Page 18 of After the Snap

His eyes search my face as though he expected curiosity to follow the sympathy. When it doesn’t, some of the tension leaves his shoulders.

“Thank you,” he whispers, stepping into the kitchen, and I follow closely behind him, not pushing for any more than he’s willing to give.

He opens the refrigerator and looks inside. “I can offer you water or orange juice.”

“Water is fine.”

He takes out two bottles and slides one across the counter to me before keeping the other for himself.

“For the record, the antique dolls would’ve been worse than a wife.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” His laugh catches him by surprise, and I smile before taking a drink.

“You know, you’re making it very difficult to figure you out.” I lean against the counter rather than taking one of the stools.

“I didn’t realize that was the assignment.”

“It became one when you admitted you were almost married and then started hiding imaginary doll collections.”

“I’m not hiding them. They’re sleeping.”

I laugh hard enough that water nearly goes down the wrong way, and he reaches instinctively toward me before stopping when I recover on my own.

We’ve spent hours circling the edges of each other’s stories without requiring facts to make the conversation feel real. I know how he listens when an answer matters and offers pieces of himself more easily when no one reaches for them. What I don’t know is what he wanted before whatever happened today made him walk into the same bar as me.

“Can I ask you something?”

His posture changes almost imperceptibly, not closing but preparing. “You can ask.”

“What did you think your life would look like before the idea of leaving Houston became something you weren’t excited about?”

The question wipes the remaining amusement from his face, but he doesn’t look away. He looks down at the bottle in his hand, his thumb pressing into the label until it wrinkles beneath the pressure.

“I thought I knew.” He keeps his attention on the bottle in his hand, worrying the edge of the label until a narrow strip peels away. “I thought by now I’d feel settled, like I’d built enough of a life to know where I belonged in it.”

His answer surprises me. I’d prepared for something easier to name: a goal he missed or a plan that changed. Instead, he gives me something without a finish line.

“What does settled look like?”

“A house that feels like mine because I have someone to share it with.” His gaze moves briefly around the kitchen before returning to me. “Someone who knows what I’m going to say before I say it and still wants to hear it. Kids, eventually. I thought I’d come home every day to someone who was glad I made it back.”

He never says her name, but her absence fills every future he describes.

“And now you don’t want any of that?”

“I didn’t say that.” The force behind the answer surprises both of us as his fingers loosen around the bottle. “I still want it. I just don’t trust myself to know what’s real anymore.”

“Because you were wrong about her?”

“Because I thought being needed meant the same thing as being loved.”

I look down before he can see how much his answer gets to me. I built my entire future around becoming useful enough that no one could question my place in their life.

“Uh-oh. Was that too deep for someone you just met?” He chuckles, reaching up to grip the back of his neck.

I shake my head, but the movement feels dishonest after everything he has offered me tonight. “Maybe a little, but I can’t say I don’t feel the same.”

His expression changes, the last of his guardedness giving way to concern. “Who made you feel like you had to be needed?”