Chapter 25 #2
Not large, it doesn't need to be large, but larger than the closet. It’s grey-paneled, glass-windowed, prefabricated but well-made, the kind that requires research rather than just a search and a click.
I know this because I have looked at them.
I have had the tab open and closed a dozen times over the last year because of the price and the practicality of space.
The closet has worked well enough. (And well-enough has been the bar I've been clearing for longer than I'd like to admit.)
“I didn’t build it myself, I had someone come in.
So it’s sturdy,” he says, stepping around me to open the door.
He did the research. I can tell by the model, it's not the most expensive one, it's the right one, which is a distinction that requires actually reading the specifications rather than just filtering by price to buy a flashy gift. He’s thoughtful in a way I don’t think anyone sees.
Maybe they come to expect it from him. It’s not about the gift, but the effort he puts into it.
Into every single thing he does. He doesn’t know how not to.
(He also doesn’t know what it does to me.)
And for me, that’s becoming increasingly harder to separate. Because his standard setting is also the most generous man I’ve met, and to be on the receiving end of it is confusing at best. (And I don’t think he’d see it that way.)
“I can’t believe you did this, it’s perfect,” I say, and his smiles, large and bright, might be the thing that lights up this room.
“You have a lot of big things coming up.” He’s talking about the fact I am now booked out farther in advance than I ever thought possible. (And he doesn’t know how much of him I have to thank for that. At least, some of the sweatier scenes.)
“I guess it will save you the late nights,” I say. Because as I’ve picked up more books, my hours have broken the ‘no moaning after midnight rule.’ He hasn’t interrupted, though sometimes in the mornings after he groans at me as he heads off to work.
“Exactly,” he says. But whatever the reason, I take the steps towards him, I outstretch my arms, about to hug him.
His come up and around me, both of them, fully, not the careful half-embrace of someone calculating how much contact is appropriate, but it doesn’t last long.
He drops his hands from my back quickly to indicate it’s done.
When I pull back his face looks smug. Actually no, not smug, just satisfied. (And I can tell the difference.)
“Go on, try it out,” he says, as he then tells me about how he had someone come in to set up the microphone. ‘A professional, because I’ve heard you refer to it as ‘your baby.’
The booth is larger than the closet and it smells like new materials and possibility, which is a combination I didn't know had a smell until right now. (Never saw it on the Home Goods clearance shelf.) It also has a window, and ventilation, which means I won’t die of heatstroke or claustrophobia.
I pull the door closed behind me.
The silence is immediate and total. This isn’t the silence I fought to craft with foam and a neighbor that still could very much hear me, this is silence that belongs to me, and he gave it to me.
I look at him through the glass. (Don’t be too obvious, Louisa!)
He’s standing in my apartment, his hands loosely slipped into his pockets, and there is something almost wholesome about him, surrounded by my things, looking at me through glass. Looking at me, like that. (You see it too, right?)
He makes a small gesture with his hand. ‘Go on.’
“Can you hear me?” I say, in an entirely normal speaking voice, pointing between us.
He shakes his head. Points to his ears. Points at the booth. Gives a shoulder shrug.
I take a breath and stand here for a moment.
Let the silence settle around me like something I’ve been waiting for without knowing I was.
(As someone who is not known for being quiet.) And then, because I am a person who has spent years saying true things that belong to other people, in voices that aren’t quite mine (and because the booth is soundproof and the glass between us is thick), I say the thing I have been not-saying for longer than I’ve known what to do with.
“Okay,” I say, to the silence. (Phenomenal opening, Louisa. Roma would be proud. Not.)
My voice sounds different in here, like a cleaner, stripped version of itself.
“I don’t know,” I start again. Which is where everything true starts for me, in the not knowing.
“This is the part where I’d normally caveat every thought into oblivion, add so many disclaimers, and apologize, that by the time I got to the actual point you’d have forgotten what we were talking about.
I do that.” I breathe a break between the thoughts. “I know, you know, I do that.”
He thinks I'm testing the acoustics, getting a feel for the space, and I am.
But he also has no idea.
I take a deep breath, pulling in all the air I can through my nose, the way he taught me, except this time it isn't panic I'm trying to settle.