by Noelle Adams
My hair was in two long braids, which I’d done for the hike and never bothered to take out. I wore yoga pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, which was basically my uniform lately.
I pushed the thought away, figuring Gideon had seen me at my absolute worst and wouldn’t care that I hadn’t made an effort to dress better.
“How was work?” I asked him, getting excited again about my meal as I tore a few fresh basil leaves and sprinkled them into the pan just before I plated up the chicken.
Gideon was getting out glasses from the cabinet. “It was fine. I brought some wine, if you want any.”
I hesitated just a moment but then nodded my assent. As I scooped the orzo out onto the plates, I saw him take a box from the bag and then a bottle of Chardonnay. “What’s in the box?” I asked, trying not to get distracted from plating the food by my curiosity.
“Oh. Dessert.” He uncorked and poured the wine as I carried the plates to the table.
Once that was accomplished, I ran back over the counter to peek in the box. Two big cupcakes—one chocolate and one red velvet. I clapped my hands over this discovery.
Gideon laughed at my reaction, but there was something atypical about it. Like he was only halfway thinking about what we were doing.
I watched him discreetly as we started eating, and my sense of his mood was only confirmed. There were shadows under his eyes I wasn’t used to seeing.
“Did you sleep all right?” I asked out of the blue.
He blinked at the sudden question. “Yeah. Of course.”
I started to ask a follow-up question, but he interrupted me by getting up and pouring himself a glass of water.
He asked me about my day, and I told him about my hike and the book I’d read and how I’d had to look all over the store because they’d put the pita bread in the most ridiculous place. He smiled and commented in the right places, but it didn’t feel like he was genuinely listening.
The food was really good, and he said so after his first bite. But it didn’t look like he truly enjoyed it. He didn’t even finish his first plate, which was very strange since he usually went back for seconds—even when I just warmed up canned soup.
Finally, when he was sipping his second glass of wine and staring blindly at the table, I asked, “Gideon, what’s wrong?”
He looked up immediately, and I saw him straighten his shoulders. “Nothing. Nothing is wrong.”
“Well, obviously something’s wrong. I’m not an idiot.”
“I never said or implied you’re an idiot. You’re the one who won’t believe what I’m telling you.” His tone was actually rather terse.
I stared at him in surprise.
I’d seen him annoyed and even angry before, of course, but it was always prompted by something I’d said or done. I searched through my memory of everything that had happened since he’d gotten here, and I couldn’t think of a single thing I might have done to prompt his bad mood.
“Sorry,” he said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his forehead.
“Gideon, can you please tell me what’s wrong with you?”
“I said nothing’s wrong. It’s just been a long day. Will you stop pestering me about it?”
I jerked back in response to the biting tone. He’d never spoken to me that way before in all the time I’d known him.
Swallowing down my immediate hurt feelings, I stood up and gestured toward the pan on the stove. “Do you want any more?”
“No. No, thank you.”
“Do you want the cupcakes now?”
“I don’t think so. You can have yours, though, if you want.”
I was completely at a loss. “Okay. We can go and find a game to watch, if you want.” I let him watch sports when I didn’t care what was on or when I was trying to be nice. This time it was because I was trying to be nice.
“It’s fine. You can watch what you want.” He was rubbing his forehead again.
“Do you have a headache?”
His head snapped up. “No.” Even the one word sounded bad-tempered.
I carried the plates to the sink and stood there with my back to him for a minute, trying to figure out what to do and trying not to be annoyed and offended.
When I turned back around, he was fiddling with one of the buttons on his cuff. He looked so tired and wounded somehow that I felt the sudden urge to cradle him.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked softly.
He started to shake his head. I’m sure I saw it. But then his expression changed and he asked, rather coolly, “About what? I keep telling you that nothing’s wrong. It’s just been a long day and I’m kind of tired.”
“Okay. It’s fine if you’d rather just head home early. You don’t have to hang out here with me.”
He usually stayed for at least a couple of hours after dinner, so I really didn’t expect him to take me up on the offer. But he stood up with a stretch that looked somehow artificial. “Maybe I will. Sorry I’m not any fun tonight.”
“It’s fine. Are you all right to drive home?”
“Of course. I didn’t have that much to drink.”
He’d only had one glass of wine and a few sips of a second, but that wasn’t what I was referring to. He just looked so tired—and stretched somehow.
“Thanks for dinner,” he added, in a modified tone. “It was really good.”
I walked with him to the door, feeling confused and frustrated and a little hurt. He thanked me again and said goodnight, and then he just walked to his car and drove away.
And I still had absolutely no idea what had happened to the evening.
All of my good spirits from earlier in the day dropped away like a mask. I gave a heavy sigh and trudged back to the kitchen, trying not to feel sorry for myself or angry at Gideon.
People had bad moods sometimes. Everyone did. He was allowed to have a bad mood occasionally without my making a huge deal about it. He’d put up with a lot worse from me.
As I cleaned up the dishes, I tried to figure it out. He’d been so sweet and warm at the restaurant last night. What the hell had happened overnight to change him?
I knew I should just drop it and not let it worry me. He’d tell me if there was anything important and, if not, it was probably just a passing mood.
But my mind just didn’t work that way. It was whirling, trying to figure it out, trying to come up with answers and motives and explanations.
I did come up with something.
I kept thinking about how flustered I’d been last night and the way I’d responded when he’d hugged me. It was just innocent affection, but maybe he thought I was thinking there was more. Maybe he was worried that I thought our friendship would turn into something deeper.
I didn’t. I absolutely knew it couldn’t. But maybe he didn’t know that. Maybe he felt awkward and was pulling back. Maybe he was uncomfortable with things, but didn’t want to hurt my feelings.
Maybe he didn’t want to spend every Friday night with me.
Maybe he thought I was getting better enough that he didn’t have to nurse me through every little episode, and now he didn’t want to be tied down by all of my issues.
Maybe he was getting tired of me.
It made sense. A lot of sense. It fit all the pieces I’d collected in my mind.
And it was horrible. It hurt horribly. It hurt so much I almost cried, standing over the sink, trying to scrub out the last dirty pan.
I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and tried to imagine what my life would be without Gideon.
It felt like a gaping hole.
I made myself face it, though. There were some demons I still couldn’t face, but this one I could. I would have to. He needed to live his life, and he couldn’t always be hampered by one damaged soul he’d taken it on himself to save.
There were actually tears streaming down my face as I picked up the bag he’d brought with him earlier.
That was strange, though. He’d brought wine and cupc
akes. He didn’t normally do that. It was an extra gesture, and I didn’t know why he would have done so if he was trying to pull away.
I glanced in the bag and noticed there was a receipt in it, so I pulled it out unthinkingly.
My eyebrows shot up when I saw how much he’d paid for the wine and cupcakes. Both items had been crazy expensive—especially for just a casual dinner with me.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the amount he’d spent and fit this into the explanation I’d concocted when I noticed the time on the receipt.
He’d bought them at 1:09 that afternoon, so he must have stopped by the store on his lunch break.
I couldn’t make all of that fit into my earlier interpretation of the evening. Even if he was trying to soften the blow and let me down easy, he would have actually said something tonight. If he just wanted to pull away but didn’t want to say anything, he wouldn’t have used his lunch break to go buy exorbitant wine and cupcakes for tonight.
So something must have happened between lunch and the time he got here. He was expecting a normal, friendly evening and even made an effort to be extra nice. And then something had happened.
It couldn’t be connected to me, if that was the case. I just didn’t see how that was possible. But something else...with work or his family or something.
I worried about it for another half-hour, until I started to work myself up into a panic. When I started to sweat and get chills at the same time, I knew I had to do something.
I knew rationally that every minor thing that went wrong in the world didn’t necessarily imply a trauma, but my mind still functioned that way. In this case, the only way to deal with it was ask.
I stared at my phone for a minute. It had been an hour, so he should be home by now, unless he’d stopped somewhere. I started to call but changed my mind. I tapped out a text instead.
Then I changed my mind and deleted it. Then started over. I reworded it four times before I finally hit send.
I’m sorry to keep asking, but I’m getting really worried about it now. Are you sure everything is all right?
I waited, my heart racing ridiculously. I wondered if I’d ever get back to the point where minor things didn’t feel like such a big deal to me.
I waited for a chirped reply for two minutes. Nothing.
I waited five more minutes. Still nothing.
I made myself get up and get ready for bed, even though it was a little early. I could watch a movie or something in bed, and maybe that would distract me.
I was just pulling on my pajamas when my phone rang with a call.
I jumped and fumbled as I checked the screen and connected the call. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey. I’m really sorry, Diana. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks for calling. I’m really glad you called.”
“You sound upset.”
“I’m not...I mean, it’s no big deal.” I felt like an absolute fool, so I just told him the truth. “You know how I get sometimes. I get all worked up over nothing. I was just getting all anxious about what might have happened today to...to....”
“To make me act like such an ass.”
“No! No. Just I could tell something was really bothering you, and you wouldn’t tell me what it was.”
“I know. I’m really sorry.”
I hesitated, not sure whether he was going to tell me now. When he didn’t say anything more, I asked, “Were you still driving?”
“No. I was in the shower and didn’t hear the text.”
“Oh. I was just getting in bed. You should go to bed early too.”
“I am.”
I heard him moving around and thought maybe he was actually getting in bed like I was. He let out a long sigh that was almost a groan.
“I’m sorry I ruined dinner,” he said at last, his voice slightly hoarse. “Especially after you’d taken all the time and effort to make it.”
“I don’t care about that, Gideon. But can’t you please tell me what happened today? Was it work?”
“Yeah,” he said after a long pause. “It was just a really bad day.”
I rolled over on my side and positioned the phone more comfortably. “Can you tell me what happened?” He didn’t answer right away, so I added, “I don’t need details. I just want to know what you’re going through.”
There was a longer pause, and I could somehow tell he was working himself up to telling me, working through whatever was holding him back. “It was just...” he began at last. Then started again, “It was a crime scene. It was part of one of the cases I’m working on, so I went to visit it this afternoon.”
“It was bad?”
“Yeah. It was bad. It was children.”
“Oh. Oh, God.”
“It was...It’s always worse when they’re kids and this was... really bad.”
I could hear the ache in his voice, and it made me ache too. “What happened?”
“I’m not going to put those pictures in your head, Diana. If I told you, you’d see it, and I’m not going to do that to you.”
“But you had to see it.”
“Yeah. You get detached to a certain extent when you do this long enough, but I don’t know how anyone detaches from that. When I close my eyes, I still see it.”
I knew all about how the pictures, the memories, the demons came when you closed your eyes. “I’m really sorry, Gideon. I’m really sorry.” I was feeling so much for him that my voice broke.
I heard him sigh. “Now you’re upset too, and I didn’t want to do that.”
“No. I mean, I feel bad for you, but I’m glad you told me. I don’t want you to have to keep things from me.”
“I know. But I don’t want to bring anything else dark into your life, even indirectly.”
I took a moment to think so I could articulate the next thing clearly and gently. “I can understand that, and I appreciate the feeling. But it actually hurts me more to be closed out, to be treated like I’m not an adult who can handle things that come up in life. I know I’m having trouble with...I mean, I know I’ve got wounds that are still open, but I think I’m doing better.”
“You are doing better. I don’t know how you do as well as you do.”
I thought that must be an exaggeration, but it was nice of him to say. I didn’t let it distract me from my main point, though. “You don’t have to tell me every ugly detail of your job, but if something really hurts you, if something really gets to you the way it did today, then I hope you’ll tell me. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help, but at least I can be there, the way you’ve been for me.”
It took a while before he answered, and I didn’t know what he was doing or thinking or working through on the other end of the line. But he finally said gruffly, “Yeah. Yeah.”
I was pretty sure that meant that he understood and that he would try, which made me feel better. He still felt bad, though, and I didn’t know what I should say to make him feel better.
When I was in bad shape, it sometimes helped when I could think about something else, something more normal. So I said in a different tone, “I was just about to watch this British comedy.”
“Which one?” he asked, sounding more like himself.
So we turned to the same movie and chatted casually, and after a while I was convinced he was starting to feel better, which made me feel better too.
When there was silence on the phone for about five minutes, I asked, “Are you asleep?”
“No. I thought maybe you were.”
“No. Not yet. But I’m getting tired.”
“Me too.”
“We should hang up, so you can get some sleep.”
“Don’t hang up,” he said. “We don’t have to talk. But don’t hang up.”
“Okay.”
We didn’t talk after that. I kept the phone near my ear, and I could occasionally hear him moving around in his bed or breathing. I suppose he heard the same from me.
&
nbsp; We’d done the same thing one other night, when I was in the Center. That time, I’d needed it. This time, it felt like he needed it too.
I eventually dozed off, but I came back to consciousness after not too long. I tried to drag myself awake and figure out what had pulled me out of sleep.
Then I realized I thought I’d heard my name.
I was completely disoriented, but the sound hadn’t scared me for some reason. I listened and heard what sounded like a muffled grunt.
Then I remembered the phone, which was evidently still connected to the call. “Gideon?” I asked softly.
He didn’t respond, so he must have been asleep. I listened and heard him making another sound, maybe a grunt or a mumbled word. There was a rustling noise, like he was rolling around in bed.
He must be dreaming. I listened to see if it was a nightmare. If it was, I’d try to wake him up. But his sounds eventually faded so whatever the dream was must have ended.
People dreamed. Not everyone’s nightmares were traumatic the way mine were. He was probably fine.
I clicked off the phone, since my battery was about to die, and rolled over, trying to go to sleep.
I hoped Gideon was sleeping well and the dreams weren’t disturbing him.
I’d been asleep when I first started to hear him, so I must have just imagined him saying my name.
***
He came over the next day, and we hung out in the afternoon, eating lunch and the cupcakes and then mostly being lazy. He still looked tired, and I was always tired.
I was reading and he was watching sports on TV. We’d been sitting together, with me leaning against him and his arm around me. We’d been sitting like that for a while now, ever since that night he found me on the elliptical, so it felt cozy, natural, really nice.
But it wasn’t the best position for reading, so I kept readjusting. Finally, I must have been annoying Gideon with all my shuffling because he just moved me so that my head was in his lap and my legs were stretched out on the couch.
It was a little weird at first, but this was Gideon so it was fine. I read very happily for a while and then I just fell asleep.
It was a very nice nap. Long enough to feel like I was really sleeping, and I didn’t dream at all. I woke up slowly, stretching myself with leisurely pleasure.