Page 43 of The Restoration Program
There was a heavy pause behind her. Then, with a blatantly disappointed sigh, he paced past her toward the vanity. She caught a glimpse of annoyance in his frown, and an involuntary chill crawled up her spine.
She shoved away the irrational fright. Ryan wouldn’t hurt her, but there were still times she needed to convince her nerves of that. Even from the safety of her walkway, she swore she could feel his polished shoes grind against the carpet with sickening clarity on his way to the mirror.
When she reached her miniature doorway, she paused and glanced at him again with a knotted stomach. He was right next to her, busily tying a Windsor, but he felt far away.
She tried to ignore the feeling, forcing herself into the hall and counting ten breaths along the way. If she thought about her fear too long, she might be compelled to share it at the support group meeting this week. The last thing she or Ryan needed was to end up like Todd and Ellis, who only seemed to communicate with each other when they had a captive audience.
Nicole shivered. Todd and Ellis’ arguing had gotten uglier at the last meeting—Todd had stormed off during the second half of the session. She wondered what would happen to Ellis if they divorced.
She took the walkway that ran adjacent with the living room wall, turning to the path that took her past the sofa and finally to the coffee table. It had become her usual spot during Ryan’s first week back at work, putting her in reach of her open laptop and the television remote. Ryan had even set up some furniture provided by the Program—a cushy armchair and a table with a single seat tucked by it. The arrangement was comfortable enough, like a mini living room just for her. But her old spot on the normal-sized couch was always in sight, taunting her with the echoes of her pre-procedure life.
Before long, Ryan emerged and beelined for the kitchen. She heard him moving hurriedly, roughly, before pausing as though the snap of dishes and cabinets slamming might have terrified her. Whatever his reason, he finished up notably quieter.
He offered her a tiny cup of coffee when he returned to the living room. Nicole sipped, resisting the urge that bubbled up to tell him she was perfectly capable of fetching her own. He had made her coffee countless times before her Restoration—not everything was pity.
“Let me know if anything exciting happens today,” Nicole said, forcing levity into her voice. “I’m counting on a good story when you come back.”
Ryan assessed her set-up. “You sure you don’t need anything else? I can scramble some eggs or something if you’re hungry.”
She beckoned him down. When he knelt, she placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him between the eyes. “I’m good. I promise I’ll still be here at five.”
Ghosts swirled in his gaze when he regarded her, but he managed a small smile. “We’ll get into the swing of this soon.”
She smirked, smoothing back a stray lock of his wavy hair. “Obviously. We’re the model couple of Fairbourne Restoration Facility B.”
His chuckle was warm on her skin as he took hold of her hand and tugged her to him, enfolding her in an embrace. One moment, he was her entire world. Then, when he walked out the door, the silence stretched vastly.
As the tedium of the day ahead began to sink in, Nicole tried to take her actions at an easy pace. She hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. Her life had once been nonstop, with another task or chore around the corner at any given moment. She was used to scarfing down her breakfast on her way out the door and sipping coffee all morning at her desk; sitting through rush-hour traffic and rushing to make it to the post office before they closed. Now, she’d taken to turning on the news and eating slowly. There was nowhere to go; nothing waiting on her. She clung to what Dr. Burman had repeated at the meetings about taking everything a day at a time. An hour at a time. A minute at a time.
That was great advice when the minutes didn’t feel like days.
When she finished her coffee, she made the lengthy trek to the kitchen for a refill. Her NüPrint corner on the counter didn’t have anything extravagant, but the basics felt like a luxury. She mixed a granule of instant coffee with some hot water from the kettle and eyed up the vacuum-sealed NüPrint meals that were stacked neatly on the kitchenette shelf. She plucked out a “Parisian french toast” and set about re-hydrating it. The toast wasn’t terrible, but there was nothingParisianabout it, and she found herself wishing she’d taken Ryan up on his offer to make breakfast.
As though he doesn’t do enough for you already.
Coffee in hand, she returned to her laptop and opened the Restoration Program’s messaging app, designed as an easy and confidential way to allowPartners with Printsmembers to stay connected to each other. Dr. Burman insisted the messages weren’t monitored, but Nicole tread cautiously nonetheless. His questions at the last session had been a littletooinsightful.
She smiled at the sight of a new message from Carlos—the time stamp was from just twenty minutes ago.
“Hey newbie. How was your week? Ripping your hair out yet?”
“Day 6 on my own and no breakdown,”she painstakingly typed in response.“Proud of me?”
To her relief, “Carlos is typing…”appeared at the bottom of the screen. She’d managed to catch him in front of his computer. Nicole wondered if Carlos was as awkward about stretching between the “W” and “O” keys as she was, or if he had some nuanced system worked out. Maybe he used a stylus to tap for him. She made a mental note to experiment with that herself.
“Get back to me on that after another week and I might be,”he replied. There was a pause before the app showed him typing again.“Didn’t get a chance to ask the other day. Did Holly seem down to you last session?”
Nicole frowned.“Seemed pretty upbeat to me,”she answered.“Do you mean because her boyfriend was a no-show?”
“That’s nothing new. He started skipping every other week before you showed up.”
She rolled her eyes and sat back to look the screen up and down critically. Sure, being a NüPrint stuck at home wasn’t thrilling and Holly was a sweet kid, but Nicole wasn’t desperate enough to gossip about the intricacies of a high school couple. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to humor Carlos in the spirit of keeping the conversation going.
“Well,” she typed, “If something’s up wouldn’t she say so? She likes sharing.”
“Maybe.”
The chat went dead for nearly a full minute. Nicole scrambled for something else to say, but Carlos finally began typing again.
