One Bad Day

LaVieEnRose

I don't want to tell this story.

This is not how I want to see him. This is not how I want to see myself.

Damn it.

**

It started on a Friday evening, quarter to five, when Cynthia appeared at my office door with her face already in a wince.

“What,” I said. “What. If this is about the Calabretta mock ups, I am telling you, turn around, turn right the fuck around. Do not give me bad news about this account. Save yourself.”

“Lloyd says he can't get it done.”

“Lloyd is getting fired.”

“You have my unyielding support.”

“These fucking artistic geniuses who think they're too goddamn good for deadlines—” I strode over and took what Cynthia had out of her hands. “Holy shit, this is it? This is all he has done?”

“I know.”

“This is supposed to be in Calabretta's hands on the Upper West in an hour and fifteen goddamn minutes and this is what we have?” I paced the office. “Pack your shit, we're going back to Pittsburgh. We're done.”

“I'll get Calabretta on the phone, I'll tell him Lloyd's pancreas goddamn exploded—”

“Calabretta is a fucking asshole, he probably loves exploding pancreases. Fuck. Okay.” I tucked the file under my arm and grabbed my coat.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“To get an actual goddamn artist.”

Tell Justin I said hi, she signed as I left.

**

I burst into Justin's office just as he was packing up to go. Sit back down, I said.

He whined. No, no weirdness, don't be weird, I had a weird day, now you're being weird, I want to go home.

I plopped the file down on his desk. I need you to fix this.

He opened it up and made some mostly-soundless attempt at a whistle. So I see everything's working out great with Lloyd.

I need this uptown in forty-five minutes. Please. You've got to do something. I'm saying please.

Very noble of you. He opened up his desk drawers and started taking out supplies. Okay. Sit down.

Too anxious for that. I checked the clock and paced his small but nice office instead, looking at the schedule on his bulletin board, the invoices on his desk, the tiny fountain he had out on his balcony that wasn't there before. He had a few sketches on scratch paper sitting on his laptop keyboard, so I leafed through those.

“Briiiian?” he said, without looking up.

“Yes, dear,” I said out loud, because he wasn't looking at me anyway.

He didn't seem to care whether or not I'd answered him. “You're distracting me. I said sit down.”

I wanted to snark at him, but, well, he was doing me a favor, and he wouldn't even see it, so I just grumbled my way over to his window and sat down and leafed through one of his art magazines. I forced myself to stay there for ten minutes, then I got up to check on what he was doing. He glanced up from the paper, an eyebrow raised.

Could it be bolder? I said.

I'm going to go back over the outlines.

No, I mean more... I could have explained it in English, but for some reason I was blanking on the right way to sign it, and Justin looking at me impatiently didn't help. Just...bolder.

He sighed. “Okay.”

I watched him draw for a minute, then tapped the table for his attention. He looked up.

Do you want to see some of our older drafts? I can have Cynthia—

“You know every time I have to stop and talk to you I lose my place, right? If I'm doing something wrong, just say so so I can fix it and get this done.” He stretched his fingers against the back of his other hand.

This is a really important project, that's all.

“So say it.”

Use the orange, I said.

He got back to work, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like, “Was that so hard?” I glared at him.

He had the mock-ups fixed in half an hour, and they were frankly beautiful. I kissed him and said, I've got to go.

Where's the office?

Broadway and 72nd.

Near that pasta place I like?

I don't know, maybe.

He put his coat on. Suddenly I know how you're thanking me for this. I'm coming with you.

I was going to thank you with blow jobs, and you want pasta?

I get blow jobs anyway. I never get pasta I don't have to make myself.

Hard to argue with that logic. Okay, fine, just...hurry.

I'm hurrying!

He's got these short fucking legs, though, and we missed the train I would have gotten if I were sprinting on my own, but there was no way we were finding a cab uptown at this hour. We got on the next train, and Justin was trying to tell me about his stressful day at work, how he did an interpreted call with this gallery in San Francisco and all they did was yell at him and they were being so mean that the interpreter looked like he was going to burst into tears, but all I wanted to do was count out seconds until six on my watch or bitch about my fucking art department.

The goddamn irony of the fact that I'm fucking an artist and I cannot for the life of stock an art department, I said.

I was talking...

Every time I hire someone, they come so fucking recommended, they're great for a month and then something like this happens.

Maybe you weren't clear about what you wanted, Justin signed, all fucking prim.

I looked at him. Excuse me?

Oh, so you can see me.

I rolled my eyes.

I'm just saying, the instructions you gave me weren't all that clear. Maybe Lloyd had the same issue.

'Get this done by six or it's our house and home' was unclear?

'Be more bold?'

We got off the train and Justin stopped me before I went down the block. Jesus, what? I said.

That's the wrong way.

What the fuck? Are you really...are you going to make me dig out the address, is that what you're doing?

I know the address is that way, but if we enter on the Broadway side we have to go in through the garage. The front door's on the other side. I've been to this building, we have a client here.

I made every goddamn effort not to strangle him. Great, then you should know that the garage is on the 72nd Street side, and the entrance is on the Broadway side.

No.

I said, Okay, you know what? Fucking fine. We'll go in the 72nd Street side.

Man, I can't wait to have dinner with you after this. You're being really pleasant.

He didn't have much to say a few minutes later, though, when we'd gone around to the 72nd side and look, tada, the fucking garage. The last thing I was doing was doubling back and walking another block at this point, so I just charged into the garage, Justin at my heels. I thought it would be a straight shot through the garage, which it turned out to not fucking be at all, and before I knew it was completely turned around, and I had to keep pulling Justin out of the way of cars that were coming from twenty different directions.

The file under my arm was getting crumpled. Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it.

I grabbed Justin's hand and yanked him when a car horn blared from somewhere, and he was shaking.

It's okay, I said.

Yeah. But he was starting to sweat at that point, and he wasn't moving as fast as I needed him to, and...God help me, I didn't want him seeing my fucking asshole client like this, and I didn't want my client seeing him.

Stay here, okay? I said. I'm gonna run ahead and find the fucking entrance.

I don't want to be here, he said.

I know, but I'm going to be right back.

He hesitated, bouncing a little on his feet, but finally said, Okay, and I moved him out of the damn flow of traffic and fucking ran. I found the elevator two floors later, made a feeble attempt at fixing my hair, and waltzed into Calabretta's suite looking like someone who's never had a care in his life. He wanted me to have a damn drink with him, which I managed to get out of, but then he roped me into this discussion on my plans for the campaign. I cut it as short as I possibly could, but it was still ten minutes before I was in the elevator on my way back down to the garage and I really started kicking myself. He'd already looked miserable when I left him; there was a chance he was really in the thick of it now, especially when I didn't get back when I said I would. I wasn't even sure he'd still be where I left him, that he wouldn't have made some desperate escape attempt and gotten himself even more lost, or run over by one of these fucking speeding cars.

I still thought we could be okay, though, and I think at that point maybe we could have been. There was no way he was up to sitting through a meal at a restaurant, but I could have gotten him his pasta to go and brought him home and rubbed his shoulders and calmed him down and helped him through the dream he'd definitely have that night and it could have been manageable. At that point.

He had his back to me when I got out of the elevator, and I could see his shoulders heaving up and down as he breathed, his head twisting back and forth to keep up with his surroundings. I realized that what I should not, what I should absolutely fucking not do, was come up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder.

Unfortunately, I realized that after I'd already done it.

After he'd screamed, whipped around, his arms up to protect his head, and dropped to his heels sobbing in the middle of a fucking parking garage.

So at that point it wasn't really manageable.

Goddamn it. I don't want to tell this story.

**

He wouldn't move, and he wouldn't unwrap his arms from his head, and he wouldn't stop crying.

“Justin,” I said, like if I kept saying his name out loud enough times he'd finally look at me. My knees were aching from being crouched next to him for twenty fucking minutes. “Justin, you need to get up, you need to let me get you out of here.” I don't know why I was talking to him. I couldn't just say nothing, and it's not as if signing was working.

“No no no no no,” he was still fucking whimpering.

I put my hand on his wrist and tried to pull his arms off his head, but he only tightened them harder and flinched away from me with a sound like he was in pain, but I had my hand on him long enough to feel how fucking icy his skin was. This was...not fucking good.

“I have to do this now,” I said. “You're gonna hate this, but you can't stay here.” I put my hands under his arms and hauled him up to his feet. He screamed, or tried to; it was too high-pitched to really make a sound, so it was just a hiss, a gasp, and then he was vomiting on the floor of the garage. I wrapped my arm around his waist to keep him from falling, and he shook so hard it almost wasn't enough to hold him up. He coughed and choked out a few sobs.

“Why why why why why,” he whispered.

Home, I signed against his cheek, so he could feel it without having to look at me, but he flinched as soon as I touched him. I know. You don't want me right now, I know. We're going to get you home and I'm going to leave you the fuck alone, okay?

He was just staring blankly at the floor, no color in his cheeks, his skin so cold and clammy.

I hauled him out of the garage and into the city. It was getting dark now, and he shivered harder in the wind. We were only ten blocks from home, but I didn't have any delusions of getting him there without collapsing.

“Please don’t touch me,” he whimpered, and somehow that ‘please’ was what broke me, that little way he says his Ls now, fuck, fuck.

I know, but if I let go of you you’re going to fall. I’ll stop as soon as we’re in the cab, okay?

Okay. Fuck, I’m sorry, I...

Don’t. Don’t do that. You’re doing great. I stuck my arm up for a cab.

The cabbie eyed Justin as I helped him into the car and buckled him in—normally I wouldn’t bother, but with someone as fucking cursed as Justin you don’t take chances—but didn’t say anything. I gave him our address and let Justin curl up against the door of the cab, away from me.

I keep hearing it, I can’t stop hearing it.

I caught my breath. Drugs soon.

Why the fuck am I hearing you screaming, I’m not supposed to be hearing things, I’m not supposed to hear things.

Justin, look at me.

He gasped and shivered and held his head. “Oh God, oh God.”

“Is he okay?” the driver said.

“He’s fine,” I said.

**

I unlocked the door to the apartment and headed straight to his stash of anti-anxiety meds while he held himself up on the counter. I handed him a Klonopin and a glass of water, and he swallowed the pill without asking what it was. Not a good sign.

I want you to take a shower, okay? I said. You’re freezing and your clothes are dirty.

He looked embarrassed, wrecked, and fucking terrified. I...I’m sorry, I can’t, I don’t want...

He didn't want to shower with me. Who could blame him?

By yourself, all right? I’ll stay by the sink. Come on. I hovered my hand behind his back, and he let me guide him, maybe afraid my hand would come in contact with him if he didn’t move. If it works, it works.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I couldn't stand that, fucking couldn't. He was here fucking telling me what he needed after I'd blown his world apart and he was going to try to apologize to me? Fuck this kid, just fuck him. I just scared the hell out of you. You don’t have to want me right now.

I’m not trying to punish you or something, I just...

I know that. I don’t feel punished. Stop explaining, all right? I know what’s going on. Not my first time at the rodeo. It was, absolutely, the worst I’d seen him in years, but I didn’t feel any need to point that out. God knows he knew as well as I did that this was bad.

I ran the shower hot while he tried to undress, no easy task with how hard he was shaking. I sat on the sink and tried to figure out what the fuck to do with him while he cried in the shower and I did my best impression of someone whose heart wasn’t breaking. I was trying to look at him without looking like I was looking at him, but he was doing too good a job actually not looking at me to notice anyway.

Is the water hot enough? I said, and I didn’t think he could see me, but he nodded.

“Why did you leave me there?” he said eventually, finally raising his head.

Because I’m a fucking, fucking idiot.

I just wish you hadn’t grabbed me...

I closed my eyes, for a second. Yeah, me too. Is the pill helping at all?

I don’t know. He shuddered and gagged. Every time I think it’s getting better it just comes back, I hear it again.

It’s gonna be okay, all right?

“I want to get out now.”

A little longer. You were really cold.

“Can you go?”

I tried not to wince. He didn’t need to fucking feel guilty about this. Yeah, you’ll be okay?

Don’t...but don’t leave the apartment.

I’ll be right in the living room. It’s okay.

Fuck goddamn it shit shit shit.

I went to the bedroom first and changed out of my suit and into the first thing I found lying around, then poured myself exactly one drink and concentrated on keeping it one drink. I wanted a cigarette, but I didn’t want to smoke inside when he was already upset, and I didn’t want to be out of earshot if he called me.

Which he didn’t. He just sobbed so hard I could hear him over the shower spray, and I forced myself to sit very, very still.

Because look, let’s not mince words here; I have fucked Justin up in every way possible. I have messed him up in ways no one else could even fucking come up with. I've sneered at him when he's at his most honest, dug in my heels when he's asked me to move an inch, thrown his mistakes back in his face years after telling him I forgive him. But there is one thing I am fucking great at, one thing I could write a fucking book about, and it's dealing with the goddamn aftermath of the bashing. Christ, who walked arm-in-fucking-arm with the kid down Liberty Avenue for hours a day until he could do it without cringing? Who came home every two hours in the middle of the workday when he was alone at the loft to remind him where he was and who the fuck was going on? Who made his therapist appointments, made sure he took his meds on schedule and never, ever made him feel like shit for needing them, who held in the fucking grocery store when he had a panic attack from a broken bottle of ketchup, me, me, me, and I do not trigger him. I do not, I do not, in case you didn’t hear me, I do not fucking trigger him.

So, you know, goodbye, au revoir, so long, and thanks for all fish. We had now reached a milestone: we could now count on exactly zero hands ways that I had not let Justin down when he needed me.

But sure, I'd just sit here on the couch waiting for him to stop crying. No problem.

He came out of the shower eventually, dressed in his own clothes, which is...not common when he’s not feeling well. He paced the living room in circles, making a growling noise when he breathed, every once in a while stopping to hold onto the wall and whisper something that may or may not have been words. Periodically he'd ask, bordering hysterical, if I was mad at him. I texted his therapist and got him an emergency appointment the next day, made a cup of tea that sat and went cold on the coffee table, and eventually planted himself in front of him on one of his laps. He flinched away like he used to when people walked towards him on the street.

You need to sit or you’re going to pass out.

He shook his head. I’m fine. His breathing was fast, shallow, and I could see his heartbeat in his throat.

Take your pulse, I said.

He pressed two fingers to his carotid and looked at his watch. 184.

I’m calling Daphne.

No...

You need someone you’re not scared to death of, and I wouldn’t hate having a doctor here in case your fucking heart explodes. Is she on call tonight?

I don't know. He sat down on the couch, suddenly, like he just couldn't stand anymore. I don't know what day it is. I'm losing time. He took a shaky breath, rocking back and forth on the couch. I'm cold again. He looked up at me, and his pupils were so dilated I could barely see any blue in his eyes.

We're gonna do another Klonopin.

He nodded, but as soon as I took a step back to where the bottle was—towards him—he jerked away, speedwalked to the bathroom, and clicked the lock. “I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry,” he cried through the door.

Yeah, so I called Daphne.

“I really fucked up,” I said, and my voice broke and no, no, fuck that, Justin was doing everything he needed to get through this, I did not get to be upset, I did not get to fucking fall apart about something I goddamn did when he was just trying so goddamn fucking hard to take care of himself. I cleared my throat and cleared my throat and said, “I really freaked him out, I need you to come.”

**

Justin let Daphne into the bathroom, and I sat in the living room and listened to his ragged, piercing sobs. I knew, of course, that she was signing to him, but since I couldn't see it...God, it was so easy to picture him entirely fucking uncomforted, because that's how he sounded.

“Tell him I'm not mad at him and that I didn't leave the apartment,” I'd told her. “Make sure he knows.”

I pulled out the couch in the office because fuck if I was making him sleep next to me that night and couldn't take it any more and poured another drink. I don't think I can properly express how much every bit of me wanted to either barge into that bathroom or hit the fucking pavement and just keep running, but suffice it to say not one single goddamn bit of me wanted to stay parked in the fucking living room listening to Justin cry in the arms of someday else. There was just no fucking part of that that was okay, except for how that was exactly what he needed right now. Somebody who hadn't just made him feel utterly and completely unsafe.

After they'd been in the bathroom for nearly an hour, I heard them quietly move to the bedroom. I drifted over to the doorway despite myself and watched Daphne settle him in bed, stroking his hair and his back and telling him about a Deaf boy and his family who came into the ER the other day. Justin looked pretty drugged at this point, and he was still crying, but it was quiet, slow, tired. I rested my head against the doorframe and held on tightly.

“He'll live?” I asked.

She smiled at me, so gently I could fucking puke. “He'll live.”

Justin didn't know I was there. “Does he need anything?” I said.

“I don't think so,” she said, his face in her collarbone.

“He take his antidepressant and the seizure stuff?”

“Yeah.”

I rubbed my mouth. “Okay. I'm gonna go out to the balcony, have a cigarette.” But just as I was starting to go, Justin lifted his head off Daphne's shoulder and looked at her.

Is Brian here? Did he leave? I scared him off...

She touched his arm and nodded towards me, and Justin looked up at me. “Hi,” he whispered.

“Hi,” I said back.

He untangled himself from Daphne and crawled to the end of the bed and held his arms up to me. I came forwards, slowly, and bent down, and he fit himself into my arms, and I fought every goddamn urge to hold him tightly, to dig my fingers into his back, and just closed my eyes and smelled his hair and treated him like he was fragile, the strongest fucking person I've ever met, fragile.

I told you, I don't like this story.

I pushed my face into his shoulder and repeated get it together get it together get it together in my head until I trusted myself to pull away with a straight face. Going to sleep now?

Yeah. He looked down, then up, with the most fucking gut-wrenching attempt at a smile on his face. I think I'm in the bad place.

That seems like a reasonable conclusion. Lauren's going to see you at one tomorrow, okay?

He nodded, then sat back on the bed and dropped his head into his hands, took a shaky breath. I put my hand on his arm and he jerked away and started crying again. “I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.”

Stop, I said. STOP. But he wasn't looking at me, and he didn't look at me, and eventually I just left the room.

**

I woke up on our fucking fold-out couch to him screaming his fucking lungs out. It wasn't a surprise, obviously, but no amount of anticipation really prepares you for a Deaf person fucking yelling at four o'clock in the morning. They're going to kick us out of the building one of these days.

It's not as if it was the first time he had a nightmare when I wasn't there; he'd call sometimes when I was out of town, once when he was sleeping over at Emily's, a couple times when he was with Ethan. But it was the first time I'd ever been within earshot and known that he didn't want me.

Hell of a thing.

I sat up and waited for my heartbeat to slow down before I got up and went to the open doorway of the bedroom. Daphne had the light on already, good, and she was sitting next to him in bed, trying to get him to look at her while he was balled up and shaking.

“Sit him over the side of the bed,” I said. “Get down in front of him.”

She nodded and situated him.

“He needs a minute to wake up,” I said. “He'll get there.”

Come on, Justin, she said. Look at me, come on.

“What the fuck, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck,” he cried.

Just a dream. You're okay.

“Ask him questions,” I said. “See if he knows where he is.”

Justin, do you know where you are? Do you know what's going on?

He hesitated, then shook his head. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck.

Daphne, he signed after a minute, a D tapped against his collarbone, and I breathed out, and so did she.

There you go, she said. She glanced at me in the doorway. Do you want Brian?

No, he said.

I went through the bedroom to the bathroom, out of Justin's field of vision, and fished out another pill and filled a glass of water. I came around to the foot of the bed and waited while Justin signed at Daphne, too fast for her to understand, and she said, Justin, slow down, what?

“Why didn't he save me,” I said quietly, handing the glass and the pill to her once Justin's head was down.

“What?”

“That's what he's saying. Why didn't he save me. Here.”

“Thank you,” she said, and I nodded and stepped back to the door. Daphne handed them to Justin, and he swallowed the pill and sipped the water, way too out of it to wonder where they came from.

He lay back down with his arms over his head, shuddering.

“That'll knock him out,” I said. “He won't dream anymore tonight.”

“Brian,” she said.

“Don't,” I said. “Don't you fucking dare comfort me. Stay with him.”

I went out into the living room and drank everything I could.

**

She came out twenty minutes later, of course.

“What did I say?” I said. “Just leave me alone, please.”

She sat down on the couch next to me and took the glass out of my hand. I rubbed my forehead and wondered how the fuck this girl got into my life.

“How is he?” I said after a minute.

“Asleep. He's fine. How about you?”

I snorted. “Doctor Daphne.”

“Hey, you're the one who paged me.”

“He used to call me,” I said. “When he was dating the fucking...cello player. If he had a panic attack. The two of them, they'd sit around talking about it all damn day, sure, when Justin was fine, then he'd want to discuss it, analyze it, all that shit, but when he was actually in the goddamn, the fucking throes, you think he called the boyfriend? No. He called me.”

“He didn't really love him,” she said, and that pissed me off, thinking that I was looking for some kind of assurance about his little practice relationship, that she thought I was anywhere on the same plane as caring about bullshit like that.

“I take care of this shit,” I said. “I always have. I have never, ever messed this up. Left him alone in a fucking parking garage, fucking grabbed him, he's screaming at me about hearing things..”

She put her hand on my arm.

“Do you know how hard it is for him to trust people with this?” I said. “Gregory, back in Pittsburg, Derek and Emily here, all his little friends...they don't know about prom, he hasn't told them.”

“I know.”

“He doesn't trust just anyone with this shit. You and me.” I looked at her, those big brown eyes. “We're it.”

“I've freaked him out before,” she said. “It happens. He forgave me.”

“So what, he's just going to move on and get over it eventually? We'll go back to how we were?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what the fuck's the point! What's the goddamn...what is the moral of our story here, Daphne? Why the fuck did we go through goddamn any of this?” I wasn't making any sense now, and I knew it, but I was too drunk and fucked up to care. “He gets fucking bashed in the head and it's just...it's fucking forever, and we don't even get to fucking goddamn...”

“You want a spin,” she said. “You want it to be for something.”

“I want it to mean something. Yeah.”

“It's not going to make sense,” she said. “No matter how fucking perfect you are with him, it's not going to suddenly make it make sense. And it's not going to make you suddenly not fucked up about it too.”

I rubbed my face. “Seeing him crying in that garage today...God. Oh God.”

She took my hand, and I gripped it so hard it had to hurt.

“Why the fuck did this happen to him,” I said. “What the fuck did he ever do. And it's just going to fucking...it's going to go away and come back, over and over. It's going to get better and it's going to get worse and there's no fucking pattern to it. This is just some stupid goddamn fucking day where I was a fucking idiot and all I can do is shove pills at him until it's over. There's no fucking point to this. If he's lucky he won't even remember this, it's got him so fucked up. Give me the glass back.”

“No. Have you thought about talking to someone?”

I ripped my hand away. “Christ, don't.”

“There's no way Justin hasn't tried to get you to.”

“Justin minds his own fucking business,” I said, for some ridiculous reason.

She paused, then pulled her legs up underneath herself on the couch. “You know we've never talked about it. You and me. We were both there and we've never talked about it.”

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back towards the ceiling. The silence filled the room like...like a whole bunch of teenagers in pretty clothes once filled up a hospital waiting room, crying crocodile tears for a boy they couldn't have picked out of a lineup before someone came and danced him around in front of them.

“There was blood all over your dress,” I said. “You'd looked so nice.”

“Hideous dress.”

“It wasn't so bad.” I opened my eyes and smiled at her, a little.

“I hear his mom screaming a lot,” she aid. “There was a woman in the ER the other day, and her son...” She shook her head. “Anyway, it sounded like her.”

“You handled everything,” I said. “Sat with Jen, organized the kids and shit...everyone there was glaring at me like I was the fucking anti-Christ except for you.” I swallowed. “You hugged me.”

“Yeah.”

“I would have fucking fallen apart if you weren't there.”

She smiled. “You're right, instead you held it together so admirably.”

I snorted. “Shut up.”

She tucked herself in close to me, and I put an arm around her shoulders.

“I just want a takeaway,” I said. “I want to learn something from the fact that I left him panicking in a fucking parking garage today.”

“Well, you probably won't do it again.”

“I would have thought I wouldn't have done it in the first place.”

“Maybe now you just...think about how it's not always like this,” she said. “Think about how fucking rare this is, how far he's come.”

“I knew that already,” I said.

“Okay, how about how you'd do anything to make it stop?”

“I knew that too.”

“Okay, fine. Maybe you just sit there and feel smug about how much you already know him.”

“I could fucking die over it sometimes,” I said softly, and I knew she knew what I meant, what words I wasn't saying.

“How's that feel?” she said.

I shrugged. “It's not the worst.”

“So maybe that.”

“I knew that too. He knows.”

“Bet he'd like to hear it,” she said.

I gave her a look.

“I know, I know,” she said. “It's trite, it's pedestrian. But he's scared right now. He needs more reassurance than he usually does.”

“It's not like I've never said it.”

“So then what's the problem?”

She thought I was digging my heels in, choosing sticking to my guns on some bullshit policy over just fucking giving the kid what he needed when he was miserable. I couldn't blame her.

It's just that that's not what was going on.

“He won't even look at me,” I said.

**

We always get bagels on Saturday mornings, and I figured now wasn't a time to mess with his routine more than was absolutely necessary. I was hungover as fuck and didn't even change out of the clothes I slept in, I just went out early and walked the block to the bagelry.

“You an artist?” the girl behind the counter asked me as she rung me up.

“What?”

“Your shirt. PIFA, that's an art school, right?”

“Oh. Yeah,” I said, and then I gave her a ten dollar tip for thinking I had any business wearing a shirt that said 'Class of '05.'

It was strange, trying to be quiet in the kitchen so I wouldn't wake up Daphne; it's been a long time since I worried about that, and you can get into the habit pretty quickly of taking loud phone calls and blaring the TV while your partner's sleeping. Clearly I was out of practice, because Daphne came out pretty soon after I got back, rubbing her eyes, all her hair piled on top of her head.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” I nodded towards the bedroom. “So?”

“Still sleeping. His heart rate's back to normal, we'll see how it is when he wakes up.” She yawned and came over and grabbed a bagel. “I've got to go, though, I have a shift in two hours.”

“You're a wonder.”

“So I've heard.” She stood on her toes and pecked me on the cheek. “Don't beat yourself up about this, all right? You feeling guilty doesn't help him get better faster.”

“Yeah, I've learned that one by now.”

“All right, well, internalize it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For coming. For...everything.”

“Yeah, yeah. I'm a wonder. Call me tonight, tell me how he's doing?”

“I will.”

She left, and I made coffee and thought about getting on my laptop to check some emails but knew I was probably just going to have a cigarette and pass out on the couch for a while. I was about to start implementing that when I heard the floorboards creak in the bedroom, and a minute later Justin was standing in the doorway, still looking pretty drugged and shaky.

“Hi,” he said.

Hey. Daphne had to go to work.

He nodded.

Are you hungry?

Yeah.

Come eat.

He stayed by the door.

Do you want me to go? I said.

He shook his head. No, I...

And he was so fucking frustrated with himself, in that moment, it was hard to watch. He was so goddamn angry at himself for being scared.

I'm not mad at you, he said. I want you to know I'm not mad at you.

Sunshine, I know, I said, and I probably looked as desperate as I felt, but goddamn, if he didn't stop trying to fucking reassure me I was going to fall apart in our goddamn kitchen. I know that. Come eat, okay?

He came into the kitchen and took a few bites of a bagel, tangling his fingers slightly in mine. I stood close, still, so afraid of scaring him off.

After a while he turned towards me and rested his forehead against my chin, and I heard him sigh. I rested my fingertips on his waist, so, so lightly.

I'm sorry, I signed, and he nodded. He knew. He put his arms around me. This okay? I asked.

“Yeah, it's okay.”

I love you, I signed, holding the handshape onto his chest, and he put his hand over it and held it there. Something inside me let go, and the next thing I knew I was sniffling into his fucking hair, and we just stood there like that for a really, really long time.

And I knew that everything wasn't okay yet, that he wasn't going to come back to me fully that day, or maybe the next, or the next. But we had a bag of warm bagels, and he had a therapy appointment, and I was wearing his t-shirt, and he was holding onto me.

I guess it's not that bad a story, in the end.