Page 38 of Near Miss

I look around. It’s just a closet, filled with forgotten shit that no one would miss. But she’s looking at everything like it’s hurting her impossibly. “Tell me what you see, and I’ll tell you what’s real, okay?”

She nods and takes another inhale. Her hand presses against her chest, and her fingers dig into my shoulder. “Coats.”

“Real,” I answer.

“Broken umbrellas,” she whispers.

“Real.” I nod.

She blinks. “A stack of boxes.”

“Real.” I smile softly, pressing my fingers into her calves.

“You. I see you.”

I swallow. “Real.”

Beckett Davis. A real, whole person after all. Who knew.

Greer blinks, her grip loosens against my shoulder, fingers feathering softly, and the knuckles on her hand pressed against her chest go from white to pink. Her voice is impossibly small, but it cracks when she speaks. “I don’t feel the water anymore.”

“It was never here. It was never real, okay?”

“It was.” The corners of her lips tug up in a sad smile I hope I never see her make again, and she gives me a tiny shrug. “Once upon a time.”

I nod, and I press my forehead against her thigh before looking back up at her. “But not this time. Okay?”

“Okay,” she repeats.

We stay there, silent, staring at each other—two real people surrounded by real things that aren’t here to hurt us, just to collect dust.

I watch her take another deep breath, and I don’t mean to do it, but I breathe in and out with her. Like we’re in this together, we’re going to take in the same amount of oxygen, be on an even playing field until she can breathe as well as she deserves and needs to feel better.

She looks at me like she’s relying on me, and for once, the idea of it—reliable, dependable, Beckett Davis—doesn’t feel like this burden that’s going to weigh me down so much it sends mecrashing through the floor into the sub-basement of whatever hell our expectations go to die.

My shoulders straighten. It feels easy, to carry something when she needs me to.

My thumbs still move in these small, tiny circles against the muscles of her calves.

My eyes stay on hers until she takes this little, even, low, regular breath that somehow looks beautiful.

“You feel better?” My voice is rough.

Greer nods a bit, giving me another sad smile. “Steady. My heart feels close to normal again. Lungs feel full and no more pins and needles.”

“And the water?” I ask, drumming my fingers against her calves.

“Still gone.”

“Good.” I try to give her a reassuring smile. “What else can I do for you?”

“Nothing.” She shakes her head, finally dropping her hand from her chest to my other shoulder. “Unless you can give me an injection of fast-acting serotonin or dopamine.”

I give a jerk of my chin. “Sadly, fresh out of syringes with readied injectable brain chemicals in my suit jacket. What else gives that?”

“Some foods. Things that help you relax. Yoga. Massage. A cute animal video.” Greer shrugs, her shoulders curving inwards a bit, skin somehow illuminated under the dim light. “An orgasm.”

She says it through this tiny raspy laugh and it’s meant to be a joke—but it doesn’t feel like one.

---