NICK

My hands gripped the edge of the kitchen counter until the marble felt like it might crack.

I kept my eyes fixed on the black tile of the wall in front of me.

I did not want to look at the doorway. I did not want to hear if Cyan was eating or if he had pushed the plate away in that quiet, stubborn way he had.

The dining room was silent.

That silence was heavy. It was a physical thing that pressed against my back, trying to force me to turn around.

I started to organize my thoughts. My mind moved fast. It was a machine. I needed it to be a machine right now. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

This is just exhaustion, I told myself. I had performed two major surgeries yesterday. I had been called in for a midnight operation that lasted six hours. Sleep deprivation does strange things to the brain. It affects your ability to process reality. This was clinical. This was explainable.

I refused to name the other thing. I would not let it into the room.

But as soon as I pushed it away, it came back with more force. It took so much effort to redirect my brain that I felt the strain in my neck.

That was information. My body was telling me something that my mind refused to hear.

The uglier version of the truth arrived anyway.

You are pathetic, I thought. I was a surgeon. I was the best at this hospital. I was a man who worked with sub-millimeter precision.

I did not lose control of my hands. And yet, I had grabbed a stranger’s face twice in one day. I had felt the heat of his skin and the pulse in his jaw.

Get a grip, I told myself. He is just a person. He was just a man in my house. He was wearing my clothes. He had eaten my chocolate. He was a patient I had dragged home because I didn’t know what else to do with him. He was just a person.

I looked down at the counter. My hands were still there, white-knuckled and shaking slightly.

I moved to the sink and started washing the few dishes I had used. I needed the mechanical motion.

I needed my hands to be busy with something that had nothing to do with the way they had just cupped a man’s chin.

I focused on the water, the soap, and the rhythm. I focused on anything that wasn’t the boy in the other room.

I went back into the dining room the first time because I needed to check the plate. It was a legitimate task.

I needed to know if he was getting enough nutrition for his recovery.

"Did you finish?" I asked. I did not look at Cyan. I kept my eyes on the ceramic surface of the plate. It was empty.

"Good," I said. I took the plate and went back to the kitchen. I didn’t stay. I didn’t breathe.

But ten minutes later, I was back. The second time, it was the blanket. It was draped over the back of the couch, and one corner was touching the floor.

It didn’t actually need to be moved, but I found myself standing over it. I straightened the fabric. I smoothed it out with my palms.

I invented the task in real time just so I had a reason to be near him. I needed to feel the air around him. It was a compulsion I couldn’t name.

The third time, It was the remote. It was sitting on the cushion right next to his hip. I picked it up.

My fingers brushed the fabric of the blanket he was wrapped in. I moved the remote six inches to the coffee table. It had been fine where it was. It didn’t matter.

The fourth time, I didn’t even have an object in my hand. I didn’t have a plan. I just found myself standing in the doorway, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I didn’t know why I was there. I was like water finding the path of least resistance. I wasn’t deciding to move; I was just flowing toward him.

Cyan didn’t look at me the first three times. He kept his eyes on the screen, a flicker of light reflecting in his purple irises. But the fourth time, he turned his head. He looked at me.

"You keep coming back," he said.

The sentence was simple. It wasn’t an accusation. It was just a fact. He was observing me with the clarity of someone who was only half-anchored to the world.

My composure shattered. It hadn’t been real composure anyway; it had been a performance for an audience of one.

"I’m not," I said.

The lie was immediate. It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Then I stopped. I realized how ridiculous I sounded.

I had come back four times. The silence that followed was heavy. It was the space where an admission should have been.

"Good night," I said. I sounded aggressive. I sounded like I was losing an argument that I refused to admit was happening. I walked into my bedroom and slammed the door.

I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling.

The room was dark, but the quiet of the apartment felt loud. I could feel him on the other side of the wall.

I knew exactly where the couch was positioned in relation to my bed. I knew he was there, breathing the same air I was.

I closed my eyes. I tried to force sleep to come. I tried to think of my surgical rounds or the papers I needed to write. It failed immediately.

The dream didn’t come back. Something worse did. A memory. It was specific and real. I saw his face from twenty minutes ago. I saw his eyes.

They were a specific shade of purple that I hadn’t seen on any other human being. At a distance, they were just a color.

At close range, they were a universe.

I started taking an inventory of him without my permission. I thought about his lashes.

They were unreasonably long. I thought about the silver piercings in his ears and how they caught the light from the television.

I thought about the way my shirt sat on his shoulders. They weren’t my shoulders. They were narrower, more fragile.

And then I thought about his lips. They were a specific, soft pink. I had been so close to them. So close.

I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling again. "Stop," I whispered. My voice sounded strange in the dark.

I closed them again, but the face was still there. The proximity was still there.

I felt that same cold drop in my stomach that I had felt in the dining room. I recalled the feeling, and then I felt something else.

Heat.