to his bare shoulder, his body heat rising toward me; the sound of his breathing as he waited for me to finish looking; his muscles and his smooth skin and his living presence right there, so close, all that energy and movement contained so quietly just inches away.
How had I not suspected something like this? Of course he had a past I knew nothing about. Of course he was full of contradictions. Of course his life contained layers and layers of history. Wasn’t that true of everyone?
“I should have died,” Duncan said, when I stood back up. “That’s what everybody said. They all thought I was going to. I even thought I had died for a little while there.”
I stood back up so I could meet his eyes. “I’m glad you didn’t die,” I said.
“Me, too,” he said. “Most of the time.”
“What happened?”
But Duncan shook his head. “I never talk about that.”
“Never? To anyone?”
“Nope. Can’t. Not even on all these drugs that cause aphrodisia.”
“Amnesia?”
“Yeah. That sounds more like it.”
He was still sitting on the side of the bed, feet apart, and I was standing between them. He was still shirtless, and now, I really noticed that for the first time.
There he was. Shirtless.
I took in the sight of him—starting up high, at the dip above his collarbones and the square bulk of his shoulders, and then descending down, and to the side, where everything disintegrated into chaos.
I met his eyes again. What could I say? What was there to say? My voice, when it came, was saturated with emotion. “I wish I could make it better,” I said, at last.
Duncan’s eyes were steady and fixed on me. And then, deliberately, without breaking the gaze, he put a hand on each of my hips and pulled me toward him.
I stepped between his knees to get closer. He clasped his arms around me and leaned in to rest his head against me as he held on. I rubbed his shoulder with one hand and let the other hand stroke his hair. The buzz cut on the back of his head felt velvety on the skin of my palms.
Why not? We’d forget it all by morning, anyway.
After a few minutes, he said, “I thought this would make it better, but I think maybe it’s just making it worse.”
“You’re okay, you know,” I said.
“Am I?” he said, sounding like his eyes were closed. “I’m not sure that’s right.”
“You need to lie down and rest.”
“Fair enough,” he said, but he didn’t let go.
I didn’t let go, either.
The weight of his arms felt steadying, and comforting, and I let myself just stand there and enjoy it.
This moment would change everything.
I didn’t know how, exactly, but I knew it would.
When his breathing started to get steady, like he might be dozing off against me, I laid him back on his bed and pulled a blanket up over him. His eyes were closed as he relaxed back onto the pillow. I couldn’t help it: I stood there a minute longer and stroked his hair.
But it was okay. He was already asleep.
* * *
I pulled his bedroom door mostly closed and then went to root around in his kitchen to make sure he’d have some food when the time came for the next round of painkillers. I checked the time and reread the discharge instructions. I’d have to wake him later for a pill to stay ahead of the pain, and he’d need to eat before he took it.
I found a can of soup in the pantry, set it by the stove, and then I half-snooped around his apartment, both scolding myself and justifying my behavior at the same time.
The scars had thrown me, that was for sure.
The sheer size of them. The unfaded, saturated color of them. The anger.
I walked around his apartment, just trying to let it all sink in.
This was why he was so obsessed with safety. This was how he could call our sweet, sunny school a nightmare. He’d seen the worst-case scenario.
He’d lived it.
There was a collection of little succulents on his kitchen windowsill that looked like they were dying, and I found myself wondering how it was possible to kill succulents.
Just then, his phone rang.
I wasn’t going to answer it—but then it kept ringing. I found it on his bedside table, and as I was pressing buttons to silence the ring, I saw it was Helen.