Adrien #3
I catch it with both hands and wait. She waits too.
I let the weight of the moment stretch and, while it does, I take her in like this—the oversized shirt spilling just a few inches past the waistband of her underwear, her long, toned legs planted firmly, bare feet gripping the wooden floor. She has the cutest feet ever.
I look back up and there’s still the excited and expecting look on her face. So I hurl the pitcher into the wall beside me and it shatters loudly, echoing through the room.
She giggles again, this time more unguarded and this time, she lets the smile stay. The sound of it scratches something in my brain, something that needed to be scratched for far too long.
This is good.
This is fun.
I’m not sure what’s happening, but if breaking things makes her happy, then let’s break things.
We’re tuning back into the right frequency. I can feel the humming, needy tension vibrating in the space between us. And even though we’re far apart, each of us at a different end of the room, I can almost feel the tether warming up the air.
We share another staring contest, a genuine smile stuck on both of us.
But someone knocks on her door. We both snap our heads toward the sound.
No.
Please no.
Kiara enters the room with the… oh fuck.
The psychiatrist.
It’s already time? What?
I glance at Nat. Her smile is still there, only now it’s aimed at Kiara. But Kiara and the woman both glare at me.
“Adrien,” Kiara says quietly.
She’s probably about to say something like what the hell are you doing here, but my name does something instead. I see it the second it happens, the smile drains from Nat’s face, confusion bleeding back in.
“No, wait,” I blurt out, but it’s already too late.
Nat presses her hands to her head, like she’s trying to hold everything together, or keep something from spilling out.
“You need to leave,” the psychiatrist says.
“No,” I snap desperately. “You need to leave. We were fine.”
Kiara takes hold of my arm and starts leading me toward the door while I keep my eyes on Nat. She’s staring up at the ceiling now, quiet, hands clamped over her ears as if she’s overwhelmed and slipping.
Whatever we had, it’s gone now. I should probably leave.
I let Kiara guide me out, still watching Natalya, peeking through the last hole in the door before they close behind us.
And suddenly I’m standing in the hallway with both Kiara and the psychiatrist facing me, waiting for an explanation. I’m a head taller than both of them and still, it feels like someone just dragged me straight into the principal’s office.
“I was a stabilizing presence,” I defend myself to the psychiatrist. “Very predictable and definitely safe. I swear,” I explain while her attention flicks to the drop of blood drying on my neck.
“What happened?” she replies nicely, seeming really interested.
My mouth twitches into a smile.
“I’m not sure, but—” I start, and then I lose the words entirely, unable to verbalize it. I end up talking with my hands, chaotically, trying to sketch the shape of the moment instead of naming it.
“I think she needs to see me more. I think—” I pause, searching for the right phrasing. “I need to stay, so she understands that no glitch is coming. You know?”
They both listen.
“She needs to understand that this is real,” I continue, pointing at my chest. “And she won’t believe that if I keep disappearing. If I stay, maybe she’ll accept that it’s not just a hallucination.”
They look at me for a long moment. Then Kiara smiles and nods. The psychiatrist nods too, but not in agreement, just in understanding.
“Let me have another session with her,” she says calmly. “And I’ll inform you, okay?”
“Okay,” I reply. “I’ll make her breakfast.”
I turn to leave, already halfway gone, when something occurs to me.
“We broke a couple of glasses,” I add hesitantly.
Kiara just shakes her head, smiling. “I’ll clean it up.”
As soon as I’m out of their sight, I can’t stop grinning. I head into the kitchen and start making pancakes, unable to hold back the quiet amusement, replaying the morning in my head.
The way she laughed at me the second time—I zone out for a while, watching it all unfold behind my eyes like a movie.
Then the smell of burning dough yanks me back.
“Shit,” I mutter, staring down at the first pancake, completely charred.
That one is mine.
I toss it aside and make a few proper ones.
When I’m about to arrange everything on a tray, I notice a small block of squared note paper on the kitchen counter.
I tear one piece off and start folding it—in half, then back, the other half, back again, diagonally and back, until the shape finally forms.
A butterfly. Just like the one she showed me once.
I remember how when she did it, proud of herself, I noticed she folded it from her math homework and I had to write that homework from scratch. A little miscreant, really.
When it’s nearly finished, at the very end, I change the last fold. Instead of lifting the wings up, I tilt them down, folding them inward. It doesn’t look like a butterfly anymore.
It looks like an owlet moth.
She’ll know.