Chapter 21 Reece #2
“For two years I’ve checked over my shoulder.
Every time I leave my apartment. Every time I walk down the street.
Every time. A thing I do without thinking.
A thing I’ve done without thinking for two years.
And in the last two weeks I’ve stopped. I noticed last week.
I’ve been walking to your apartment and I haven’t been checking.
I didn’t notice I’d stopped until I noticed I’d stopped. That’s the thing.”
“Okay.”
“Griffin. The whole reason I am alive is that I’m someone who checks over his shoulder.
The whole reason. The program briefed me on it.
The first thing they told me. The first thing.
The day you stop being on alert is the day you get killed.
That was the sentence. That is the sentence I have been carrying.
And in the last two weeks I have stopped, and I have stopped because being with you has been… “
I stop.
“Has been what.”
“Has been the thing that lets me stop.”
“Okay.”
“And the thing that lets me stop is the thing that gets me killed. It’s the thing the program told me would get me killed.
And it’s not just me. If I’m someone who has stopped checking, then the people who are looking for me are catching up to me without me knowing it.
And if they catch up to me, they catch up to you. ”
“Reed.”
“They catch up to you. Griffin. Because you are with me. Because we have been seen together. Because Min has seen us. Because Priya has…“
“Priya has not seen us.”
“Priya knows about you.”
“Priya knows there is a man. Priya does not know the man. Priya…“
“Griffin. The program does not need Priya to know my full name. The program needs Priya to know there is someone. That is enough. The people who are looking for me are not stupid. They are very good. They are better at this than I have been giving them credit for. I have been operating on the assumption that they were not in my new life. The assumption is two years old. Tonight I see that I have been operating on a two-year-old assumption without checking it.”
He looks at me.
“You’re saying I am a vulnerability.”
“I’m saying I’ve made you a vulnerability.”
He hears the difference. He hears it the way I hear his pauses. He doesn’t let me see he heard it.
“By being with me.”
“By being with you and not telling Mendez. By being with you and stopping the things I do to stay alive. By becoming someone who has a person to lose. The program told me. They told me. The hardest thing about this is that you can’t have anyone to lose.
Anyone you can lose makes you sloppy. I have someone to lose. I’ve gotten sloppy. I…“
“Stop.”
“What.”
“Stop. Reed.”
He gets up. He walks into the kitchen. He turns off the burner.
The smell of garlic stops getting stronger.
He stands at the counter with his back to me.
He puts his hand on the counter. His hand is white at the knuckles in the way it has been white twice before.
Once at his desk in October, once at his desk on the night I told him about the FBI.
The hand is white-knuckled the way it gets when he is holding something. He turns around.
“Come here.”
“Griffin.”
“Come here, Reed.”
I get up. I go into the kitchen. I stand on the other side of the counter from him. He looks at me across the counter. He does not move.
“You are not breaking up with me because of Mendez.”
“Griffin.”
“You are breaking up with me because you got too close. You are scaring yourself. You have been scaring yourself for two weeks. You have been waiting for a reason. Mendez gave you a reason and you took it.”
“That is not…“
“It is. Reed. Look at me. It is.”
I look at him. I look at him and his face is asking me to be honest. I am not sure if I can be honest. The honest thing is the thing he just said. And the honest thing being said back to me out loud by him is harder than the honest thing being a thing I am keeping.
“Maybe,” I say.
“Maybe.”
“Yeah.”
“Yes or no, Reed.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Yes. Yes, Griffin. Yes. Both. Both things. The Mendez thing is real. The other thing is real too. They’re the same thing. The reason Mendez worries me is the reason you worry me. The reason you worry me is that I’m…“
“That you are letting yourself have something.”
“Yes.”
“And you do not believe you get to have something.”
“Yes.”
“And the part of you that does not believe you get to have something is using Mendez to take it from you.”
I do not answer. He looks at me.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“Listen to me. I am going to say something and you are going to listen to it and you are not going to interrupt.”
“Okay.”
“You are right that the Mendez thing is real. You are right that you should not be lying to him. You are right that there is a question about whether I am a vulnerability. Those are real. I am not telling you those are not real.”
“Okay.”
“What I am telling you is that those are problems we figure out together. Those are not problems you solve by leaving. You leaving is not the answer to those problems. Those problems exist whether you leave or not. Those problems exist even if I never see you again. If you leave, you are alone and lying to Mendez and the people who are looking for you can still find you. The leaving does not solve any of the things you just said.”
“Griffin.”
“Wait.”
“Okay.”
“The leaving solves a different problem. It solves the problem of you having to stay. It solves the problem of you having let yourself want this. That is the problem you are solving. And I am not letting you solve it by leaving.”
“That is not…“
“You are doing it again.”
“What.”
“You’re deciding for me. Deciding I shouldn’t be in this.
Deciding I shouldn’t get to choose. I’ve already buried you once.
You decided that for me. You decided I shouldn’t have to be in proximity to your situation, and you decided it without me, and you spent two years inside the consequences.
You’re doing it again. Right now. In my kitchen. With the garlic burning.”
“It’s not burning. I turned it off.”
“Reed.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry. Pick a different word.”
“Okay.”
“You are doing it again. You are deciding for me.”
“I…“
“Don’t. Reed. Don’t. Don’t do it again. Don’t be the person who does it twice.”
I look at him. I look at him across the counter and he is not crying. I am not crying. Neither of us is doing the thing where we cry. He is just looking at me and he is asking me, with his whole face, not to be the person who does it twice.
I sit down on the kitchen floor. I do not decide to. My legs do it. I sit down on his kitchen floor with my back against his cabinet. I put my hands flat on the linoleum. I sit there and I do not say anything.
He comes around the counter. He sits down on the floor next to me.
Not facing me. Next to me. His back against the cabinet too.
His shoulder against mine. He does not touch my hand.
He does not put his arm around me. He just sits next to me on the floor of his kitchen and lets me be on the floor. We sit there.
After a while he says, “Tell Mendez.”
“Griffin.”
“Tell him. Tomorrow. I am not asking you to tell him tonight. I am asking you to tell him. I will be here when you do.”
“He is going to…“
“I know what he is going to do. He is going to ask questions. He is going to put me in a file. He is going to consider whether to move you. Maybe you. Maybe both of us. I do not know. We do not know. We do not know because we have not asked him. We are operating on a two-year-old assumption. You said it. You said it tonight. We are operating on a two-year-old assumption and we are going to find out what is actually true by asking. By calling him. Tomorrow. With me here.”
“You want to be there when I call.”
“Yes.”
“Why.”
“Because if I am there, I am part of the conversation. If I am part of the conversation, then whatever happens next is something we are figuring out together, not something he tells you and then you tell me. I do not want to be told. I want to be there.”
“Okay.”
“And the other thing. The you-stopping-checking thing. We figure that out. I do not know how. I do not know what it looks like. I know that the answer is not you leaving. I know that the answer is something else. We figure out something else.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
We sit on the floor for a long time. The garlic doesn’t burn. The kitchen smells like the dinner he was going to make me. The smell is going to fade. We’re going to have to figure out what to do about the dinner. We’ll figure that out too.
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“I almost did it.”
“I know.”
“I almost left.”
“I know.”
“I came over here knowing I was going to do it. I came over with the sentence already written, the sentence in my head. I have to stop. I had the sentence.”
“I know.”
“I’m someone who almost left.”
“I know.”
“I do not want to be someone who almost left.”
“I know, Reed.”
“I do not…“
“I know.”
He puts his hand on top of mine on the floor and doesn’t say anything else. I look at our hands on his linoleum, his over mine. The palm is warm. The knuckles are not white anymore.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“With you here.”
“Yes.”
I nod.
We sit on the floor. Outside the apartment something is happening, a car going by, a person on the stairs, the radiator starting up. In the kitchen it is just us, on the floor, his hand on mine, the dinner uncooked on the stove. After a while he says, “Are you hungry.”
“Yes. I am hungry.”
“I’ll finish the dinner.”
“Okay.”
“You sit there.”
I don’t move.
He gets up. He goes back to the stove. He turns the burner back on.
He stirs the pan. He does not look at me.
I sit on the floor. I watch him cook and I don’t get up.
If I get up I’m going to be a person standing in his kitchen.
Right now I’m a person sitting on his floor — and the floor is what I can do tonight.
He cooks. He cooks for ten minutes. He does not say anything.
He plates the food. He puts both plates on the table. He looks at me on the floor.
“Come eat.”
“Yeah.”
I get up. I get up and I go to the table and I sit down across from him. He has poured water for both of us. The plates have pasta and the pasta has the garlic and a green I do not recognize. The food looks like food a person made on purpose for someone else.
“Griffin.”
“Eat.”
“Okay.”
We eat. We do not talk much. We eat the way two people eat after a thing has happened in their kitchen, which is quietly, mostly, with the occasional small sentence about the food.
He says he overdid the garlic. I say it is fine.
He says it is too much. I say I like garlic.
He says he knows. We eat. When we are done he gets up and he clears the plates and he puts them in the sink.
He comes back and he stands behind my chair. He puts his hands on my shoulders.
“Stay tonight,” he says.
“Griffin…“
“Stay tonight. Reed. Stay tonight.”
I look up at him.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He bends down. He kisses the top of my head. It is the smallest kiss he has ever given me. It is the smallest kiss anyone has ever given me.
I close my eyes. He stands behind me with his hands on my shoulders for another minute. Then he says, “Come to bed when you are ready.”
He goes into the bedroom. I sit at the table for a few minutes.
The kitchen is quiet. I look at the empty plates in the sink.
I look at the throw blanket on the back of the couch.
I look at the apartment, the apartment I came here tonight to leave, the apartment I am still in.
I get up. I go into the bedroom. He is in bed.
The lamp is on. He is on his side, facing the door, waiting.
He sees me come in. He pulls the blanket back on the other side.
I get in. I get in and he turns off the lamp and the room goes dark.
I lie on my back next to him. He does not touch me for a second.
Then he puts his hand on my chest, palm down, and leaves it there. We lie there.
“Tomorrow,” he says.
“Tomorrow.”
“I’m here when you call.”
“I know.”
“Sleep.”
I sleep. Harder than I’ve slept in two weeks. All the way through the night. I don’t check over my shoulder once on the walk home in the morning, and I notice I don’t, and I don’t let it scare me. Tomorrow, I tell myself, is a thing we’re figuring out together. I keep walking.