Page 83 of Near Miss

I roll my eyes, but he’s smiling at me, and it’s this sort of smile he makes all the time. But there’s something else there, written in the lines of his jaw, the curve of his full bottom lip. Resignation and acceptance spelled out across the mouth I love to have all over me. And I think that means it’s okay, that this is all I can give him. That I’m enough for him even though I’m empty.

He understands, my brain whispers.It’s still safe for now.

I smile softly at him and concede, holding my hands up. “Alright, Beckett. Fuck my brains out.”

Beckett groans, rolling his head back like it’s all this big joke—an inconvenience. But he’s on me before I can say anything else.

I think we’re laughing more than we’re not, and he doesn’t really spend that much time inside me—it’s all wandering hands and mouths.

We fall off the couch. One of his compression boots digs into my back when he’s between my legs. Somehow, he smashes his head against the coffee table so badly we have to stop, and I need to test his ocular responses in the bathroom. I hit my knee against the side of his bathtub when I drop to the floor for him.

But it’s funny and lovely and wonderful and I hope he’s my friend forever.

Beckett

I don’t mean to fall in love with her.

I try pretty hard not to, actually.

I can’t be certain when it happened, but if someone cuts me open when I die, I’d guess it might be written there on the inside of me, and it might say something about the time we sat knee to knee on the floor of the bookstore, and she read me passages from a book about the fall of Soviet Russia in that voice of hers.

Or maybe it’ll be about the night she fell asleep on the couch with one cheek pressed to my chest, and I stayed there watching the streetlights paint something more beautiful than theMona Lisaacross her face.

It could be when she drew what she swore was a fully accurate lymphatic system on the steam in my bathroom mirror.

I’m not really sure.

But I am sure she’s everywhere and nowhere.

And I am sure that real me must be a masochist, because he’ll take any scraps she gives, and he does it with a smile.

There’s not much I can do about that—so I kick, and kick, and kick.

Greer

Flickering candles in towering vases cast shadows across the white linen, stretching towards all the scattered wineglasses littered across the tables lining the hospital atrium.

I wrinkle my nose.

I don’t know how I was roped into another event—some sort of mixer for incoming and outgoing residents—but the head of the transplant program said I had to go, and he went as far as to make sure my recent award was written in looping cursive underneath the name tag hanging around my neck.

He said it would be inspirational.

I’m not so sure about that.

The edges of the plastic slice at my fingers when I smooth out my dress. Fortunately, it’s one of my own choosing. I was spared my sister’s ministrations for the night, and I was able to wear one of the black cocktail dresses hanging in my closet. I used to like this dress quite a bit—asymmetrical, twisted rope straps, one falling mid-shoulder and the other just at the curve of my neck.

I’d never tell her, but I’m not sure I like it as much as the emerald one.

But that might have had more to do with the company than the gown.

And I would have asked Beckett to come—as a friend—but he’s on a road trip.

He does send me a text with a tongue emoji and what I think is a subpar rendering of a closet, drawn with about as much finesse as a stick figure.

I ignore the way that makes my stomach turn, my thighs clench, and the way my heart stumbles when the ghost of his hands whispers over my calves.

I’m doing my best not to think about Beckett at all as I weave through the tables, because I should probably go sit with the other fellows.