8. Millie #2
"Exactly. Favorite by default. Very prestigious." He pulls something from the bag, then glances over. "By the way, did you do your breathing exercises today?"
I make a face. I shake my head.
"Millie."
I type. It hurts.
"I know it hurts. That's actually why you have to do them. If you don't keep expanding your lungs, you risk complications. Pneumonia, fluid buildup. The exercises keep everything working while the ribs heal."
I type. You're going to nag me about this every day, aren't you?
"I'm going to lovingly encourage you every day. There's a difference."
There really isn't.
"There is. Nagging doesn't come with dinner. Speaking of which." He holds up a bag of groceries. "Any requests? Fair warning, my range is limited. I can do pasta, stir fry, or something my mom taught me that I've never successfully replicated but keep attempting out of stubbornness."
I type. Surprise me.
"Dangerous. I like it."
I help unpack the second bag slowly, handing things to him one by one. My ribs protest when I reach too far, but the movement feels good. Normal. Like I'm a person helping with groceries instead of a patient recovering on a couch.
He takes each item from me and puts it away, narrating as he goes.
"Okay, this goes here. No wait, this goes there.
Actually, I have no idea where this goes.
I've lived here three years and I still don't have a system.
" He hums between sentences. A song I don't recognize, just a few bars, filling the gaps between cabinet doors closing and bags rustling.
He talks to himself, makes little sounds of decision and indecision, narrates his own small choices. Joseph fills silence the way some people fill glasses, automatically, like empty is a problem.
But the strange thing is, he never does that with me.
He fills every other silence in his life, the hallways, the kitchen, the drive home.
But when I'm typing, when I'm thinking, when I'm just sitting with nothing to say, he lets it be.
He doesn't rush to cover it. He just waits, like my quiet is different from the rest. Like it's worth being inside of.
I can't help but smile at that.
He catches me. "What?"
I shake my head. I hand him a box of pasta.
There's something calming about this. The domesticity of someone else making noise in a space that isn't mine.
I've lived alone for years. The only sounds in my apartment are Tofu's paws on the floor and the hum of the refrigerator.
This is different. This is someone else's life layered over mine, and I'm surprised by how little it bothers me.
He cooks. I sit at the counter and watch because standing for too long still hurts.
He moves around the kitchen with the same energy he brings to everything, a little too fast, a little too loud, bumping into things and narrating his own mistakes under his breath.
"Wrong burner. That's the wrong burner. Okay, now we're good. "
Halfway through, he pulls out a small container and sets it on the counter near me without explanation. I look at it. Ginger candies. I look at him.
"For the nausea," he says. "In case it starts. It usually hits around week eight or nine."
He says it like it's nothing. Like he didn't go out of his way to buy ginger candies for a symptom I don't even have yet. Most people wait for a problem before they solve it. Joseph solves it before I even know it's coming.
I pick up the container and hold it against my chest. I have to look away for a second because I'm not going to cry over ginger candies. That would be embarrassing. I blame the hormones, even though it's probably too early for hormones to be doing anything. I blame them anyway.
We eat dinner at the counter. He tells me about his day—a resident who panicked during a routine exam, a patient who tried to leave the hospital in a wheelchair she didn't own.
I type a question, and he answers it like it's the most natural thing in the world, never once rushing me while I write, just waiting with his fork halfway to his mouth.
When I tell him the hospital mac and cheese earlier was still losing to his cooking, he puts a hand to his chest like I've knighted him.
It startles a laugh out of me, and he grins like he's been keeping score.
He mentions that one of his friends, Sarah, wants to meet me.
She's pregnant too, further along, so it might be nice to have someone who understands what I'm going through.
I'm usually cautious about meeting new people.
New people mean new introductions, new faces adjusting when they realize I don't speak.
But if Joseph says she's kind, I believe him.
The next morning, I walk into the kitchen, and there's something on the counter that wasn't there last night.
A small whiteboard, new, the plastic wrap from the markers still sitting beside it. There's one line written on it in messy handwriting:
Welcome home, Millie and Tofu.
I stand there looking at it. The handwriting is barely legible—classic doctor handwriting, the letters slanting in every direction, the T in Tofu more like an F. He must have done this after I went to bed.
And I feel it. Light and warm and completely uninvited.
And then, right behind it, something else. A quiet pull of nerves. Because falling for a guy like Joseph would be the easiest thing in the world. He's kind, funny, and thoughtful. He makes everything feel simple. Safe. Natural.
And that's exactly why it's dangerous.