Flirting With Disaster

Chapter 10

10

My tongue is thick and heavy in my mouth.

And I’m cold. I’m so cold.

I shiver, burrowing beneath the covers, wrapping them closer around me. I’m seconds away from falling back asleep when something wet and icy lands on my forehead. I try to bat it away, but my arm seems stuck to the bed. I can’t lift it.

“Get it off,” I mumble, shaking my head.

“Shhh,” a voice replies, returning the cold, wet whatever-it-was to where it had been. “You’re burning up.”

“I’m not. I’m freezing.”

“Okay, then. You’re freezing.”

I frown. “Don’t make fun of me. I am.”

A hand coasts over my hair, leaving a trail of warmth in its wake. I wish it had happened slower. I wish it would happen again.

“I would never make fun of you,” the voice says.

I blink my eyes open. There’s a man standing over my bed. He looks so familiar. For a couple seconds I can’t place him. And then suddenly, it comes to me.

“You look a lot like my husband,” I tell him. And for some reason, he laughs.

“Oh really? Are you married?”

I groan. “Yes, but I’m not supposed to tell anybody about it. It’s a secret.”

He laughs again, perching on the edge of the bed. “I need to check for a fever,” he says, showing me the thermometer in his hand. “Is that okay?”

“Sure, Doc.”

“Doc?”

I squint at him. “Aren’t we in a hospital?”

“Uh, no. Not exactly.”

Huh . I squint up at him. I’m obviously sick. I’m fatigued and freezing and hallucinating images of my estranged husband. I figured I was in critical condition. But maybe this is just an urgent care or a doctor’s office. Who knows?

I open my mouth, though I’m not quite sure why, and he places the thermometer under my tongue. I stare at him as I wait, and he watches me in return. His lips twitch in the oddest way. As if he’s fighting back a smile. Though that doesn’t make much sense.

A timer dings on his phone and he pulls out the thermometer. He takes a look at the temperature, and his brows crease. “It’s high,” he says quietly, like he’s saying it more to himself than to me.

I don’t really care what my temperature is. I just want to go back to sleep. My eyelids are so heavy. Staying awake is taking every spare bit of energy I have.

“Wait,” he says, noticing I’m about to nod back off. “Take these first.” He presses a couple pills into my hand and helps me sit up. I grumble the whole way but reluctantly comply. He brings a glass of water to my lips, and I swallow, but he’s not satisfied until I finish the whole glass, which is just too much. I tell him he’s being bossy, and he laughs in response. I’m getting pretty tired of that laugh. Except there’s a tiny part of me that wants to hear it again. Wants to make him laugh some more.

“I’m going to sleep,” I tell him, lying down again. I shift back and forth a bit, getting comfortable.

My eyes slide shut, and I almost shiver with pleasure when his hand returns to my hair. He smooths it back, away from my forehead, but again the whole thing is over too quick.

“Do that again. Please,” I say. “You’re so warm.”

He’s quiet for a few seconds. And then his hand returns. I sigh with relief.

“So, I noticed you don’t wear a wedding ring,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” I mumble. “I’m trying not to be married anymore.”

His hand pauses midstroke, then resumes. “Why is that?” he asks. “This husband of yours…is he…is he that terrible?”

I’m so tired. My consciousness is slipping away fast, but something swift and defensive rises in me. Something that insists I answer him.

“No,” I say. “Not at all.”

“Then, why —” His voice breaks on the word, and he starts again. “Meena, why—”

He keeps talking, and I try to pay attention. The way he says my name…it’s almost like he knows me. Really knows me. But his voice fades, growing quieter and quieter. Darkness closes in on me and finally, I’m asleep.

—

My legs kick out at the comforter, desperate for space. For air. Why is this thing wrapped so tight around me? I feel swaddled. Like this fabric is tucked into every nook and cranny of my body. I kick harder.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s hot,” I say, trying to free myself. “It’s too hot.”

“Of course it is,” he says agreeably, with maybe a tiny hint of sarcasm. But I don’t mind, because a few seconds later, the covers lift away from my body and a cool breeze travels over my skin.

“Better?”

“Yeah.” Except…I’m all clammy. Sweaty. The clothes I’m wearing are sticking to me. They’re making me itch. I’m hot and tired and itchy and it’s all awful.

“I don’t feel good,” I moan.

“I know. I’m sorry, love. I know.”

I turn onto my side, curling into a ball. I don’t want to be here. I’m not sure where here is, but it’s not home. It’s not my home. I’m somewhere strange and I want to go home.

“I know. You’ll be home soon. I promise.”

I feel like crying. This man. His voice is so kind. So soft. I want to fall inside it. I can just tell it would be a nice place to land.

“I’m going to run a cold towel over your skin, okay? And then I need to apply this cream. Can you hold still?”

I don’t have the energy to do much else. I try to tell him that, but I can’t. My lips are cracked. Chapped and sore and it hurts to move them.

But this towel? It’s bliss. It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life.

“The best thing? Really?” He lets out a warm chuckle.

Am I talking out loud? I thought my lips were too cracked to manage that.

“What? What do you mean?” Cool fingers trace over my face, lifting my chin. “Shit. Sorry. Give me a second.”

A weight lifts off the bed. He’s gone for a while and then he’s back, dabbing something goopy on my lips. I don’t know what it is, but he’s obviously trying to help.

He returns to the towel, tracing it down each leg, and down each arm. Then he starts rubbing something on me. Probably that cream he’d mentioned earlier. All of my skin feels like it’s burning, but parts of it feel even hotter than others. And some places sting. The pad of his finger travels over a particularly bad spot, and I flinch.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. Almost done. It’s going to feel a lot better after this. I promise.”

I don’t know if that’s true. I want it to be true. But the idea of feeling better sounds a lot like a fairy tale right now. Something you tell a kid so that they have hope, even though it’s never going to happen.

“Okay,” he says some amount of time later. “We’re done. You can go back to sleep. Do you want the sheet? As a cover? Or nothing?”

“Nothing.” I can’t bear the thought of anything touching my skin.

“Okay.”

He’s quiet after that. Probably waiting for me to fall back asleep, but I want to know…

“Will you stay?” I ask. “Will you stay here?”

“Yeah. Yes. Of course. I’m not going anywhere.”

I swallow. I don’t know why that helps, why it makes my body relax further into the mattress, but it does.

His hand comes up to my forehead, and I remember this. He did it earlier. He sweeps his hand back, traveling over my hair, and I sigh. His hand was warm before, but now it’s cool. It feels so good.

I’m drifting off again. Everything’s turning that lovely kind of foggy and hazy.

“Don’t leave,” he whispers. So soft I can barely hear him. “Don’t leave me again.”

I don’t know what he means. I don’t know what he’s trying to say. But I’m out before I can ask.

—

“You know I drive by that spot all the time. It closed a few years ago, but someone else bought it and it’s a coffee shop now. I don’t ever go there so I don’t know if it’s any good, but every time I see it, I think about that time we went and got ice cream.”

I’m not sure who’s speaking. I’m not sure if I’m dreaming. I can’t fully make sense of the words I’m hearing, but something about this man’s cadence, the rhythm of the way he speaks, is comforting to me. Familiar.

“I don’t know if you ever think about that,” he continues. “But it was basically our first date. Though neither of us really called it that. I’d asked if you wanted to ‘hang out’ and get ice cream, and I’d kicked myself the whole way home. I should have planned something better. Should have been clearer that it was a date. Should have taken you someplace that would impress you. I couldn’t believe you’d said yes.

“And then, that day, I’d been so nervous. My palms were so hot and sweaty I’d worried the ice cream would melt right off the cone, but then we started talking and it was just like all those conversations we’d had in your parents’ yard. Natural and easy and fun.”

He lets out an amused huff. “You made me laugh so much that night, and every time you did it you looked so surprised. Like you didn’t realize how funny you could be, and it only made me laugh harder. You always…you always thought of yourself as so serious and focused and intense, and you were—you are—but you talked about it as if it was something to be ashamed of. As if I didn’t love that you were just as serious and focused about making me laugh as you were about the bar exam. That you took me just as seriously as all the other, much more important things competing for your attention. That you were just as focused and intense and careful with me.

“Maybe it was selfish of me. To want all of that for myself. That day we woke up in Vegas, I knew you were scared. I’d been scared too, but not because we’d gotten married. I’d felt like…like I’d just walked by a winning slot machine that was spitting quarters. I’d done nothing to deserve it, but I knew I needed to hold on to them for as long as I could. I didn’t know when the machine would stop, how long it would keep giving them, and I could already feel the cold metal slipping through my fingers, but I still held on, and…it wasn’t fair to do that. It wasn’t fair to you.

“I’m sorry,” he says, as a light touch travels over my cheek, the pressure growing firmer when it reaches my forehead. “I’m really sorry.”

He makes some kind of noise then, some muffled, half-choking sound, but I slip away before I can hear anything else.

—

An arm slides around my back. “Can you sit up for a second? Just a second?”

I nod, letting him maneuver me. He sits beside me, propping me upright, and I lean my full weight against him. Not that I want to. It’s just that I’m positive I’ll slide back down if I try to stay like this on my own. That’s the only reason.

There’s a light shining from my left. From the lamp on the bedside table. That’s strange. It’s on.

“How is that working?”

“How is what working?” His arm’s still around me, but he’s turned away, messing with something on the nightstand.

“That light. How is that working? Did the power come back?”

“Yeah, yeah. It did.” He hands me a couple pills. “Mind taking these?”

“Sure.” I take the glass of water from him and swallow them dutifully.

He should be relieved I’m such a good patient. He was always such a baby when he was sick. Though it was kind of endearing.

“Done,” I say, handing the glass back to him. “And thanks,” I add on. “How long was I out for?”

He checks his phone. “Ten. Maybe twelve hours. But you’ve been up a couple times in between.” He glances at me. “Do you…do you remember any of that?”

“Not really.” I’m not even sure how I made it from the closet tothe bed. Well, except for the obvious answer. He must have carried me.

“Is it safe?” I ask, sudden alarm pounding through me. “Safe to be here? In the bed?”

“What do you…Oh, because of the storm? Yeah. We’re fine. Wind speeds are way down. It’s moving slow, weirdly kind of hovering over the area, but it’s been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm. There’s some rain still, which isn’t helping the flood situation, but there’s no threat of windows breaking anymore.”

He places the back of his hand against my forehead and frowns. “You’re still warm. I thought maybe your fever had broken, but I think it’s still there. We’ll need to check it.”

“Okay.” If the storm’s slowed down, maybe that means flights will resume soon. I guess the flooding would have to go down first and I’m not sure how long that would take. Now that the power’s working, I should be able to find out.

I stretch my arms over my head, craning my neck from side to side. My muscles are so stiff. The movement feels amazing and horrible at the same time. And…“Oh my god.” Giant, angry red welts cover my body. My arms. My legs. And from the itching, I think there’s one on the back of my neck.

“They’re better than before,” Nikhil says. “Believe it or not they’ve gone down in size.”

“Oh, I believe it.” I’ve had worse reactions to fire ants than this. I’ve had bites swell up to ten times their size, looking like balloons. I’ve just never had this many at once.

“I don’t know if that’s what made you sick,” he says. “I don’t remember you ever getting a fever from them before.”

“My body may not have known what to do with this many. Or maybe it was from being outside in the rain that long. Or something I caught on the plane.” I’d read once that the immune system is less effective in fighting off infection during periods of high stress. And god knows that my time here has been the most stressful of my life.

I lick my lips, tasting something strange on them.

“Vaseline,” Nikhil says. “Sorry. It’s just…your lips were chapped.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He’s still sitting close to me, his arm draped around my shoulders, his thigh touching mine. I shift just the tiniest bit and he’s gone, almost jumping off the bed.

“So, uhh, what else did I miss?”

Nikhil clears his throat. “TV’s working again so I caught up on some of the news. Water’s pretty high everywhere. And a lot of houses got flooded. They’ve set up some makeshift shelters around town.” He places something on the nightstand. “And I got this out of the guest bedroom for you.”

Ah, my horrible, broken-beyond-repair phone. The screen looks like a spiderweb, cracks shooting out in every direction. I bet it has water damage now too.

“I tried plugging it in,” he says, “but it wouldn’t turn on.”

I grimace. “Yeah. I think this thing is toast.”

Nikhil rubs his forehead, watching me for a second, and god, this feels so awkward. Him towering over me, while I’m still in bed. I want to snap to my feet. I want to stand eye to eye. I feel so small like this. So weak.

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “I tried to get you to eat something earlier, but you weren’t having it.” The right corner of his mouth climbs up. “You were pretty fussy.”

“I’m sure I wasn’t.”

“How would you know? You don’t remember any of it.”

I open my mouth, then close it. He has me there.

“Anyway, I made some soup. Nothing fancy. Just from a can.”

My stomach rumbles at the thought. “That sounds amazing.”

“I’ll bring it up.”

I want to go with him. I want to say I can go downstairs. That it’s no big deal. But I truly have no strength. Just sitting up takes effort. I don’t think I could make it down those stairs and back.

“Thanks,” I say. He turns to leave, but I reach out, grabbing the ends of his fingers. “Really, Nikhil. Thank you. For all of this.”

“It’s nothing.”

He tries to pull his hand back, but I tighten my grip. “No, it’s not. It’s—”

“I owed you,” he says. “For that time I had the flu. Now we’re even.”

I laugh. “Oh gosh. You were such a wreck during that.”

He grins, one side of his mouth climbing slightly higher than the other. “I was, wasn’t I? I think I must have been the world’s worst patient.”

I soften, a memory rising. Nikhil curled into the fetal position, his hand gripping mine tight, his body shivering with chills. I’d never seen him that way before. He’d never let me see him that way before.

“You weren’t,” I say. “Not really. You barely asked for anything. The only frustrating thing was that you refused to just lie down and get some rest. I’d turn my back for a second and catch you trying to get out of bed.” I shake my head. “You even tried to help me with my studying. Your temperature was so high you were shaking, but for some reason you thought it was the perfect time to try and quiz me on civil procedure.”

His crooked smile grows, light and teasing, and so familiar it hurts. “I can still remember all five factors needed for personal jurisdiction,” he says.

“Oh no.” I laugh again. “Please don’t remind me.”

His smile starts to fade, and I quickly add, “Not that I didn’t appreciate it. The way you helped me study.” Most nights after dinner, Nikhil used to sit on the couch with me, open bar prep books on our laps. He’d quiz me or help me write flash cards. One time I accidentally fell asleep early and woke up to a stack of bright pink index cards filled with his handwriting. Neat and precise and careful.

When I left for D.C. I discovered that one of them had found its way into my bag. The corners of it are soft now, the hard card stock somewhat fragile from the number of times I’ve pulled it out and looked at it.

“It was nothing,” Nikhil says.

“It wasn’t.” My hand squeezes his. For so long I’ve lied to myself, rewritten the past. I’ve told myself that I would have passed the bar that first time if not for Nikhil. I’ve told myself that meeting him and falling in love that summer had been a distraction, that our love had made me lose sight of what mattered, but the truth is…

“I wouldn’t have passed that second time without you,” I tell him.

His cheeks flush. “I don’t know about that.”

“I wouldn’t have,” I say again. “But…when you were sick, I wish you would have thought it was okay to just rest and get better.” I think of that time he came home from work with a limp, an injury he’d refused to tell me about, the way he’d pivoted the conversation back to the bar instead. “I know the bar exam consumed my life back then, but I’m sorry if I made you ever feel like it was more important or more urgent than what you were going through. It didn’t matter more than how you were feeling, Nikhil. It didn’t matter more than you being sick.”

He shakes his head. “I…I know, but being sick, it was more that…I felt guilty. I hated that you had to take time away from studying to take care of me.” Regret clouds his voice as he says, “I never wanted that for you. For us.”

My heart floats up to my throat. “I liked taking care of you.” I pause. “It was really the only time you let me take care of you. I…Sometimes, I wish you had let me be there for you the way you always were for me.”

Something heavy settles over his expression, and I feel it. A tangible weight bearing down on the room. I try to shake it off. “Anyway,” I say brightly, “the whole flu episode could have been avoided.”

He takes the opening just like I’d hoped he would. “If I’d only listened to you and gotten a flu shot.” He inclines his head in my direction. “You’ll be happy to know I get one every year now.”

“Good.”

He smiles again, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and I’d forgotten. His eyes are so brown, so rich, and dark. But they have these little flecks of gold. They’re not always there, but sometimes, in the right lighting, they just appear. Almost like magic.

Seconds pass, and the amusement in his eyes begins to fade.

“I’m going to get the soup now,” he says.

“Okay,” I say, but I don’t let go of his hand. I know I should, but for some reason, I keep holding on.

In the end he’s the one to do it. He retreats, and I reel my hand back, awkwardly cradling it against my chest.

The loss of contact is sudden. And now, I’m cold. The comforter’s been peeled back away from me, and I reach for it.

“There’s an extra blanket right next to you,” he says.

And so there is. I grab it, throwing it over my legs.

Nikhil leaves the room, returning in a short while with a tray that holds two bowls balanced in both hands. He sets it down on the dresser, and my mouth begins to salivate. Food. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten. I’ve slept through the last few meals, and that rescue effort was the most strenuous workout I’ve had in months. I need calories.

Nikhil wraps a cloth napkin around one of the bowls and uses that to carry it over to the nightstand. “Careful,” he says, no doubt seeing the longing in my eyes. The way I’m tempted to grab the bowl sans spoon and just tip it directly into my mouth. “It needs to cool down.”

He goes back to the dresser, then returns with the other bowl.

He looks around for a moment, as if trying to figure out where he should sit. I scooch over, giving him enough space to sit on the edge of the bed.

He silently accepts the invitation, though he doesn’t look my way.

I blow over my soup, cautiously tasting a spoonful. Chicken noodle. The kind with star-shaped pasta.

“My mom used to make this for me whenever I was sick,” I say, no longer cautious, full-on scarfing it down. I can still imagine the small plastic bowl she’d serve it in. It had characters from The Lion King on it. And a matching spoon.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. His eyes are glued to the bowl in his lap. “I know,” he finally says. “You told me that once.”

Oh . My chest is tight. There’s some kind of pressure. Something squeezing my lungs. Probably a side effect of whatever infection I have.

We eat in silence for a bit, but once I have food in my stomach and feel the tiniest bit better, I can’t help but bring up our prior conversation.

“So,” I say, “you came to D.C.”

His spoon freezes midair, halfway to his mouth, and he sets it back down in his bowl. “Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

I pick a loose thread off the edge of the blanket. “Did you likeit?”

“Like what? The city?”

I nod. I’d been so worried about that back then. So worried that he wouldn’t like D.C. as much as he liked Houston. Houston had been his first real home, the first place he’d been allowed to live for more than a year or two. We’d talked about moving. Even when we were just dating, he knew that I’d been planning to move. That I’d have to move for my job. After we’d gotten married, he’d said he was fine coming with me to D.C., but I still hadn’t been sure whether he would actually do it. If he’d really be willing to pick everything up and leave the first home he’d ever known. And I guess in the end he hadn’t.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I didn’t see much of it. I wasn’t there very long.” He glances over at me. “Finished?” he asks, gesturing for me to hand him my empty bowl. I pass it, and he gathers everything back onto the tray and leaves the room.

I rub a hand over my eyes and sigh. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about that anymore, and now I’m not even sure why I brought it back up. The fact that Nikhil came to D.C. years ago doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change the fact that he never tried to talk to me once all these years. It doesn’t change the fact that the two of us were not meant for each other. It doesn’t change the fact that I need this divorce, that I need him to sign the papers, that I need to end all of this to get back on track with my career, and with Shake.

I miss how logical and rational Shake and I were. How things made sense when we were together.

Our plans for the future, our joint runs for office. We’re on the same page about everything. Together, it really seemed like all of that might be possible.

I wonder again what he would think about the Texas seat. Elizabeth is probably running, so it might not even be worth it to bring it up, but for some reason, it still has a hold on me. Being here, spending time on this street, it’s reminded me how much I once loved this place. And hearing Elizabeth’s passion was inspiring. This place was once my home, and the way she’d talked about it made me want to be here, to fight for this place and the people who live here too. I’m not sure whether it would even be possible, but I want to at least try to find out more.

But I’ll deal with all of that later. Right now, I have more pressing matters to attend to. I’m all grimy. I feel so gross. And I really need to brush my teeth. I swing my legs out of bed, and the floor rises up to meet me. Whoa . I catch myself in time, avoiding a fall. I’d underestimated how slowly I need to take things. Underestimated how weak my body is. I wait a moment before trying again, taking small, tiny steps to the bathroom. Once there, I’m shocked by what I find in the mirror.

I hadn’t expected to look great, but it’s even worse than I’d feared. My hair has taken on a life of its own. A bird’s nest with a hair tie trapped somewhere inside it. And my arms look strange and unfamiliar. Like they don’t even belong to me. Dotted with scrapes and scratches and red bites and welts, though fortunately those aren’t as itchy as I remember them being hours ago. And my eyes are all sunken in, the shadows under them dark and deep and purple. I can’t believe I’ve been out for hours. I look like I haven’t gotten any sleep in days.

I do what I can to repair things, splashing cold water on my face and stealing some of Nikhil’s toothpaste. I somehow find the hair tie amid the tangles and manage to smooth the mess of hair back into a low ponytail. This usually makes me look like a Founding Father, but with everything else going on, it’s somehow an improvement.

“Feeling better?” Nikhil asks, catching me as I exit the bathroom.

“A bit.” I’m still tired, but the moving around helped me wake up. Helped me cut through some of the fatigue.

I settle back under the covers, and the two of us are quiet for a while. Awkwardly avoiding each other. He’s messing with things in the drawers. I can hear them open and shut repeatedly. I’m pretty sure he’s taking clothes out, refolding them, and putting them back in, but I don’t watch too closely. I don’t want him to catch me looking. I’m pretending to be busy, examining the cracked screen on my phone intently. As if staring might bring it back to life.

I don’t know how to broach conversation with him. Before I got sick, we both peeled back layers, exposing our truths about the past, but he rebuffed my earlier attempt to bring it back up. And now I’m scared to mention it, unsure if I even want to. Maybe he regrets telling me all the things he did. Or maybe we’re just both experiencing vulnerability hangovers.

What we probably need right now is space, but that’s hard to find when you’re trapped in a house together. Though at least we’re no longer confined to the closet. In fact, why is he here? There are plenty of other rooms he could be in. I’d dart out right now if I could. If I had the strength. I’d run to the kitchen or the living room or the guest bedroom. Though I guess the guest bedroom isn’t really an option anymore. I wince, feeling a touch of guilt.

“How’s the guest room?” I ask.

Nikhil turns around, his hands clutching a balled-up pair of socks.

“When you went to grab my phone earlier,” I clarify. “How did the guest room look?”

“Oh. Fine.”

“Really?”

“Uh, no.” He separates the socks, then refolds them back together. “But it’s better than I thought it would be. Some water got in, but nothing compared to if it had flooded. And there’s some glass and stuff, but once I clean it out and replace the window, it’ll be fine.”

I clear my throat. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” I’m about to offer to help with the cleaning, and then remember how I almost collapsed earlier just trying to get out of bed. I won’t let him clean it alone though. I’ll just have to make sure he stays here until I’m back to full strength. So he doesn’t try to sneak off and do it by himself.

“Since the power’s back we can watch some TV, right?” I nod toward the flat-screen on the wall.

He grunts in response. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a positive or a negative sound until he hands me a remote a few moments later.

The screen turns on, showing a local news channel. There’s a reporter standing in the middle of the street, water up to her knees.

“Though the storm’s lost some of its intensity,” she says, “a lot of streets throughout the city are looking like this. As you know, it’s not abnormal for us to get some flooding during a storm, but city officials have no estimate on when the water might recede. In the last press conference, they explained that due to the significant amounts of rain we experienced before the hurricane, our groundwater levels were already high. With the level of rainfall we received in the past twenty-four hours, there’s simply no place for the water to go. So, if you’ve evacuated, stay put. The worst of the storm may be over, but with these roads, there’s no way for you to get back right now. And if you stayed, well, you’ll be staying in place a little longer. We’ll do our best to keep you updated on any developments and—”

“That’s been the only update for the last few hours,” Nikhil interrupts. “That no one has any idea on when the flooding will go down.”

Great . My odds of getting home soon are looking slimmer and slimmer. I flip through the channels, desperate to find something else. Something to take my mind off of things. But every channel seems to be showing the same images. Flooded streets. Abandoned cars. Homes partially underwater.

“Do you have Netflix?” I ask. “Anything streaming?”

He walks over, taking the remote from my hand and pressing a few buttons until that familiar red logo appears.

“Thanks,” I say, as he hands it back to me.

To my surprise, he doesn’t return to his pretend organizing of the dresser. Instead, he walks around the bed and sits on the very edge of the side farthest from me.

“What are you going to watch?” he asks.

“I’m not sure.” I’m scrolling, trying not to seem too curious, too interested in what Netflix is recommending to him. Or what it thinks he needs to “continue watching.” What are his tastes now? Have they changed? When we were together, Nikhil was always insistent that he could never watch anything too serious or too dark before we went to bed. Otherwise, the images would stay with him, and he couldn’t fall asleep.

I’d thought it was so cute. But either he’s changed that rule or he’s been watching stuff in the mornings or afternoons because there are a lot of documentaries in his queue right now. History. Investigative reporting. Politics. And is that…

“You’re watching Gilmore Girls ?”

“Uhh…yeah.”

I look over at him, and he shrugs. “It’s a good show.”

“I know that,” I say. “It’s a great show.”

A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. It is.”

“What season are you on?”

“Three.”

“Ahh, we’re getting into the Jess era.”

“Yup,” he says. “But I’m more of a Logan guy.”

I gasp. “Logan? Logan? No. Absolutely not. He’s the worst!”

“But he’s the only one who really fit into her life. The only one who was on her level.”

“ What? ” I ask. “No, Logan was so entitled and spoiled. He wasn’t right for her at all and—” I pause. “Wait, does this mean you’ve seen this before? Nikhil, are you…are you rewatching this?”

He lets out a breath, something between amusement and embarrassment. “Like I said, it’s a good show.”

I shake my head, pressing play. The familiar theme song washes over me, immediately putting me at ease, providing comfort. The snappy, fast-paced dialogue is the exact kind of distraction I was hoping for, keeping my mind busy for a while. But the second there’s a lull, a wandering thought intrudes: Why did Nikhil and I never watch this together? How did I not know he was a fan? What else is there about my husband that I don’t know?

I startle, jumping slightly.

My husband . Every time I’ve thought those words there’s been a bitter taste in my mouth. My husband. The guy standing in the way of what I want. The guy who won’t sign a simple piece of paper. The guy who drives me up the freaking wall.

But just now, the words didn’t taste bitter at all. They were tentative. Wondering. Soft and unsure. More than anything, they were curious. I’m tempted to try to find out all the things I don’t know about him. The things I maybe never knew about him.

“When did you start watching this?” I ask.

“Umm. I’m not sure. Couple years ago? Whenever they added it to Netflix. I never saw it when it was on TV the first time.”

“And what exactly do you like about it?”

His brows scrunch. “Why?”

“I’m just making conversation.”

He looks at me skeptically, but eventually gives in. “I like the small town. The way everyone knows each other. And how everything’s walkable. The diner and the dance studio and the inn. We don’t have that here.”

I don’t say anything for a moment, and his shoulders stiffen. “Why? What do you like about it?”

“Oh, I like that part too. The small town and sense of community. I do. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought that much about it though. I usually think about the relationships and the family dynamics. And the pop culture references.”

“Those are fun.”

“Yeah. It’s just…I guess where I live, it’s pretty walkable, but it’s not like the show, you know? When I’m walking to work, when I pass by people…it’s not like anyone knows who I am.”

His eyes aren’t on me anymore. They’re fixed on the screen. But I can tell he’s not really watching.

“That sounds a little lonely,” he says.

My throat constricts. “Yeah. It can be,” I admit softly. I hadn’t meant to say it, but it’s the truth. I’ve lived in D.C. for six years and lived in the same area that whole time. But outside of work…I don’t have much of a social life. My friends from law school are pretty much all over the country. There are a few in the city and we get together for drinks occasionally, but they’re not the kind of people I’d turn to if I was feeling down. Or if I needed something. I’m not sure I have many friends like that left at all.

After I took the bar exam the first time, my closest friends had planned a group celebratory trip to Vegas. Most of our classmates took big international vacations for their “bar trips,” during that period of time when we’d all finished studying but were waiting to get our results back, but those classmates were all headed to lucrative corporate firm positions. They could afford it. The public interest students were on a budget, and a long weekend in Vegas was already stretching it a little too far.

I’d asked Nikhil to come with me, not having any idea things would end up the way they did. After we’d woken up married, we’d extended the trip, staying behind when my friends went back home, turning it into a minihoneymoon. Not that my friends knew that. I hadn’t told them about the wedding. And when I failed the bar, I didn’t tell them about that either. They’d started their brand-new jobs and I’d lied, saying that I’d be working remotely. That I had a family emergency. That I wouldn’t be moving to D.C. just yet.

As time passed, the lies only piled up. When I finally moved to the city, I couldn’t confide in them. Couldn’t tell them that I was heartbroken. Couldn’t explain why I wasn’t in the mood to go out. The distance between us only grew until we became the kinds of friends whose main form of social interaction is watching each other’s stories on Instagram.

“It can feel lonely here too,” Nikhil says, his words halting and tentative. “Everyone in the neighborhood is nice, and I’ve gotten to know all of them better over the past few years, but…sometimes it feels like something’s missing.” He glances my way, and for a moment something wild and unsure breaks across his face.

It makes my lungs constrict, all the oxygen stuck in one place.

“Do you ever wonder,” he says, “if we’d taken the time to get to know the neighbors back then, if we’d had a real community around us…Do you ever wonder if things would have been different?”

Different? I stare at him, confused and uncertain. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

He fidgets a moment, and I can feel it through the mattress, a small jolt as he settles back into place. “We didn’t get to know everyone then, and I know we were both busy, but sometimes I think about how…how it was just the two of us. Your friends weren’t here, and we weren’t particularly close to my family, not that I really wanted to be. But the people who live here…even the ones you haven’t met, I think you’d like them. Elizabeth’s wife and the Trans and—”

“I remember Mrs. Patterson,” I say. She’s really the only neighbor I remember. “I used to see her sometimes, when we went on walks down the street? She used to garden in her yard. She always waved when she saw us.”

“Yeah,” he says, some of the tense lines around his mouth relaxing. “She moved recently. Her husband passed and she moved to be closer to her kids. But they…they had a great marriage, the two of them. I got to know them better the last few years. I got to know everyone here better, and it just made me think…if we’d known them then, if we’d had some kind of support, some advice from people who had been through the same kind of things…I don’t know.” He swallows. “I know you didn’t want me to meet your parents, or your sister, or Ritu back then, but sometimes I wonder if—”

“They wouldn’t have been that for us,” I interject. “My parents? They wouldn’t have been that kind of support you’re talking about.”

His expression falls slightly. The smallest of movements, but I catch it, the beginnings of his retreat, and I want to stop him. I want to explain .

“My sister,” I say, and he looks back at me, giving me his attention, “when she dropped out of college, when she had Ritu, my parents supported her financially and with their time. They helped take care of all the practical things, and they helped take care of Ritu, but emotionally? They withdrew. From her and from me.” Old, lingering hurt creeps back up, and my chest tightens. “They were always happiest when I was successful, so…they wouldn’t have been happy with things then.” They wouldn’t have been happy with me. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe we should have made more effort to get to know the neighbors back then.”

He watches me a second. “You’d have liked Mrs. Patterson,” he finally says.

“Yeah?”

His mouth curves into a gentle smile. “Yeah. The two of you would have hit it off. She was always full of opinions, just like you.”

For a moment, I can see this alternate world. One where the two of us had dinners with the Pattersons, with others on the street, people who might have lifted us up when we were both down. Who might have been there for us when we couldn’t—or didn’t know how to—help each other. People who might have shown us how to walk through rocky times, how to make it out on the other side.

Regret builds inside me, the sensation heavy, a stone sinking in my chest.

“Anyway,” he says, “sometimes I wish we’d done that differently.”

“Yeah,” I say. “There are things I wish I’d done differently too.”

Our eyes meet, and I’m not sure if he’s been moving, or if I have, but we’re closer than we were before. He’s no longer on the edge of the bed. He’s just a few inches away from me.

If I leaned toward him, we’d be touching. It would hardly take any effort. Part of me wonders what would happen if I did it. If he’d stay completely still or if he’d meet me halfway there.

A loud fight breaks out on the television, disrupting my thoughts, and I shift away. “But there’s no use replaying the past,” I say. “It’s not like we can do anything about it now.”

He leans back against the headboard, creating more distance between us. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re right.”

“Though maybe we should have held some town meetings back then,” I joke, referring to the silly meeting that’s taking place onscreen, trying to lighten the mood. “Maybe we could have met the neighbors that way.”

He watches the show for a few minutes, then shakes his head good-naturedly. “I don’t know,” he says. “Those meetings didn’t really seem to help the neighbors grow closer together. The drama only seemed to tear them apart. Though I have been thinking about…” He stops, pausing a moment. “You know when Lorelai and Sookie started that inn?”

“Yeah,” I say, slightly puzzled. “I remember that.”

He nods, and the gesture strikes me as off. Almost like he’s nervous. “Well, the first time I saw that, saw them buy that broken-down old place and repair it and fix it up, I thought…it seemed like a nice idea. You know, taking an old property and turning it into aninn.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I liked the idea of it being this place, this home for people to stay in when they’re visiting. But it would also be a spot for people who lived in town. For them to gather. Or have lunch. And last year, I came across this property.” He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s, umm, a little farther from here. Closer to the coast, but not quite all the way in Galveston. It doesn’t have a view of the sea exactly, but there’s this inlet. More like a bay, really, but it overlooks some water. It was pretty beat up. In bad shape, but I…uhh.” He trails off, clearing his throat. “Anyway, it reminded me of the show. And I thought maybe someone could turn it into an inn. I don’t know. It sounded nice.”

My heart squeezes. I can understand why this idea appeals to him. Why he’d want to create a space that makes others feel at home. “It does sound nice,” I tell him.

He relaxes a bit when I say this, reclining his head against the headboard.

I’m curious, filled with a thousand questions, but something tells me to approach this carefully. “I can see you running an inn,” I say. “Being an innkeeper.” From the way he responds, I can tell this was the right thing to say. His mouth forms a tentative, unsure smile, and my pulse skips a beat.

“Thanks.”

We return to the show, and fifteen minutes later, I’m fully absorbed by the love triangle taking place onscreen.

“Okay, I know you said you’re Team Logan, but what did you think about Dean?” I ask.

After an extended silence, I peek over at Nikhil. His rigid posture has eased. He’s still sitting up, but he’s slightly slumped over now. And his eyes are closed, his chest rising and falling evenly.

“Nikhil?” I ask, just to check, but other than an incoherent mumble, he doesn’t respond. He’s completely out.

I lower the volume on the TV and turn closed captions on.

Nikhil’s full lips are slightly parted, his thick brows drawn together, a now-familiar wrinkle forming between them. I wonder what he’s worried about. A nightmare or our situation or me. I reach out, smoothing the wrinkle away with the pad of my thumb.

The muscles in his face relax as I stroke the spot, and he makes some kind of noise. A sigh mixed with some mumbled, incoherent words. I continue the movement, and his long lashes flutter a second, before coming back to rest.

There are deep shadows under his eyes, dark gray and purple. Almost like bruises.

I didn’t think about it before, but Nikhil was probably up the whole time I was sick. Watching my fever. Taking care of me. He probably didn’t get much sleep.

I reach for the spare blanket and throw it over his legs.

Netflix autoplays the next episode, and though I’m watching it, my mind wanders, filled with contrasting images of the Nikhil I knew years ago and the one sleeping beside me now.