Silence
It's sitting on the pool table, printed out in stark black and white.
(Did you leave it there by accident? Or did you just not want to tell her about it yourself, so you let the paper do the dirty work for you? You're not sure, though you think it's probably more of the latter.)
And when she sees it, she's livid. Furious. Her face turns shades of red, white, and mottled purple that you've never seen before—ever—and you're pretty sure the shriek could be heard by everyone in the building. You're just glad that you weren't the cause of her wrath this time.
"He emailed you!"
Wow, that's loud.
"He didn't even have the courtesy to tell you in person!"
That's what she's concerned about?
"Forget telling you in person; he still expects you to go!"
Ah, there it is.
"And you're still leaving the day after graduation!"
She's pacing, roaming, covering the apartment in fewer steps than seem possible for her legs, back and forth, opening and closing cupboard doors, slamming, stomping. You'd almost think that she was throwing a tantrum, except that this isn't selfish petulance; this is her righteous indignation, and you're so numb that you can't react. She's channeling the anger for both of you, allowing you to be still, frozen, watching her.
The paper is clutched in her hand so tightly that it's wrinkled, the edges grimy with fingers and sweat and a tight grip.
"You almost died! How can he still expect you to go? Does he think that you're fully recovered? That you're ready to travel?"
You can't say anything—nothing will make this any better. You won't placate her; hell, you won't placate yourself. You want to scream and yell, but you've used up your quota for railing at God about the unfairness of life, and you just don't have the energy to get so angry. Not yet, anyway. It'll come—you have no doubt of that, but right now, you're tired.
The email hit you like a punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of you, threatening to undo all the progress that's been made. It undermines your hesitantly persistent movement towards her and her tentative steps towards you, nullifies the time and effort and tears and laughter that you've put into your relationship over the past weeks, cheapens the cost of making things right. All that can be undone by one simple email, a few simple words, an electronic transmission sent from one server to another.
It's not like you to feel this defeated, but you're almost tempted to quit going to physical therapy, to re-break your leg, to stab your own lung, anything. You can't go—you can't leave now.
You're healing, not just physically, and you don't want to stretch the tenuous thread between you so thin that it snaps.
(You stare out the window, looking across the tops of the buildings next to yours, and feel like you're already halfway up in the air, already flying, already half gone.)
Finally, her pace slows, her steps dragging, her rigid posture softening—she reminds you, almost comically, of a wind-up toy slowing to a halt—and she nearly collapses against the table, doubled over at the waist, face in her hands, elbows resting on the edge.
You push yourself up from where you're standing staring out the window, bracing one hand on your crutch and the other on the wooden windowsill until you're in an upright position again, straightening slowly until you're balanced enough that you'll be able to move to her without toppling over. (And you hobble, one lame leg in front of the other, holding your body up on pieces of wood instead of your own flesh and bones.) But she stands, straightens, wipes her eyes, moves like a blur again.
Not an angry blur this time; not a bundle of fury in a black skirt and blue top. This time, she's running from herself, running in that distinct pattern that you've seen too many times, gathering books and papers and organizing things by moving them from one flat surface to another, from one section of the apartment to another; doing silly, pointless chores like filling the ice cube trays and making sure there are extra rolls of toilet paper under the sink.
You're jealous.
You want to run like that; you want to try and forget everything, to move faster than the impending storm, to escape intact. And though you know that she can't run for long, that her body will slow down and she'll go to sleep and somewhere, sometime, she'll be caught, you want to run. You want to escape. You've been running from this your entire life, and now—in the home stretch, when you need to sprint, to feel the muscles in your legs burn and your lungs ache as you draw in oxygen, when you need the last bit of power, of energy to carry you through—now your body betrays you.
You're still standing, too long in one spot, and your joints settle into themselves, sinking and weighing down on you, locking into a position that you don't want them to be in. This is what it must feel like to get old. You're just feeling the accelerated version, and, with any luck, you'll feel yourself pull out of it and return to being yourself, but when you do start to age, you'll know it. You'll feel it subtly encroaching on your life long before you want to.
You need to move—your knee is getting stiffer by the second and your hips feel creaky—and you hobble to the couch, lowering yourself slowly, breathing a sigh of relief as you settle into the cushions and prop your cast up on the coffee table.
Your eyes drift shut to the sounds of her scurrying around the apartment, broken by an occasional sniffle, a few expletives, and enough banging to make you worry for the safety of all your belongings. You don't think you fell asleep (who ever realizes it, though?), but when you open your eyes again, the room is silent, and you look over to see her curled up into a tight ball on the other end of the couch, her eyes closed, her face still slightly red, dried tracks tracing down her cheeks, a road map of all the tears she's cried for you.
You pull her into you, tugging gently on her shoulders as she shifts in her restless, fitful sleep so that she falls into you, the weight of her body knocking you back against the back of the couch, and you gasp slightly, not ready for the impact. She turns, burrowing her head into your chest, and you wrap your arms around her, resting your cheek on her hair.
"I hate him," she mumbles.
(She's awake?)
"I know," you reply, your fingers idly tracing patterns down her arms, your fingers lacing with hers then moving back up again, in constant motion, reading her like a Braille book.
"You can't go to London—not now. Can't he at least give you until the end of the summer? You need to get better."
Her hand snakes around your neck and cups your face, her fingers tracing the scars that she now knows by heart. Sometimes, you could swear that she has healing powers in her touch, because it seems that every time she runs a hand over your scars and your scabs, they heal a little more quickly.
"I know," you repeat, at a loss for anything else to say. And since there's nothing else that will make it better, you pull her in closer, hold her a little tighter, and feel her tears soak through your t-shirt, warm on your chest.
(Later, when you both wake up again, her hair is damp and your cheeks are warm, and there's a drop of water clinging to your lower lashes. How did that get there?)