Page 59 of At First Dance
“I know.” I breathe once, slow, and the room lists a little less. “This”—I gesture at my fevered body, the way the walls keep doing a soft tide—“is probably just my immune system filing a complaint.”
“Or your body saying the quiet part out loud.”
I huff a tired laugh. “Since when do you talk like a therapist?”
“Since I figured out fences and people break the same if you overtighten them.”
“You calling me a fence?”
“I’m calling you something worth mending right.” He says it like the weather , and it lands like weight where I need it.
I look at him, at his steadiness, and the decision clicks into place with a relief that makes my eyes burn. “I’m not going,” I say. No apology. No caveat. “I’m staying.”
His shoulders ease a fraction. Not triumphant but relieved, like he’s been holding a gate against the wind, and it finally latched. “Good,” he says simply. “Then the only thing you need to do tonight is sleep.”
“I’ll text her.” I fumble for my phone, thumbs clumsy but sure.Not coming tomorrow. Health first. Don’t schedule anything without my consent.I hit send before I can massage it into something palatable. The whoosh feels like dropping a stone I’ve been carrying too long.
I set the phone face down and meet his eyes. “There. Official.”
He nods, the approval quiet and warm. “The rest can wait.”
“It scares me how much I want this”—I swallow—“to stay simple.”
“It’s allowed to be,” he says. “Here, it is.”
I sink back into the pillow. The cool cloth kisses my forehead. His fingers adjust it like it matters where the corner lies. I already have his number memorized—cell and the stupid landline that sounds like it’s been ringing since the nineties—but what steadies me is the way he’s looking at me now, like he means it when he says he’ll be right here.
“Try to sleep,” he adds, voice low. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You don’t have to sit guard.”
“I know.” With a half smile, quick and real, he nods toward the blue case on the table. “And if you need more than soup and stubborn, I’ll handle it.”
The laugh that escapes me is soft and scratchy. I let my eyes close, his palm settling lightly over my wrist like a promise,and for the first time all day, my body believes me when I tell it we’re staying.
I close my eyes. The room shifts from bright to dim as the sky moves outside. Time warps the way it does when you’re sick and somebody else has their hand on the wheel. I drift. Wake to the scrape of a chair being pulled closer. Drift again to the sound of him talking low on the phone—Bailey, I think—assuring her he’s got it, that I’ve eaten, and my fever’s trending down. Once, I wake to a cool hand smoothing hair off my face, and I want to cry with the simple kindness of it.
“Rowan?” My voice is a rumple of blankets. I don’t open my eyes.
“I’m here.”
“Can you—” The request is ridiculous and small and costs me more than it should. “Will you stay?”
The chair creaks. Warmth moves closer, then his palm wraps loosely around my wrist, heavy and steady where it rests on the blanket. “I’m not going anywhere, Ivy.”
I let that sentence sink into me. It threads through tight places and loosens them. Somewhere in the house, a floorboard pops as the temperature falls. A night bird calls. His thumb drifts absently, barely there, over the inside of my wrist, counting a rhythm my body wants to match.
I sleep.
I surface once in the dark to the sound of rain. I must’ve asked for the window. The air is wetter, cooler, the scent of petrichor winding into the room. My throat hurts less. My head hurts the same. I turn my face toward the sound and crack my eyes.
He’s there on the chair, long legs stretched out, nodding off despite the awkward angle, hand still on my wrist like a promise he forgot to remove. The porch light paints his profilein soft gold—the stubborn line of his nose, the cut of his jaw, and the tired kindness in the set of his mouth even asleep.
Something in my chest expands so fast it’s almost pain.
“Rowan?” It’s barely air.
His eyes open. He tightens his hand, a reflex. “You okay?”
