, turning off the tap. “He’s in town for a month. Thought he’d say hi.”
“Seemed nice.”
She leaned against the counter. “He is nice. He’s always been nice.”
Then, after a pause, “Don’t read into this.”
“I’m not reading into anything.”
“You have a face again.”
“I genuinely cannot help my face, Chloe.”
She stared at me for a long second, then went into her room and closed the door. Not a slam. A deliberate close.
I had learned enough of her language to understand what that meant.
I need to process. I’ll come back when I can.
Marcus called that night, which tracked. He had a supernatural gift for calling exactly when something was going wrong.
“Felix is nothing,” I said by way of greeting.
“Who’s Felix?”
“Never mind.”
“There’s a Felix?”
“Go away, Marcus.”
“You called me.”
“Technically, yes.”
I told him what happened. He listened without interrupting, which was unusual.
When I finished, he said, “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“She canceled other plans to be home when he came over.”
“They met here because she lives here.”
“She made him coffee.”
“People make coffee.”
“She made you soup. From scratch. After teaching herself how.”
I didn’t answer.
Marcus waited.
“What does soup mean in her language?” he asked.
I still didn’t answer.
Because we both knew I knew.
Felix came back on Tuesday.
I know because Chloe mentioned it that morning in that overly casual way people use when they are definitely thinking about something more than they want to admit.
“He’s got a gallery opening near downtown tonight,” she said. “Do you know if the transit connection over there is decent?”
I gave her directions. She thanked me. We had breakfast separately.
Then I spent all of Tuesday not thinking about it.
I failed spectacularly.
At two in the afternoon, I got a text from Dana.
She was texting me from Chloe’s phone thread, which meant Chloe had given her my number. I tried not to think too hard about that either.
The text said:
She doesn’t want to go tonight, just FYI.
I stared at it.
Then I typed back:
Then why is she going?
Because she doesn’t know she has a reason not to.
I read that sentence four times.
Then I stood up, grabbed my jacket, and went to the corner store.
I bought the expensive coffee—the one Chloe had once pointed at and called pretentious in a tone that clearly meant I want that.
Then I bought a lemon cake from the bakery next door, because I had once seen her try the gas-station version and make a face like the universe had personally disappointed her.
I got home before she did.
Made the coffee.
Cut the cake.
Waited.