"Sorry—"
She blinked.
"What?"
He said it again. Simply. The same two words, the same quiet register. Not louder than the first time. Just — again.
"Come here."
She looked at his hand.
Palm up. Open. The specific, waiting geometry of it in the warm hospital light — the IV line at the back of it, the bandaging white at his ribs, the purple eyes above all of it watching her with the particular, unhurried patience of someone who had said a thing and was not going to unsay it.
She pressed her lips together.
The specific, lip-pressing of someone trying to stop something from happening in their face.
It didn't work.
Her chin trembled. The specific, chin-tremble of someone who had been holding a great deal together for a long evening and had arrived at the place where the holding cost more than was available.
She walked.
