In Five Years

After

Aaron and I lie next to each other, perfectly still. It is not awkward, although we do not talk. I suspect we are, both of us, coming to terms with what we have just discovered: that there is nowhere to hide, not even in each other.

“She’s laughing,” he says, finally. “You know that, right?”

“If she doesn’t kill me first.”

Aaron lifts a hand to my stomach. He chooses, instead, to make contact with my arm. “She knows,” he says.

“I’d imagine, yes.” I roll to the side. We look at each other. Two people bound and tethered by our own grief. “Do you want to stay?” I ask him.

He smiles at me. He reaches over and tucks some hair behind my ear. “I can’t,” he says.

I nod. “I know.”

I want to crawl to him. I want to make my bed in his arms. To stay there until the storm passes. But I can’t, of course. He has his own to weather. We can help each other only in our history, not in our understanding. It is different. It has always been different.

I look around the apartment. This place she built for me. This haven.

“Where will you go?” I ask him.

He has his own place, of course. His own life. The one he was living this time last year. Before the tides of fate swept him up and deposited him here. December 16, 2025. Where do you see yourself in five years?

“You want to have lunch tomorrow?” he asks me. He sits up. Discreetly, under the covers, he pulls his pants back on.

“Yeah,” I say. “That would be nice.”

“Maybe we could make it a weekly thing,” he says, establishing something. Boundaries, maybe friendship.

“I’d like that.”

I look down at my hand. I don’t want to. I want to hold it forever. This promise on my finger. But it is not my promise, of course. It is his.

I take it off.

“Here,” I say. “You should have this.”

He shakes his head. “She wanted you—”

“No,” I say. “She didn’t. This is yours.”

He nods. He takes it back. “Thank you.”

He stands up. He puts on his shirt. I use the time to get dressed as well.

Then he stops, realizing something. “We could drink some more wine,” he says. “If you don’t want to be alone?”

I think about that, about the promise of this space. This time. Tonight.

“I’m okay,” I say. I have no idea if it’s true.

We walk across the apartment silently, our feet light on the cool concrete.

He pulls me into a hug. His arms feel good, and strong. But gone is the charge, the kinetic energy pulling, asking, demanding to be combusted.

“Get home safe,” I say. And then he is gone.

I stare at the door a long time. I wonder whether I will see him tomorrow, or whether I will get a text, an excuse. Whether this is the beginning of goodbye for us, too. I do not know. I have no idea what happens, now.

I walk around the apartment for an hour, touching things. The marble countertops, the grainiest shade of green. The black wood cabinets. The cherrywood stools. Everything in my apartment has always been white, but Bella knew I belonged in color. I go to the orange dresser, and that’s when I see a framed photo sitting on top of it. Two teenagers, arms wrapped around each other, standing in front of a little white house with a blue awning.

“You were right,” I say. I start to laugh, then. The hysterical sobs of someone caught between irony and grief. The woven tapestry of our friendship continuing to reveal itself even now, even in her absence.

Outside, across the street from the apartment, right by Galapagos, I can see it start to snow. The first fall of the year. I put down the picture. I wipe my eyes. And then I pull on my rubber boots. I grab my down jacket and scarf from the closet. Keys, door, elevator.

Outside, the streets are empty. It is late; it is Dumbo. It is snowing. But from a block over, I see a light. I turn the corner. The deli.

I wander in. There is a woman behind the counter, sweeping. But the place is warm and well-lit, and she doesn’t tell me they’re closed. They’re not. I look up at the board. The array of sandwiches, none of which I’ve ever touched. I’m not hungry, not at all, but I think about tomorrow — about coming here and getting an egg salad on bagel, or a tuna on rye. A breakfast sandwich — eggs and tomatoes and cheddar and wilted arugula. Something different.

The door jangles behind me. A tinkling of holiday bells.

I turn around, and there he is.

“Dannie,” Dr. Shaw says. “What are you doing here?”

His cheeks are red. His face open. He’s no longer in scrubs, but in jeans and a jacket, open at the collar. He is handsome, of course, in the way familiarity is beautiful, if not a little worn, a little tattered.

“Dr. Shaw.”

“Please,” he says. “Call me Mark.”

He extends his hand. I take it. We will stay in that deli until they close, sipping on coffee that turns cold, which is an hour from now. He will walk me home. He will say he is very sorry for my loss. That he never knew I lived in Dumbo. I will tell him I didn’t. Not until now. He will ask if perhaps he can see me again, perhaps at that deli, when I am ready. I will tell him yes, perhaps. Perhaps.

But all of that is an hour from now. Now, on the other side of midnight, we do not yet know what is coming.

So be it. So let it be.