Page 32 of Crosswind

I close the door. I stand in the hallway for a moment.

"Patrick," he says.

He has put the book down. He is looking at me with the full Jan attention, the kind that sees things, and I feel, standing in the hallway of his apartment, the weight of the thing I am carrying.

"Something happened," I say.

He is very still. "Okay."

“Nothing… I didn’t…” I stop. "Can I just… sit down and tell you the whole thing. From the beginning."

"Yes," he says. Immediately. No hesitation.

I come in. I sit in the chair across from him, not beside him, because I want to be able to see his face properly and I want him to be able to see mine. I look at my hands for a moment.

"What happened," he says. Quietly.

It is not a question. This is another thing about Jan — he reads situations with a precision that I have come to find both reassuring and slightly alarming. He is already in the conversation before I have started it.

I tell him.

The bar, Finn, the conversation, the moment at the end. The walk home. The bridge. I don't edit it. And somewhere in the middle I start apologising and can't stop.

"I know I didn't do anything wrong… I backed away, I told him clearly, but you shouldn't have to hear this, you shouldn't have to sit here while I tell you someone kissed me, and I need you to know that the second it happened I felt sick, I'm sorry, I'm really…”

"Patrick." His voice is quiet but the word lands completely, the Jan version of a hand on the shoulder.

I stop.

Jan is looking at me with the expression he uses when I have gone somewhere he needs to bring me back from. Calm. Direct. Entirely certain.

"Stop spiraling," he says.

I close my mouth.

"Take a breath."

I take a breath.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he says. Clearly. The Jan version of certainty, which is the most certain certainty available. "Someone kissed you without your consent and you backed away and you came home and told me. That's it. That's the whole thing. There is nothing to apologise for."

"I know. I just…”

"You feel like you need to apologise anyway."

"Yes."

"I understand that," he says. "And I'm telling you, clearly, that you don't." He holds my gaze. "Are you hearing me?"

"Yes," I say.

"Good."

I look at my hands. The apartment is quiet. The canal outside.

"Are you upset?" I say. "Be honest."

He is quiet for a moment. His face is… I cannot read it entirely. Then something shifts in it. not the composure, something underneath. The window unlocking.