He Stayed

"You said yes to Ben?" Mom asked the next morning, as though I'd agreed to join a traveling circus.

"For one evening."

"Good. You should enjoy yourself."

Nate was reading something on his phone at the kitchen island.

"Where?" he asked.

"Boston. Large place. Several buildings."

He looked up.

Mom laughed into her coffee. Victor arrived with the keys to the country house, and the conversation moved on.

They left after breakfast. Mom kissed my cheek twice and asked Nate to make sure I ate.

"I'm standing here," I told her.

"Then you'll have heard."

By evening, I had decided to wear the green shirt Ben said made me look like somebody who occasionally got invited places.

Nate hadn't returned from work when I left.

I noticed. Then I got into the rideshare anyway.

Ben was waiting outside a small live-music bar near campus. He took one look at me and whistled.

"Good. You remembered you have a neck."

"I wear shirts with necks every day."

"Usually the sort that suggest you've taken a vow."

Inside, the band was tuning up. We found a table. Ben ordered a beer; I ordered ginger ale because my head had been bothering me since class.

For an hour, it worked.

I laughed at something that had nothing to do with Nate. I listened to a terrible cover of a song I liked. A guy in a denim jacket asked whether the chair beside me was taken, and I said no without first imagining somebody else's face.

Then the guy looked over my shoulder.

"You know him?"

Nate stood beside our table. Owen was a few feet behind him, looking apologetic already.

"Apparently," I said.

"Rachel said you were out with Ben."

"Excellent reporting. There he is."

Ben raised his bottle. "Evening."

Nate's gaze settled on the man beside me, then returned to my face.

"This isn't your usual place."

"That's what going somewhere new means."

"Can I speak to you?"

I followed him as far as the quieter corridor by the restrooms. I wasn't going to give him a scene to justify worrying about me.

"Is something wrong at home?" I asked.

"No."

"Then what?"

His jaw tightened. "You didn't answer my message."

I checked my phone. There was a text from twelve minutes earlier asking when I'd be back.

"The band was playing."

"I was going to offer you a ride."

"You could have written that."

He glanced toward our table. "Do you know that guy?"

"I'm attempting to. That's how meeting people works."

"Elliot."

"What exactly am I doing wrong?"

He said nothing.

Behind him, Owen caught my eye and made a small gesture that might have meant sorry or good luck.

"I'm leaving at eleven," I said. "With Ben. You can tell my mother I've completed my evening report."

I walked back to the table.

My hands were shaking. Ben noticed, but he only shifted his chair closer and asked if I wanted fries.

Nate didn't approach us again.

When we left, he was still at the bar with Owen. His eyes followed me to the door.

I hated that I looked back.

The headache became a fever overnight.

By midday, the light through my curtains hurt. I texted Ben that I wouldn't make class, swallowed some water, and tried to sleep.

Martha found me shivering under two blankets.

"Oh, sweetheart."

"I'm fine."

"Remarkable. You look like a Victorian orphan."

She made arrangements while I lay there being unconvincing. A little later, my bedroom door opened again.

I thought she'd brought the thermometer back.

Instead, Nate sat on the edge of the chair beside my bed.

"Can you sit up?"

His voice was so quiet that I opened my eyes properly.

"You should be at work."

"Martha called."

"She could have called Mom."

"She called me."

He helped me get to the car. At the clinic, I leaned against a wall while he completed the details I couldn't concentrate on. When the nurse asked a question, he turned to me instead of answering for me.

It was a small thing. I noticed it anyway.

Back home, he carried a tray upstairs and put the instructions beside my water. Soup, crackers, medicine in its paper bag.

"Martha's food," he said, when I looked suspiciously at the bowl. "I'm not trying to finish you off."

I laughed, then regretted the movement in my head.

He steadied the tray.

"Sorry."

"For the joke or last night?"

His hand stopped.

For a moment, I thought he'd leave.

"Both," he said.

I looked down at the soup.

"You made me feel twelve."

"I know."

"I wasn't doing anything dangerous."

"I know that too."

"Then why?"

He pulled the chair closer. "I didn't like not knowing when you'd be home."

That answer was too close to something I wanted, and too far from a promise to trust.

"You could have asked," I said.

"I'm discovering I'm not especially good at that."

I ate a few spoonfuls. He didn't watch each one like a test. He answered two emails on his phone, put it facedown, and stayed while I took the medicine.

At some point, I fell asleep.

When I woke, the room was darker. Rain ticked against the glass. Nate was sitting in the same chair with his jacket folded behind his head.

His laptop was balanced on one knee. A document glowed on the screen.

"You're still here."

He glanced over. "Observant. Psychology paying off?"

"Very expensive degree."

He closed the laptop.

"Water?"

I nodded. He handed me the glass and waited until I'd found a comfortable position against the pillows.

His fingers touched my wrist when he took it back. Neither of us moved for a second.

Then he set the glass down.

"Martha says you dislike the blue blanket."

"It sheds."

"I thought it was because I picked it."

I stared at him.

He looked almost embarrassed. "Rachel asked. Years ago. I said blue."

For seven years, I'd thought my mother had bought that blanket.

"I don't dislike everything you choose," I said.

His eyes remained on mine.

I wanted to ask a question. Fever made it feel less impossible, though not less frightening.

"Nate?"

"Yeah?"

"Did I do something?"

He straightened.

"When I was little. Was there something I did that made you hate having me here?"

The rain filled the silence.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. For the first time I could remember, he looked younger than his expensive watch and his carefully controlled voice.

"No," he said. "You didn't."

"Then why did you?"

He rubbed his thumb across the mark on his hand.

"I owe you a better answer than the one I can give while you're half asleep."

I looked away.

"That's convenient."

"Tomorrow," he said. "If you still want to ask."

"And you'll still be here?"

He didn't make a joke about where else he would go.

"Yes."

I believed him for one night.

When I woke again, the lamp was on low, and he was asleep in the chair.