Chapter 35.
35.
Bailiff (n.)
responsible for security in the courtroom and for the safety of all participants
my fate, their hands
L ong after retreating to my room for the evening, I sit at the foot of my bed, twirling Damon’s napkin elephant delicately between my thumb and forefinger, thinking about the trial. Could Margot really have done it? Convinced Ms. Pembrooke to squeeze three bottles of eye drops into Joe’s smoothie that morning? Could she have sat in Alizay’s bathroom, laughing and sipping mimosas, casually glancing at her watch, wondering if it was yet done? Two weeks ago, I adamantly believed there was no way. But after all this testimony and witnessing firsthand Margot’s courtroom behavior, I’m jarred by the doubt that has crept in.
Staring at the napkin elephant’s folded edges, I feel the keen desire to press it in between the halves of a book, like I once did with the single red rose Damon handed me on my fifteenth birthday.
I think of being pressed beside him in the closet. Of sitting on his lap on the roof. Of his tatted forearms and general broadness. A restlessness has been brewing inside me since the first few days of the trial. I feel it taking over in the tap of my foot and jitter of my hand.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I dash to my door and look out the peephole. With no one in sight, I pull the handle carefully and step into the hallway. In a flash, I am at his door, knocking quietly.
“Need something?” I turn toward the elevators where George has risen from his seat around the corner and taken two steps toward me.
Shit.
“Oh, hi, George. No, no. He just left this at dinner.” I hold up the origami elephant still in my hand, then motion it toward Damon’s door before me. “I was just returning it to him.”
George watches me bend down and slide the folded napkin under the door.
As I rise back to a stand, Damon’s door swings open. “Hey,” he says quietly with a primed look before I eyeball him, then George. He bends down and picks up the elephant.
“I was just returning that,” I say, loudly enough for George to hear. “You left it at dinner.”
“Thanks,” he says, his eyes shifting from George to me. We three stand exchanging glances for what feels like an hour.
“My origami support elephant,” Damon says to George, tilting his head and raising his shoulders.
“Okay, back to my room now.” At my door, I see them both still watching. Right. I’ll have to go all the way in and retreat completely. So, I do just that. I step into my room and fall onto the bed, defeated.
Ten minutes later, as I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, finding new shapes, I hear the now familiar swipe of paper. In some undetermined reflex, I jump out of bed and am at the door in one motion.
I find the origami napkin elephant atop a folded sheet of paper. I can’t pull it open fast enough.
NOT-SO-STEALTHY SYDNEY,
WHAT WAS THAT? I THOUGHT GEORGE MIGHT HANDCUFF YOU RIGHT THEN AND THERE.
DISTRESSED DAMON
I immediately grab a pen from the dresser and jot a response.
Distressed Damon,
I pause. What is my response? Do I tell him I was headed to his room to... what? I’m not sure I know what I planned to do once I got there. The possibilities are disturbingly endless. The truth is I’d take any excuse to interact with him. After considering a few moments, I write:
I realized I never properly thanked you for the elephant. Or crane or owl. So, thank you.
Sentimental Sydney
Warier than ever about leaving my room post-curfew, I stand at my door in contemplation. Cautiously, I check the peephole and open the door again. I walk barefoot past Cam’s room, where I hear music playing, then stop at Damon’s door. Before I can shuffle the paper into the space below it, it opens, and I have to swallow a yelp of surprise. There stands Damon, index finger pressed to his lips as he steps aside so I can enter his room. There is no time to think. I quickly glance to the corner George is tucked behind, and there is no sign of him. Before that can change, I step into Damon’s room, and he expertly closes the door behind me.
We stand facing each other in the narrow entryway of his room, and I am immediately hot. My heart was already thrumming against my rib cage as a result of the escapade itself, but now I realize the sneaking around is some kind of furtive foreplay. I am in over my head entirely.
Damon stares back at me, and his chest rises and falls with effort—though not as forcefully as mine.
I attempt to clear my throat and emit some sort of warbly screech.
“Far stealthier this time,” he whispers before I can speak. He’s still dressed in his navy dress shirt from court, top button open so the beginnings of his collarbones jut into view.
“How’d you know I was at your door?”
He cups the back of his neck and bends it forward, then looks at me with his brows and eyes pressed together as if one. “I was waiting for you.”
I stare at him, the tips of my ears burning. “Just in case I came back?”
“Yes. Consider the note bait.” He hangs his head and folds his arms in front of him. I struggle with where to look, his eyes or that chin dimple. I shuffle my attention between both.
“Bait for what exactly?” I tease. “Should I yell so George can ram the door down and save me?”
“You don’t need saving.” He shakes his head lightly, and I take note of the more serious edge to him tonight. “I want to know why you came to my door in the first place. It wasn’t to return the elephant.”
“It was to say thank you for the elephant.” I look down at my hand, though this time I’m holding the note and not the elephant.
“You could have written that down instead of coming over in person,” he says.
“I did.” I hold up the paper.
“No, I mean before. You could have just written a note and slid it under the door. Why’d you come in person before?” He leans against the wall and crosses his right foot in front of his left.
“I...” Again, I don’t have much to say, because I did want to come in. I wanted to be here. He raises his eyebrows in question, almost pleadingly. “I wanted to see you,” I say finally.
We don’t break eye contact. It’s this high-octane, pulsing eye contact that makes me want to say fuck it. Fuck this case, fuck Margot, fuck everything. I just want to stare at him awhile longer, let that searing stare of his melt my sharp edges.
A noise in the hallway breaks our stare. We both lean toward the door as we hear George’s billowy laugh and then muffled speech. I glance at the alarm clock beside Damon’s bed. Nine p.m. George’s transition with Raphael, the nine p.m. to six a.m. bailiff.
I swallow, feeling the force of it down my throat. Damon jerks his head toward the room, and I take his cue to move away from the door. I sit on the edge of the bed, and Damon sits in the chair in the corner, though the room is so small our legs are practically intertwined.
While George tends to stay in his seat around the corner at the elevators, Raphael is a walker. He prefers to pace the hallway, highlighted by the clang of his metal key chain against his belt buckle, that noise falling and rising as he paces farther away and back.
And with his shift now on, I’m bound to Damon’s room indefinitely.