A few minutes later, something warm settled over my legs.
I opened them.
Alan was walking away.
He had put a blanket over me.
“Thank you.”
He sat at the opposite end of the couch.
Television off.
No music.
Just us.
I looked at the space between us.
“You’re a good kid, you know that?”
His eyes stayed on the floor.
His fingers went still.
I’d learned enough by then to know I’d said too much.
So I added, lightly, “Terrible taste in breakfast food, though.”
He looked up.
I pointed toward the freezer.
“Blueberry waffles every day? Suspicious.”
His mouth twitched.
And just like that, the pressure left the room.
That was another thing Alan taught me.
Love did not always need to announce itself.
Sometimes love was knowing when to stop talking.
The moment I truly understood what he had become to me happened during my first winter with him.
I got sick.
Not dangerously sick.
The flu.
But the kind that hits so hard you wake in the middle of the night unsure what day it is.
I remember opening my eyes at around two in the morning.
My body ached.
My sheets were damp with sweat.
The room tilted when I tried to sit up.
For reasons I still can’t completely explain, fear rushed through me.
Maybe because I lived alone for so long.
Maybe because illness strips adulthood away faster than we like to admit.
I remember thinking:
There’s nobody here.
Then I saw the glass of water.
It sat on my nightstand.
Beside it were two fever tablets.
And the digital thermometer from the bathroom cabinet.
I stared at them.
My bedroom door was open.
Alan stood in the hallway.
His hair was messy.
He wore an old T-shirt and pajama pants.
“You did this?”
Two taps against the doorframe.
I swallowed.
“How did you know?”
He lifted his shoulders slightly.
Of course.
He noticed everything.
I took the medicine.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t move.
“I’m okay.”
One tap.
No.
I almost laughed.
“I will be okay.”
He remained in the doorway.
