Page 201 of The Lies We Play

I open my mouth and lie, “Never been better.”

He reaches across the table and puts his hand over mine.

His hand is warm. His thumb moves over my knuckles once, then again, as if he can soothe whatever is happening beneath my skin without asking it to explain itself. He doesn't push. He doesn't crowd. He doesn't make my pain audition for his attention.

After a minute, he lets go.

“Eat the second sfoglia,” he says. “I bought two. They are not for me.”

I blink at him. “Sometimes I think you don’t like sfoglie?”

“I tolerate them.” He presses his lips into a thin line. “I buy them because you like them. After three years, the time has come to admit it.”

A laugh catches in me and almost makes it out.

Almost.

He smiles. That small, wry, private smile that has, for three years, been one of the kindest faces I have ever cared for.

Not loved—cared for.

The distinction is small until it becomes everything.

I have to leave him.

We sit at my kitchen table for another forty-five minutes. He tells me about his current project. He fills the room with his voice, the way a good man offers a buffer between a woman and the thoughts trying to eat her alive.

I care for him for it.

Not in the way that requires me to stay.

In the way that requires me to stop pretending.

At twelve-thirty, he stands.

He kisses my cheek again.

“See you later tonight.”

I repeat, “Tonight.”

He leaves.

The door clicks shut behind him.

For a moment, I stand at the counter with the second sfoglia uneaten on the plate.

Then I cry. I cry with the small dignity of a woman who has built systems for all the things her body insists on doing against her will.

I cry for two minutes.

Maybe more, because apparently, my organizational skills have decided to resign without notice. Also, every tear I refused to shed over the last ten years seems to have formed a committee, elected leadership, and chosen today for its public demonstration.

When I believe I am finished, I wash the plates.

This is what competent women do when their lives begin to fracture.

We rinse sugar from porcelain.