Page 207 - In Five Years

After

Aaron and I lie next to each other, perfectly still. It is not awkward, although we
do not talk. I suspect we are, both of us, coming to terms with what we have just
discovered: that there is nowhere to hide, not even in each other.

“She’s laughing,” he says, finally. “You know that, right?”
“If she doesn’t kill me first.”
Aaron lifts a hand to my stomach. He chooses, instead, to make contact with

my arm. “She knows,” he says.
“I’d imagine, yes.” I roll to the side. We look at each other. Two people bound
and tethered by our own grief. “Do you want to stay?” I ask him.

He smiles at me. He reaches over and tucks some hair behind my ear. “I
can’t,” he says.
I nod. “I know.”

I want to crawl to him. I want to make my bed in his arms. To stay there until
the storm passes. But I can’t, of course. He has his own to weather. We can help

each other only in our history, not in our understanding. It is different. It has
always been different.
I look around the apartment. This place she built for me. This haven.
“Where will you go?” I ask him.

He has his own place, of course. His own life. The one he was living this time
last year. Before the tides of fate swept him up and deposited him here.

December 16, 2025. Where do you see yourself in five years?
“You want to have lunch tomorrow?” he asks me. He sits up. Discreetly,
under the covers, he pulls his pants back on.
“Yeah,” I say. “That would be nice.”