Chapter One #2
My sister will text tomorrow. Claire texts every Sunday, usually with a meme as a check-in.
Somewhere in there she'll ask how Meg is, because I mentioned her last week.
I'll text back something that's technically true but says nothing.
I'm good at that. I could tell Claire what really happened.
She's the one person I could probably tell.
That's exactly why I won't. She'd be so careful and warm about it, and that would make it feel like a real problem.
I'd rather be the guy who's just picky. Or focused on work.
Dev from the gym already thinks that. He keeps trying to put me on dating apps like I'm a glitch he can fix.
Everybody has a theory. They're all wrong in the same way.
They think the problem is out there. Bad timing, the wrong apps, not meeting the right person.
None of them want to admit it might just be me.
I call a car.
* * *
The apartment is on the fourth floor of a building Graham found.
Graham's my roommate. He's the kind of guy who finds good apartments, good coffee, and good furniture without making a big deal about it.
The place is warm and low-lit, and it always smells like the nice soap he buys.
Tonight it also smells faintly like something he roasted earlier.
He's still up when I get home. Graham is often up.
He keeps hours that feel less like insomnia and more like a choice.
Like he just decided the boring parts of the day weren't worth staying awake for.
He's at the kitchen island with a glass of something amber and a book open in front of him.
He reads with this very still, focused way that used to make me nervous when we first started living together.
Now I find it calming. When Graham is relaxed, he's really relaxed.
Nothing about him feels like it's trying too hard.
"Hey, how'd it go?" he says. Not looking up until the sentence is done. Then looking up and reading my face in about the time it takes most people to say hello. "Ah."
"That obvious?" I say.
"Sit down. I'll get you one."
I should explain who Graham is. Because "roommate" doesn't really cover it.
We met eight years ago when I edited a book for his firm.
It was a big glossy book about a museum they had built.
I caught that the lead architect's name was spelled two different ways on facing pages.
He called me personally to thank me. That's the kind of thing that almost never happens.
My job is copyediting and laying out technical manuals and trade books.
The kind of books that tell you how to put things together or how to use them.
I'm good at it. It's steady work, and I'm proud of it in a quiet way.
It's also the one part of my life where I never freeze up.
Graham designs the buildings the manuals could never explain.
That was the joke when we met. His joke.
It made me feel picked. When my lease ran out and his second bedroom was empty, it was the easiest yes I've ever said.
He charges me less than the room is worth.
When I tried to argue about it, he just looked at me until I stopped.
Living with Graham is like living inside a solved problem.
The coffee's always good because he found the beans.
The chair by the window is the right chair.
The one your back was asking for without knowing how to ask.
He cooks two or three nights a week without making a thing of it.
Sets a plate in front of me like it's nothing.
And it's never nothing. I've learned to just say thanks and eat.
Because the one time I made a fuss he waved it off in a way that made me feel small for noticing.
He remembers what I said about my week and asks the follow-up on Thursday.
In a year of sharing a place, he's never once asked me for anything I could see.
I used to wait for the catch. The favor.
The roommate grudge that builds up over dishes.
It never came. He just seems to like running a good life and having me inside the edge of it.
A guest who moved in and never quite stopped being a guest. I've stopped questioning my luck the way you stop questioning good weather.
He sets the glass in front of me. He doesn't sit across from me.
He leans on the island next to me. Big and easy.
Close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off him.
The way you feel a radiator without touching it.
Graham takes up room the way expensive things do.
Quietly. Like the room was always going to be that size.
Next to him I'm aware of being built on a smaller scale.
I've never minded it. It's like standing next to a good building.
"So...what happened?" he asks.
"So the third date," I say, "is where you find out two great dinners were kind of a trap."
"It went badly."
"It went... I'm not sure it went badly. I gave a full performance. Standing ovation. Just, you know." I turn the glass a quarter turn on the counter. "The show had no second act."