“But with a podcast, you wouldn’t have to talk to all those people. Not directly, anyway. You’d just have to talk to me.”
I swallow, nod my head gently to indicate that I hear but that the conversation is still over.
“Anyway, just think it over,” he adds, reclining his chair.
I can hear the rustling of his jeans as he tries to get comfortable, and I know, within minutes, he’ll be able to do so easily what I haven’t been able to do in a year. I peek one eye open and glance in his direction. He’s pushed wireless headphones into his ears, the steady thumping of bass loud enough for me to hear. Then I watch his body transform the same way it always does, predictable yet still so foreign to me: His breath begins to get deeper, steadier. His fingers begin to twitch in his lap, his mouth hanging open like a creaky cupboard door, a single bead of drool quivering in the corner of his lip. Five minutes later, a gentle snore erupts from his throat, and I feel a pinch in my jaw as I clench my teeth.
Then I close my eyes, imagining, for a fleeting moment, what it must be like.
CHAPTER THREE
I push my key into the front door, twisting.
It’s nearly two in the morning, and my trip home from the airport is nothing more than a blur, like those long-exposure photographs that feature busy commuters with trails of color following them around the train station. After landing at Hartsfield-Jackson, I had grabbed Waylon’s business card and tucked it into my purse, picking up my things and pushing toward the exit without so much as a goodbye. Then I ran to my gate, hopped onto my connection, and took another forty-five-minute flight into the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, my eyes boring into the seat in front of me the whole way home. I barely remember staggering through baggage claim, hailing a taxi outside the terminal. Letting the car lull me into a kind of trance for another forty minutes before being dropped in my driveway, stumbling up the steps toward home.
I hear my dog whining as soon as the key begins to turn. I already know where to find him: sitting just inside the front door, tail wagging furiously against the hardwood like a feather duster. He’s always been mouthy, Roscoe, ever since he was a puppy. I envy his ability to hold on to the things that make him him, unchanged.
Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I don’t even know who I am.
“Hey, you,” I whisper, rubbing his ears. “I missed you.”
Roscoe emits a low groan from somewhere deep in his throat, his nails pawing at my leg. My neighbor takes care of him when I’m gone: an older woman who pities me, I think—that, or she really needs the twenty dollars a day I leave for her on the countertop. She lets him outside, fills his bowl. Leaves meticulous notes about his bathroom schedule and eating habits. I don’t feel bad about leaving him, to be honest, because she gives him more of a routine than I do.
I drop my purse on the counter and thumb through the mail she left in a pile, mostly junk and bills, until I feel a catch in my throat. I pick up an envelope addressed in familiar script, my parents’ address in the left-hand corner, and flip it over, sticking my thumb in the gap and ripping it open. I pull out a small card with flowers on the front; when I open it up, a check flutters out and falls to the floor.
I drop the card on the counter, exhaling slowly. I can’t bring myself to touch the check, to see how much it’s for. Not yet, anyway.
“Are you ready for a walk?” I ask Roscoe instead. He spins in a circle, an undeniable yes, and I feel myself smile. That’s the beauty of animals—they adapt.
Ever since I’ve become nocturnal, Roscoe has, too.
I remember looking up at Dr. Harris, nine months ago, during our first appointment. The first of many. I couldn’t see my eyes, but I could feel them. Tight, stinging. I knew they were bloodshot, the little veins that were supposed to be invisible branching out across my sclera like a windshield after a wreck, bloodied and cracking. Broken beyond repair. No matter how many times I blinked, they never got better. It was almost as if my eyelids were made of sandpaper, chipping away at my pupils with each flip of the lid.
“When was the last time you got a full, uninterrupted night of rest?” he had asked. “Can you recall?”
Of course I could. Of course I could recall. I would be recalling that date for the rest of my life, no matter how hard I tried to push it out of my memory. No matter how hard I tried to will it out of existence, how desperately I wanted to pretend that it was just a nightmare. A terrible, horrible nightmare I would be waking up from at any minute now. Any second.