Page 100 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

The room is quiet when I become aware of it again, and my body feels heavy and warm beneath the blankets. Theois stretched along my side with his face tucked against my shoulder, while Idris sits near the headboard with one arm behind me and a glass of water held near my mouth.

Dash remains near my legs, drawing a damp cloth slowly over my skin with the same care he uses when brushing hair away from my face. Sloane is missing from the mattress, and the absence hits quickly before his section of the bracelet lights.

“I’m getting another cloth,” he calls from the bathroom. “I’ll be back in ten seconds.”

I begin counting without meaning to, though he returns before I reach eight. He carries the cloth and one of Dash’s soft shirts, and the moment he sees my eyes on him, he stops beside the bed.

“I should have told you before I stood up,” he says, placing the shirt within reach. “Next time I tell you first.”

“You did tell me,” I answer, and he shakes his head slightly because the words came after he had already moved. The correction is small, though it matters enough that I watch him climb back into bed and settle beside me.

Sloane finds my hand beneath the blanket while Dash finishes cleaning me and remains near my legs instead of retreating to his room. Idris places the water on the nightstand, tells me he is reaching for the lamp, and lowers the light only after I nod.

Theo shifts upward until he is half across my chest. His voice is already drifting when he says breakfast should have cinnamon, and Dash answers that the house has cinnamon and the good bread.

Sloane presses his mouth to my temple and tells me he is staying. Idris rests his hand against the outside of my thigh and says the same, while Dash’s palm settles near my hip through the blanket.

“You will find me here when you wake,” Dash says, and I believe him enough to let my eyes close.

Sleep takes me slowly, carrying the sounds of their breathing and the weight of Theo across my chest with it. The bracelet rests against my wrist, every section dark because the people attached to it are already touching me somewhere else.

I wake once before morning, though the room remains dark and quiet. Theo is warm against my side with his mouth near my shoulder, Dash’s hand rests over my hip beneath the blanket, and Idris lies behind Sloane with one arm curved around his waist while his fingers touch the back of my thigh.

Sloane’s hand is still linked with mine. I let my body count each shape before my mind has to explain anything, and everyone is where they said they would be when my eyes close again.

Calliope

Theo has moved three things in my office before I finish answering my first email.

The blue throw pillow disappears from the couch and reappears in the chair beside my desk. My forest-green cardigan leaves the back of the door and settles over his shoulders. By the time I look up again, the lunch bag Dash packed has been opened across the coffee table, its contents arranged in careful rows beside two napkins and a pair of plastic forks neither of us needs.

Theo catches me watching and pauses with one hand inside the bag. His hair has fallen over his forehead, and the cardigan sleeves cover most of his fingers. “Dash packed grapes,” he says, holding up the small container as though this explains everything.

My smile comes before I can stop it. “He packed grapes because you told him yesterday that the ones in the dining hall were sour.”

“They were sour.” Theo sets the container beside the sandwiches and nudges the larger one toward my side of the table. “This one has your name on it.”

Dash has writtenCALLIEin neat block letters across the wrapper. Beneath it, in smaller writing, he addedEAT ALL OF IT, which feels unfair coming from a man who watched me finish breakfast less than four hours ago.

The section of my bracelet that belongs to him glows as I pick up the sandwich. Theo notices and smiles, softer than he did a moment ago, before touching the pendant hidden beneath my cardigan. His light joins Dash’s, the two pale sections warming against my wrist.

“He knows you found the note,” Theo says.

“He knows because he planned the timing.”

Theo leans against the couch, pleased enough with Dash’s interference that he does not bother pretending otherwise. His scent has been sweeter since yesterday, the cardamom warmer and the peach blossom beneath it thickening at the edges, but he is calm. He had wanted to come to campus with me, and when Idris asked whether he was certain, Theo had taken my hand and answered for himself.

I carry my sandwich to the couch and sit beside him. Theo shifts immediately, pressing his thigh to mine before opening his own lunch. He no longer waits until fear or heat gives him a reason to touch me.

Outside the window, the quad is bright with weak winter sunlight. Students cross between buildings with scarves loose around their necks and coffee cups tucked beneath their arms. One of my first-year students passes with a book open in front of her face while her friend keeps guiding her around benches without interrupting whatever she is reading aloud.

Theo follows my gaze and watches them disappear toward the library. “You smiled.”

“I didn't.”

“You did.” He rests his cheek against my shoulder, his mouth curved where it presses into the knit of my sweater. “You smile more here.”

The words settle quietly inside me. I look around the office Dash found for me, at the shelves that are beginning to fill with my books and the ceramic mug Sloane replaced after he decided my old pen cup was depressing. Idris' scarf is folded over the back of my chair because he remembered the building gets cold after lunch, and Theo has already made the couch look as though it belongs to him.