see you at the end

Dylan

At first, when I get outside Connor Hall, I don’t see anyone.

But then I hear a trembling voice. “Help me…”

My heart is in my throat. Before I can look over and see him laying on the sidewalk, I know it’s Leander.

When I get over to him, he’s gripping his side. There’s blood seeping through his sweatshirt and his fingers. He’s trembling. “He shot me…”

For a split second, I’m frozen in shock and fear. I don’t know what to do. But then Leander’s eyes begin to flutter closed. I drop to my knees next to him and hold him up against me. “Don’t close your eyes. Stay with me.”

I take off the button-up I’m wearing over an undershirt. I take it off too fast, too rough, and buttons are rolling on the concrete as I place it over his wound, applying pressure.

His head falls back against my shoulder. “He…he asked me if…”

“Who asked you?” I realize I don’t have my phone. I look around and see Leander’s bookbag on the ground near us. I reach for it. “Where’s your phone?”

His eyes flutter and he swallows.

“Leander, stay with me. Please. Where’s your phone?”

He shudders as he nods to his pocket. I take it out and tap emergency call to dial 911. As I speak to the dispatcher, I can feel Leander’s weight on me, getting heavier and heavier as he starts to lose consciousness.

“Come on, Leander. Keep your eyes open.” I set the phone down and move us so he’s sitting up against my left shoulder. I keep pressure on the wound in his right side. “You’re going to be okay. Help is coming.”

He looks at me. He nods slowly. His lips are losing color.

“Just hang on, Leander. Please.” My voice catches and my eyes start to water, overflow, then drip down my cheeks. I shouldn’t have let him leave my office alone. I shouldn’t have brought him here tonight in the first place. This is all my fucking fault. “Do you know who shot you?”

The dispatcher is saying something through the phone, but I can’t hear her very well. I pick it up with my free hand to talk. I describe the scene and advise her I’ve got pressure on the wound. But the bleeding hasn’t slowed much. When Leander starts feeling heavy again, I gently shake him.

In the distance, I can hear sirens. I’m surprised and relieved they’re coming so fast. Then I realize we’re on a college campus. The active shooter protocols must be in place.

Leander looks up at me, his gaze fading in and out. “I don’t know,” he swallows. “I don’t know if I remember him…he asked me…if I did…”

Blood is starting to soak through my shirt. I try not to panic. “You don’t have to right now.” I suddenly realize, if there is in fact an active shooter running around, Leander and I are sitting ducks. I look around us, but I don’t see anything. “Just keep your eyes open. Stay with me.”

Leander’s eyes roll around in his head and start to close. “No.” I shake him again. “Look at me.” His eyelids flutter open. It occurs to me right then that I’ve known him a grand total of eleven days. Is that it? Only eleven days and I feel like this; like I’m losing someone I’ve known and cared about for years. I think that’s how it felt at the art gallery—like I’d known him before. When he looked at me, stood too close to me, and asked me things. Things I didn’t want to answer.

“I saw two people making love,” I say to him. “In that light sculpture. That’s what I saw. I lied to you when I said I didn’t.”

I think I see a faint lift at the corners of his lips.

“And you were right about me,” I whisper to him as the sirens get closer. “I am insatiable.”

Leander gets heavier against me, but his eyes don’t close. They’re locked right on mine as the sirens get louder. I feel like he can see something in me right then, and I let him see it. I can see something in him too. Beyond those gold flecks in his brown eyes I think I can see a whole universe and it’s splattered with brightly colored paint and thousands of points of light. Nothing can happen to him. Not now. He’s not done with this world yet. He can’t be.

Looking back, eleven days earlier, perhaps we let each other see just a tiny fraction of what’s between us now. There’s no holding it back. There’s no pretending. No secrets.

An EMT jogs over and kneels beside Leander with a kit, opening it quickly. He gently takes Leander from my arms. “Sir, are you injured?”

But it’s probably too late now. There will be questions. From the police, the school administration, and his Senator dad. They’ll all want to know why the both of us were here. Someone is going to ask why I was in my office on a Tuesday night with no classes to teach. They’ll all see, and they’ll all find out, that this was my fault.

“No. I’m not hurt.” I’m reluctant and in a daze as the EMT takes Leander away from me. He removes my bunched up shirt to assess Leander’s wound. Leander’s hands are covered in blood. For the first time, it all really starts to settle on me, the enormity of this, the seriousness, and I get dizzy, so much that I can hardly stand up.

“Sir?” The other EMT places a hand on my shoulder. “Just sit there for a second, alright?”

I nod. There’s lights everywhere. Red and blue. The cops have started rolling in.

The EMT looks at me with concern. “Are you sure you’re not injured?”

I look down to see a wet spot of red on my shirt and pants. Suddenly I’m freezing cold. “I’m sure.” I nod to Leander, who they’re placing onto a stretcher. “It’s all his blood.” I try to get up, but I can’t.

The EMT kneels beside me and shines a light in my eyes. “It’s alright, sir. You’re in shock.”

They’re loading Leander into the ambulance now. Everything is happening so orderly. And so fast.

“Where are you taking him?” I ask the EMTs, my voice cracking.

“Mount Vernon,” one of them responds.

“I need to go with him. He’s—,” I hesitate as I think of what to say, “my friend.” I reach for Leander’s phone and his bookbag.

“Come on,” the EMT slides her arm under mine to help me stand. “Get in the back okay?”

After they load Leander inside on the stretcher, they help me in the back. For a second, I wonder if I was hurt too and I just don’t know it. But the dizziness dissipates as we speed off toward the hospital, sirens going, and I reach for Leander’s hand.

His fingers thread through mine and squeeze.

He’s going to be okay.

He has to be.

***

It’s chaotic at first, because everyone thinks I’m shot too.

I have to insist to several nurses that I’m fine, but they take me into an exam room anyway, right as they rush off through some swinging double doors with Leander.

“Where are they taking him?” I ask a nurse.

“The ICU,” she says.

I can hardly pay attention as she does a quick exam, checking under my shirt and pants where the blood spots are. When she sees I was telling the truth, she checks my blood pressure and shines a light in my eyes.

“Can I go see him?” I ask her.

“Are you family?”

“No. I just…I want to make sure he’s okay.”

She types something into a tablet. “I understand, but you can’t go back there right now. If you want to wait, you can. Do you know of anyone we should call for him?”

“I, uh…I don’t know their numbers.” I can’t remember the address either. And I don’t have my phone. It’s back in my office. I can’t remember if Leander gave me his mother’s cell phone number or not. But I tell the nurse who his father is.

After I leave the exam room all clear, I settle into a chair in the waiting area, getting a few wary looks. I know I look an absolute wreck. Time ticks by and there’s a TV on in one corner playing Everybody Loves Raymond reruns with subtitles. I feel like I should be doing something and it’s worse that I don’t have my phone. I feel absolutely helpless.

I reach in my pocket to feel my wallet. I look around for a pay phone, but there isn’t one. Brynn would have to be home by now and wondering where I am. I suddenly feel sick at the thought of having to explain this huge bloodstain on me.

I don’t know how many times I have to watch Ray Barone argue with Debra before there’s a commotion behind me, and I turn to see Senator Garrison storming into the hospital with his wife beside him. He goes right to one of the reception desks and speaks in an urgent and hushed tone at one of the clerks. I get up to go over to them, wondering if they’ll recognize me from the party, when a doctor in blue scrubs emerges from the set of double doors.

The doctor sees the Senator and approaches him. From the bits and pieces I manage to overhear, it sounds like Leander’s stable, but he’s going to need surgery.

I realize then as the doctor takes the Garrisons through those double doors that my part in all this ends here. I feel a deep, unsettled ache inside me as I look through the square windows on those doors. He’s back there somewhere.

And even though I know he’s stable, I just wish I could see for myself.

And tell him I’m sorry for all this.

Because I’m the reason he was there tonight, and I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight.

***

I take a cab back to campus.

One of the nurses at the desk called one for me. The driver stared at me, wide-eyed, but I insisted I was fine.

I look at the time on the dash of the cab and see it’s only 10:30pm. It feels like it should be much later. And Leander would be home safe right now if I hadn’t told him I’d be in my office.

And that I’d hoped I’d see him.

But someone’s been stalking him. I wonder if it’s some political thing. Someone that hates his dad or something. I don’t even know. My mind spins with all kinds possibilities as the cab pulls up to campus. I direct the driver to Connor Hall, but the front lot has been sectioned off by police.

I decide it’s best if I don’t get out of the cab and ask one of the cops standing by if they can retrieve my things from my office. At first, they seem confused and I let them know I was here earlier, which prompts them to start questioning me, but I tell them I can’t do this right now. I have to get home because my fiancée doesn’t know what happened and is probably worried.

When a cop returns with my phone, laptop, and bag, I see there’s just enough battery on my phone to discover that the texts and calls I’d been expecting aren’t there.

Not one text or call from Brynn, worried or wondering where I am.

But there’s one from Leander. Sent hours ago, probably right after he’d left Connor Hall and right before he was attacked:

I’m sorry if this offends you, but I wanted to kiss you just now. And I think you wanted to kiss me too.

I stare at it in the back of the cab as it drives away from campus. He had to have sent that right before. I imagine him standing there, right outside of Connor Hall, typing that message as some monster with a gun approached him.

I feel an absurd urge to start laughing, but the laugh comes out as a cry.

The cab driver watches me in the rear view mirror with worry as tears pour down my face and leave little puddles on the dark screen of my phone.

***

Leander

I’d say one of the worst things about being shot in the hip is the way the stitches and bandages pull anytime I move even a little bit. It’s constant and painkillers only do so much.

One of the other worst things about being shot in the hip is being shot in the fucking hip.

I don’t know if medical school trains doctors to use the word lucky a lot, but that’s what they told me. I was lucky because the bullet lodged in my hip bone but didn’t shatter it. They also said I was lucky because the sciatic nerve wasn’t damaged. But the bullet hit an artery, so I needed a blood transfusion. They also needed to repair some tissue damage to my intestines.

After the surgeries, I recovered in a private room, which my dad was able to arrange for me to stay in with his Senator Superpowers. I was knocked out for almost a whole day, resting, until I opened my eyes during the early evening hours and saw Dad’s grumpy-ass face staring at me.

Lucky, lucky me.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he’s saying into his cell phone as he paces around. He always holds the phone a couple of inches from his ear, because he thinks if he doesn’t, he’ll get brain cancer. “Listen. You keep those goddamned vultures out of our private family business, and we can talk about it later, all right?” He hangs up the call and swears under his breath. “Branfield sends you her prayers.”

I reach up to scratch an itch on my neck that’s been driving me nuts, but the stitches pull. “I don’t want anyone’s prayers.”

Dad stands over me, frowning at my bandaged up side just like he was when I first woke up. “She doesn’t mean it. It’s something people just say. How are you feeling?”

I’m about ready to tell him he doesn’t mean that, that it’s something people say, but I say instead, “Like somebody shot me with a fucking gun. How are you feeling?”

Dad’s nostrils flare. “What drugs do they have you on?” He looks around for a nurse, and leans in to whisper, “I don’t want you ending up like your brother.”

“For fuck sakes.”

“Don’t you use that language with me. That’s how he started. Those oxy things they gave him.”

“They’re not giving me that and I was shot. I didn’t bust my knee playing soccer.”

Dad sits down. It makes me mad. I don’t want him to get comfortable and stay. I want him to just go back to obstructing bills or whatever fuck he does.

“First thing we’re going to do once your better,” he says, “is take you out and get you a gun.”

I turn away from him toward the window that overlooks a brick wall. “No thanks.”

“You would’ve been able to defend yourself if you had one.”

Even all drugged up he makes me so mad, but I should have expected this. It’s all he’s going to talk about now.

“This isn’t the wild, wild west, dad. I wasn’t meeting the motherfucker at high noon. Besides, I’m pretty sure DC has a bunch of laws.”

“You really don’t remember what the guy looked like?” He leans over, confidentially. “I’ve been able to keep the police away today so you can recover from your surgery, but they’re going to want to talk to you.”

“Fine. I’ll talk to them. Send them in.”

Dad hesitates for a second and I look at him.

Dad looks behind him to make sure there’s no one lurking around the door. Mom went to get coffee and they’ve both been doing everything they can to make sure no media people are sneaking around.

Because, you know, the last thing my dad needs is for the world to know someone shot his other son.

“Tell me what you remember,” dad says quietly. “You said it was an older man?”

“It was dark and it happened fast. And he was wearing a ball cap so I couldn’t see his face super clear. But I could tell he was older. Like maybe your age.”

“And he asked if you remembered him?”

I don’t know if it’s from the blood loss or the shock or whatever, but the actual time in between leaving Mr. Atkins’s office to Mr. Atkins finding me is fuzzy. I feel like I’m missing pieces. There was the guy, the gunshot that felt like a hard punch to my side, and then Mr. Atkins—Dylan—was there.

It could also be my mind is cloudy from the painkillers. But I don’t want to tell Dad that. I honestly don’t want to tell him any of these details at all. He’s not going to be any help. He’s been in my face with questions ever since I woke up.

“I bet it was some liberal yahoo,” Dad says, frowning. “Trying to take me down by attacking my son. And I bet—”

“Will you shut the fuck up!” I can’t hold it back anymore. “Not everything is about you!”

His face gets red. He opens his mouth with a retort, but he’s interrupted.

“Excuse me.”

Dad and I turn to see a grim-faced nurse in the doorway.

“Mr. Garrison?” she asks.

“Yes?” Dad responds.

“Not you.” She looks past him at me. “There’s a detective here to see you.” She gives my dad an eyebrow raise. “If you’re feeling rested enough.”

“I can talk to them,” I say, turning to look at my dad. “Alone.”

Dad frowns at me but he gets up. “I’ll be back later.”

I almost tell him not to bother, but a woman comes into the room with a bun pulled so tight the corners of her eyes are raised. She gives my dad a curt nod and introduces herself as Detective Reed. She flashes a badge. She waits until Dad’s gone and the door is closed before she starts questioning me. I tell her everything, especially about the weird notes, but then I realize after about five minutes that I wasn’t as ready for this as I thought.

Detective Reed notices. “It’s alright if you can’t remember everything right now. I know you’ve been through a lot.” She hands me a card. “You can call me when you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks,” I say, taking the card. “Sorry. I just feel a tired and kinda foggy.”

“I understand. Incidentally, did you keep any of those notes?”

“Um,” I try to think. “I might have? I might have thrown most of them away.” I leave out my original suspicion that it was Lionel. He’s an asshole, but he’s not a stalker.

“Okay.” She makes a note. “Before I go, can you tell me the name of the gentleman that was there with you?” She opens up a notepad, and then looks at her phone. “He was…one of the faculty or staff at the school?”

“Uh, yeah,” I feel a slight flutter in my stomach. “He’s one of the instructors. Dylan Atkins.”

“You got his email or anything?”

I look for my phone and see it plugged in on a table just out of reach. Detective Reed gets it for me and when I unlock it I see a shit-ton of missed calls and texts.

And the flutter in my stomach increases when I see one at the top is from Dylan.

I give Detective Reed his number and she thanks me. A clear thought pokes through my clouded mind that maybe she’ll think that’s suspicious; that I have an instructor’s phone number. But her face is a mask as she gets up and tells me we’ll be in touch. Then she goes out the door and closes it behind her.

No one comes in immediately, and I’m thankful to get a few minutes of quiet. I should probably get some more rest, but I open up the text from Dylan and read it again:

I don’t know if you’ll get this or if you’re awake, but I just wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking about you. I hope the surgery went well and you’re okay. I’m so sorry this has happened to you.

He sent it early this morning, around 6:00. I was knocked the fuck out.

Thirty minutes later, he sent another message: I’m not offended because you were right.

I’m confused by the message at first, until I scroll up and see the text I sent. The very last one before all hell broke loose.

Suddenly, I’m pain-free. Stitches and bandages aren’t pulling and there’s no dull burn near my hip. Because he’s admitting he wanted to kiss me too. I was going to, wasn’t I? I wanted to, but then his phone went off and what happened? I thought I should leave because it might be his fiancée, and I should know better.

Maybe we both should know better.

But I stare at that message for a long while, ignoring the rest, until I slip into a dreamless sleep.

***

After about three days, thirty-seven stitches, and the third-degree from Dad, I’m cleared to be released.

It’s just my mom and Florence who come to get me and check me out of the hospital.

Dad is too busy being irate.

Irate because he wasn’t able to keep the story off the local news stations and double irate because now there’s people asking him about his stance on gun control now that his own son has been shot.

I watched clips of him on the TV in my private room refusing to answer, and instead berating the reporters for turning this “tragedy into something political.”

On the one hand, I get it. But on the other, I want to assure my father that my feelings won’t be hurt if he decides to indulge those reporters with an answer. It would be interesting to see how he spins it.

I don’t fight my mom too hard when she insists that I stay in the historic Garrison brick colonial during my recovery. It’s still difficult to move around and walk, and I’m a little afraid of being alone in my art studio now. Now that I know the person who left the notes wants to kill me.

But I’m not so sure about that, though. I think about it as my mom drives us to the house. I’ve thought about it some when I’ve been awake: why didn’t that man shoot me in the head or the chest? A guaranteed death sentence. It all happened so fast, so maybe his aim wasn’t very good. I don’t know.

What I do know, however, is that it wasn’t Lionel. And that every time I try to think about it, try to remember anymore details, it’s like my mind goes blank. I’ve heard of people saying that’s what happens when your brain tries to protect you from something traumatic.

Still…there’s something about the encounter that nags at me. Not just the question he asked about if I remembered him, but it was something after that…

“Leander,” Mom says as we pull into the driveway. “Is there anything special you want Florence to make you for dinner?

“Not really,” I reply, accepting the help from her out of the backseat of her Range Rover.

They get me into the house and up to my old room, where I promptly lie back on the covers and try to nap. All that physical exertion has exhausted me.

Later, I spend time catching up on texts I didn’t feel like responding to yesterday, but mostly I read all the texts from Dylan.

There aren’t that many. He must have been busy with classes or something because there are some time gaps in between messages. Neither of us have brought up the kiss text or mentioned what he said to me that night. I remember that for sure, but I wonder if he just said it because he thought I was dying. Did he just feel sorry for me? And does he regret saying it? Because I can’t forget that one important detail about his life—he’s got a fiancée. And it’s more likely than not he’s just a confused straight guy.

But despite all those things, I can’t help but want to talk to him.

And be near him.

I’m getting ready to text him, when the screen of my phone lights up with an incoming call. I’m surprised to see it’s Alex. I debate for a second on whether or not to answer before I finally tap the green button. “Hey.”

“Leander.” It sounds like he’s outside somewhere. “How are you?”

“All right for being shot in the hip.” There’s a pinch from one of the stitches up my side to contradict me.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have been more…I don’t know. Concerned, I guess. Did they find who attacked you?”

“No.” I close my eyes, and the man’s face, slightly shadowed under a baseball cap, appears behind my eyelids. I open my eyes. “I don’t really remember that much about him. Not enough to help the police right now anyway.”

“I’m so sorry, Leander.” His voice actually sounds it.

“Why are you sorry?”

“I feel like I should have done more when you talked to me about it. I hope you kept the notes to give to the police.”

“Some of them, I think. I don’t remember.”

There’s a long pause before he says, “Well, I just wanted to check on you. I’ll let you get back to resting.”

“Thanks.” I am actually grateful he’s checking up on me. For as cynical as he is, I guess he can be nice too.

“When you’re up to it,” he says, “I’d like to take you to dinner. If that’s all right.”

I sigh. I was sort of hoping the thing between Alex and me would just fizzle out and there’d be no need for me to talk to him about any of this. “Listen. It was really nice of you to call and everything, but…I’m kind of like…into somebody right now.”

There’s a heavy pause. “I see.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it always?”

“And besides, you don’t want Webber or my dad finding out, do you?”

Alex sighs. “You know that was never much of a concern for me.”

“I guess you like to live dangerously.”

I hear light laughter on the other end. “Call me if it doesn’t work out with your guy.”

“I might.”

“See you around.”

“See ya.”

After I end the call, my parents come into my room without knocking. Seeing them standing there together, looking so stern yet concerned makes me feel like I’m twelve all over again.

I toss my phone down on the bed next to me. “What do you guys want?”

Dad stands over me with his grumpy toad frown, while mom sits on the end of my bed. This literally reminds me of the day they told me about Lionel’s “problems.” I was fifteen and knew well enough what drug addiction was and that Lionel had changed. But they wanted to have this serious discussion with me anyway, in my room, almost identical to this. The way they’d looked at me, I thought I was the one in trouble.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, rubbing my hand over my face, which makes the stitches pull. “What the hell is this?”

“Now listen, Leander,” Dad says. “This is important.” He glances at my mom. “I’ve arranged for you to have security detail with you whenever you leave the house. There’ll be security detail with all of us for the time being. I have every reason to believe you were targeted by someone who’s angry at me, and there are plenty of wackos out there who are just crazy enough to try something like this again.”

The thought of having a buff dude in sunglasses following me around is on the one hand a little reassuring and on the other horrifying. It’ll just draw more attention to me and that’s the last thing that I want.

“I don’t want a bodyguard,” I say.

“Too bad. You’re getting one,” Dad says.

“We just want you to be safe, Leander,” Mom says. “I don’t want you going back to your classes without someone there to protect you.”

I narrow my eyes at Dad. “What about all that getting me a gun shit?”

“You have to be twenty-one for a conceal carry,” he says. “Maybe for your birthday, we’ll take you to a range.”

“Fucking unreal,” I say to him, shaking my head. “I told you I don’t want a gun. And I’m telling you now I don’t want a bodyguard following me everywhere.”

Dad frowns. “It’s either that or you drop your classes this semester.”

I laugh harshly. “Are you serious? Jesus, how old do you think I am? I’m twenty not twelve.”

“We know that, sweetie,” Mom interjects before Dad can speak. “We just want you to be safe.”

“I want to be safe too, but not like that.”

“We pay for your school, your credit cards, your phone,” Dad says. “As long as your living under this roof—”

“And I don’t fucking want to be. I think I’ve made that pretty clear.”

“Leander,” Mom says, exasperated. She reaches for one of my hands. “Please. I want you to get your education and be able to go out and do whatever you want to do, but as long as that monster is loose, you’ll need protection. Please.”

The constant dull burn in my hip has started to increase over the course of this conversation. I know it’s time for more pain meds and probably to just go to sleep. But the remark about them paying all those things for me stings. Because it’s true—they still have way too much power in my life. I’m going to have to do more besides sell paintings to eliminate that power. I’m a grown adult. There’s no reason why I can’t pay for my own classes, credit cards, and my own phone. I’m going to have to find a way. Or else I’ll be spending the rest of my life spinning my wheels and doing whatever my dad wants.

I rub my eyes and reach for the bottle of pills and water on my night stand. “I’ll think about it. Okay? Now, leave me alone. I’m tired.”

“It’s for your own good, Leander,” Dad says.

Mom gets up off the bed and leans over to kiss my head. “We just want you to be safe. We’d die if anything happened to you.”

“I get it,” I mumble.

After they’re gone, and I’ve taken my pills, I get back on my phone. The last text Dylan sent me was hours ago, asking how I was feeling today, and I responded shortly after.

I send him another one. Just FYI, I might be returning to class with an entourage.

I’m delighted when there’s an almost instant response. I didn’t expect you to come back to class at all. Thought you might drop it before the penalty date.

Me: I might still do that. Because I might have to show up with a bodyguard

Dylan: Wow. Really?

Me: Yeah. Maybe. I don’t want to, though. Also don’t really want to drop your class. I hesitate for a second before I add, because I’d miss you.

The seconds creep by before he responds, I’d miss you too. And then he adds, A lot.

The “polite” texts we’d been exchanging the last couple of days seem stupid now. Ridiculous. A complete waste of time. He just saved my life, and why isn’t he being hailed a hero?

And why am I not saying the obvious? The thing I know we both want.

Me: I want to see you.

Dylan: I want to see you too.

Me: Really?

Dylan: Yes

I try to think of how. And where. And even if I’m able to because going up and down the steps in his house takes more time and effort for me right now.

Me: Can you FaceTime?

Dylan: Give me a sec

After about a minute or so, my phone screen lights up with an incoming FaceTime call. I answer it and there he is, smiling faintly in the yellow glow of a lamp.

There’s the flutter in my stomach at the sight of his face, but also a deeper, more emotional reaction. One that makes tears spring up in my eyes. It surprises me. I try to blink them away.

“You okay?” He says, concerned.

“Yeah.” I wipe my eyes. “I just…I haven’t seen you since…well…”

“Right,” he nods. “You were asleep, but I stopped by your room the day after. I’m sorry I didn’t come back, I guess I…I thought it might not be appropriate.” He pauses. “It’s good to see you. You look really well.”

I wipe my eyes again. “Why wouldn’t it be appropriate? You fucking saved my life.”

He looks down for a second. “I think you know, Leander.”

“And I never thanked you,” I say. “For saving me.”

“It was the paramedics that saved you.”

“They told me if you hadn’t gotten to me first and tried to stop the bleeding, I might have died from blood loss.” Judging by the sober expression on his face, no one has told him this. “There’s nothing inappropriate about that.”

“I shouldn’t have been there,” he replies, shaking his head. “Neither should you. I shouldn’t have told you I’d be in my office, because I knew…or I wanted…,” he closes his eyes and shakes his head again, then he looks at me sadly. “Don’t you see, Leander?”

“No, I don’t.”

He sighs. “It’s all my fault. The only reason I told you I’d be in my office that night was because I wanted to see you. I didn’t have any work to do. I just wanted to see you. To be alone with you.”

“Alone with me,” I repeat, propping my phone up on a pillow so I can turn onto my left side. I place my hand on my right side so the bandage doesn’t tug on the stitches too hard.

Dylan sees the gesture. He looks down again. “Yes. And now you’re…like this.”

“How could any of it possibly be your fault? I was getting creepy notes before I even met you.”

“Maybe I just have a guilty conscience.”

I stare at him in the screen looking exactly that way—guilty. I don’t want him to feel that way.

“Where are you right now?” I ask.

He looks around briefly. “I’m home. In the, uh, the spare bedroom.”

“Oh.”

He looks off to one side and back at the screen. “My fiancée’s working late tonight.”

“On a Saturday night?”

He shrugs.

I don’t know what his fiancée does, but I remember her from the art gallery. The social butterfly redhead that was talking to other people, and not him. He was alone.

Alone with me.

“So, you’re insatiable, huh?” I say with a small grin.

He gives me a small smile. “I am.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“You don’t.”

We don’t say anything for a handful of seconds. I just look at him in the screen and he looks back at me. It’s hard to read his expression, but he suddenly feels a million miles away from me. I want to bring him back, bring him close to me.

“I want to see you for real.”

His gaze softens. “Me too.”

“Soon.”

He nods. “Okay.”

I place my thumb on the screen as if I could touch his face.

After a couple of seconds he does the same.