He took a seat next to her in the cafeteria. He did it with studied ease, pulling out the chair and sitting as if he’d done it a thousand times. Of course, he had pulled out a chair and sat in it a thousand times, perhaps ten thousand times. But this was no time for cockiness.
“Hey,” he said without looking at her, as if her radiant presence weren’t mere inches away.
“Hey,” she said, sitting up and smiling at him. Her smile was such a welcome sight, so sweet and illuminating, sating him and sapping him all at once, translating him to a reality beyond his most distant dreams. He didn’t know how he’d lived without it.
He had been an unmitigated fool to think that the designation of her friendship was some kind of pittance. Here was a treasure in plain sight, unguarded, unsought, uncontested. He had stumbled upon it, and he wasn’t going to waste time looking about for anyone else to snatch it up.
It seemed to him that every drop of her abundance had been reserved for years, hidden from those less trustworthy, and was now revealed to him, and to him alone. He was continually surprised by the new depths he discovered, astonished that she proved to be even more captivating than she appeared. And the deeper he went, the less he could bear the prospect of of the secret getting out.
He knew he was envied, and that it was justified. He knew nobody else there had ever been granted to hear the sound of her laughter, or the rare timbre of delight when she engaged him in a game of banter. The more they were together, she became unaffected and forgetful. She stopped darting glances over her shoulder, and shrugged away some of the intense vigilance she had used to cloak herself. She became younger and artless, and there were moments she fixed him with a look of such ardent trust, he thought his heart would burst.
He had to protect her. He had to keep her safe. Nobody else could cherish her like he did. Even he couldn’t have imagined how seamlessly his own soul would mesh with hers, and as the months passed, he was finding it more and more impossible to tell the two apart.
—
Since she chose the place, she insisted on ordering and paying for the coffee.
“I can wait in line. Don’t you want to get a table?” she asked. The cafe was busy with the Saturday afternoon crowd, noisy with conversations, the stomp and hiss of snow boots, and the snorting of steam wands.
“But it’s so nice out,” he said, gesturing toward the frigid, bright blue sky outside. “Let’s walk around.” She looked at him doubtfully. “Come on, you’re dressed warmly.” He tugged playfully on her puffy jacket. “Anyway, I haven’t seen you in ten days, and I don’t want to try to talk over this bedlam.” She smiled indulgently and conceded.
“So, how was Christmas with the fam?” she asked.
“Fine,” he shrugged. “They’re good. Healthy. And nosy.” She grinned.
“Did your mom like that sweater?”
“She loved it. That is the last time I ever take a recommendation from you. She couldn’t believe I found it on my own. They were all convinced I had help from a girl.” She grinned, then stifled a yawn.
“Charlotte was up three times last night. I barely got her down for a nap before I came here.”
“Is her ear infection still bad?”
“It’s the third time in two months. We have to go to the ENT on Monday morning, which means missing another meeting. I don’t know what to do, Casper. I can’t keep skipping out on work like this. I’m sure they’re all ticked at me.”
“None of the guys have said a word. The only person who complains is Tricia. I told you I’d say something to her. You shouldn’t have to deal with it. It’s harassment.” They stepped forward to the counter and peered at the menu board.
“It’s harmless. Nothing more than I deserve,” she mumbled. “What will you have? This is your Christmas present, so the sky’s the limit.”
“A black coffee. What do you mean you deserve it?”
“Black coffee?” she moaned. “Are you sure that’s all you want? That’s a lousy gift.”
“But I didn’t get you anything either. It’s fine, Reagan. What did you mean? What do you deserve?” She ordered two drip coffees and tapped her phone to pay.
“Never mind,” she yawned again, as they stepped to the side and waited for the order.
“I really hope you don’t mean what I think you mean,” he said. She sighed and put her hands in her pockets.
“Never mind,” she repeated. “I only meant that if the roles were reversed, I might be a little torqued if someone else missed that much work.” When her name was called, she picked up the coffees and popped off the lids. “You want cream?”
“Black is fine. But you get all your work done. If you miss a day now and then, it shouldn’t matter to anyone. Half of them get to work from home whenever they want anyway.” She considered this, carefully pouring cream into her cup. She held the small carafe toward him. He waved it away.
They stepped out of the cafe and started down the sidewalk in the brisk air.
“Is your coffee okay?” she asked, wincing. “I don’t know how you can drink it like that.”
“It’s not bad. I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t like them watching me and judging me, so I’ve learned to drink it straight up.”
“Who’s judging you?” she asked, taking a sip.
“The baristi.” A small spurt of coffee suddenly escaped from her lips and she covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking. The laugh she then released was so delighted and expansive, he could only smile, unsure of what he had said to be rewarded so generously.
“Did you really just say ‘baristi?’” she struggled to say, her throat tight with the effort. “As in the plural of barista?”
“Of course.” She laughed again, and the sound of it was so warming and welcome that he didn’t mind that he had made himself the butt of an unintended joke.
“Look what you made me do,” she giggled, as she looked down at the coffee dribbling down her coat. He reached over and lamely brushed off the cold droplets, but only succeeded in smearing them. She only kept laughing and tried to speak. “It’s baristas, Casper. Baristas.”
“That’s insane. Since when do we modify nouns like that? You saw them in there. Two guys, two girls. That’s a mixed group, so you’d use the masculine plural. It’s baristi.” She kept laughing. “Because a girl is a barista, a guy should be a baristus,” he explained. She was clutching his arm for support. He grinned and leaned into it. He was a stand-up comic playing to a sold-out room. “Baristas,” he scoffed. “You know what? I should put in cream and sugar. Tons of it. And I’ll take a super long time to do it, just so I can tick them off.”
“You do realize it’s not a Latin word, don’t you?” He shrugged. She smiled. “And I really don’t think they care what you put in your own coffee. But I’ll start using the proper gendered endings if it means that much to you.”
“Wow. You’d do that for me?” She nodded solemnly. He wanted to kiss her, and almost told her so. “You’re the best.”
As they kept walking, she continued to lean on his arm. The winter wind was stiff against their faces as it whipped through the tunnel of tall buildings on either side of the walkway.
“Thank you for this,” she sighed after a comfortable silence. “It’s been a long week.”
“No kidding,” he said, watching her. He had missed being near her, and was hoping to absorb as much of her as he could before she was torn away from him again. “Hey,” he said softly. She turned her face up toward him, her green eyes soft and fragile. He wanted to tell her how he longed to bear her up and hold her, to protect her. He wanted to keep her safe so nothing could trouble her, undisturbed as a pool of water in a secret wood. “I’m sorry you had a lousy week. You don’t deserve it.”
She gave him a terse smile and dropped her gaze to the ground. Her hand dropped from his arm. Without thinking, he picked it up again and held it. She didn’t let go. They kept walking like that, wordless.
Then her dad called and said she was needed at home. He walked her to her car, and she gave him a hug. He walked back to his apartment, his coffee cold in his hand, unsure and miserable.
—
He wasn’t in a good mood. The final Hawkeyes game of the regular season had kept him up late the night before, only to end in an overtime loss, and their star tight end would miss the playoffs with a hamstring injury. Now he had a headache, and the seat across the conference room table was empty. She had already texted him to say Charlotte woke up with a fever, so she wouldn’t be in at all.
“Hey, man. How was your weekend?” Eric asked. Casper leaned forward and rubbed his eyes.
“I hate football,” he muttered. Tricia plopped down beside him and he edged away.
“Is she seriously not here? What is it this time?” she drawled. “I bet you know,” she said to him, her small eyes glinting. He ignored her, stifled a yawn, and opened his laptop. “Come on,” she prodded. He knew what she wanted him to say. She was one of those tragic individuals who funneled the full force of their considerable intellect into subtlety, generating chaos and facilitating social ruin with alarming patience and precision. He was unnerved knowing that she perfectly understood his situation, perhaps even better than he did himself.
“How should I know?” he shrugged, without looking up from his screen. He felt her staring at him, and if his peripheral vision was accurate, she was also grinning. Psycho. More people filed in, and the meeting began. Tricia was intent on drawing the attention of the whole room to the empty seat across from him, proceeding to deftly throw Reagan under the bus at every opportunity.
“I apologize. I don’t think we’ll have the analytics completed till at least mid-week. We’re short-handed right now.”
“Reagan asked me to relay her regrets that she’s still out. She didn’t foresee it.”
“I wish she were here. We really need the whole team working on this.”
Nobody else on the team said anything. Not even Jin, who had little patience for time wasted on petty feuds. Casper figured they were silent because Tricia was obnoxious. Or perhaps they agreed with her. As the meeting progressed and they continued to allow Tricia to commit every possible form of politically veiled slander, he found he couldn’t stop fidgeting. He jostled his knee, tapped his pen, shifted in his seat. It didn’t seem like they were making any headway, and the onslaught of passive aggression continued. He checked his watch. They were running fifteen minutes overtime, and accomplishing nothing. His head was killing. He was becoming less and less sure he wouldn’t swivel to his right and throttle Tricia right then and there. Jin was next.
The room murmured a consensus about proceeding with the current plan, then Tricia piped up again.
“I guess we’ll need to bring Reagan up to speed. Whenever she finally gets back.” Nobody acknowledged her comment, as they were busy collecting their things and standing up to leave. Tricia slammed her laptop shut and muttered something under her breath. Nobody else was close enough to hear it but him, and it was clearly for his benefit alone.
It was vulgar and tipped with venom, precisely honed to stick him under the skin.
“Will you shut up?” he snapped. Jin’s head popped up and Eric paused. A hush fell on the remnant in the room. “Her kid’s sick, all right?” he bristled. “She has an ear infection. I can show you the text she sent me.” Tricia scoffed.
“Casper, take this offline,” Jin warned. “Anyway, I know about Charlotte. Reagan sent an email this morning.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything during that ridiculous meeting?” Casper demanded. “You let her walk all over Reagan again and again! It was totally unprofessional.”
“Be that as it may,” Jin began calmly, eying Tricia, “Reagan has missed a lot of work. At some point it does affect the rest of the team.” Pavel fidgeted with his tablet cover, and Eric stared back at him with a polite grimace of acknowledgment.
“She’s a single parent,” Casper continued. “There should be allowances made—,”
“It’s not fair!” Tricia whined. “Jin, you know she gets special treatment. It’s all because Foster Bancroft—,”
“That’s enough,” Jin cautioned. “This is a personnel issue, and it’s not up for discussion right now. Let’s get back to the lab.”
Tricia scoffed. As she brushed past Casper, she repeated the ugly vulgarity meant for his ears only. Casper shot back with an eloquent expletive, which he thought he had mumbled quietly enough to escape Jin’s notice. No dice.
Tricia stopped in her tracks. Pavel’s eyes widened. Eric politely grimaced again.
“Casper, meet me in my office.”
—
He had never gotten in trouble before. Not like this. There had never been any time in any environment that he had ever received such a thorough chewing-out. It was almost worse that Jin showed so little emotion. He merely stated the facts. Tricia was his superior by seniority and title. He had been disrespectful and crude, violating the employee agreement he had signed during orientation.
He was young, talented, and promising, Jin said, but that was not enough to guarantee longterm success. He had to learn to exercise discretion and diplomacy. Personal relationships were never to interfere with professional interactions in the workplace.
“Sorry. I, I get it,” Casper stammered and glanced at his lap. “I’ll apologize to Tricia. Won’t happen again,” he muttered, but didn’t dare move. There was a long, agonizing silence as Jin laced his fingers and studied him.
“Are you—,” Jin paused, his lips tightened again. Casper knew exactly what Jin didn’t want to say, because he didn’t want to hear it. “Is there anything you need to tell me?”
“No,” Casper shrugged. “Reagan and I are just friends.” The words came out so fast, so reflexively, he barely realized he’d said them, till he saw the lift in Jin’s eyebrows. Casper’s knee began to jostle. He fidgeted with his ID badge. “I mean, if that’s what you were referring to. For real, Jin. I promise.” Jin stared at him. “It’s nothing.”
“Fine.” Jin waved his hand toward the door. “Don’t let it happen again.” Casper rose and put his hand on the door handle. “Casper.” Jin was watching him steadily. He opened his mouth, and Casper knew what he was going to say, and he hated him for it. But at last, Jin returned to his computer. “Close the door on your way out, please.”
—
Tricia didn’t look at him as he spoke to her. He said how sorry he was. He was in a bad mood. He was tired. He didn’t mean it. It was out of line. She kept her eyes on her computer, and didn’t acknowledge a word he said. At last, he slunk away.
He didn’t regret shutting her up for once, but it wasn’t the most brilliant thing he’d ever done. And he’d need to tell Reagan.
He called her after work, as he walked outside to his bike. The still, frigid evening was stiff against his skin, a wall of black, immovable cold, peppered with the glaring white lights of the city.
“So, what? She threw me under the bus? It’s not the first time.” He could hear Charlotte chirping in the background. “No, Lottie,” she said away from the phone. “You need to eat your peanut butter and jelly first. Sorry. Keep going.”
“I just couldn’t let it go. Not this time. Are you coming back tomorrow?”
“No,” she sighed. “They want Charlotte to be fever-free for 24 hours before she goes back to school.” He sighed back. But maybe it was better. It would give Tricia a chance to cool off. Yeah, right. “So, you said you couldn’t let it go this time. What happened?” she asked cautiously.
He rubbed his hands together and blew on them. He needed to buy some gloves. He winced as he unlocked his bike, the smooth metal bitterly cold against his fingers.
“I may have defended your honor today.”
“Casper…” she groaned.
“All I did was tell Tricia to respect your privacy. I may have also cursed her out in front of the guys.”
“Casper!”
“Look, she had no right! You should have heard the way she was attacking you. She’s such a troll. And I mean that in the most literal sense. Nobody will call her on it because they’re so afraid of her.”
“Nobody will call her on it because they all agree with her!” She sighed. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“Jin gave me that disappointed dad face, but it was my first infraction, or whatever. Or is it an infarction? Do three infractions make an infarction?” She sighed again. He laughed. “It’s fine, Reagan. Really.”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I’d do it again. It felt kind of amazing.” She suddenly laughed and he smiled. He shivered and pulled his hood over his head. “Why didn’t you tell me how bad these winters are?”
“Where’s all that Iowa bravado? I thought you were impervious to cold.”
“So, I defend your honor and you call me a wimp. Real nice.” She laughed again.
“Get yourself home, Lancelot. And don’t get hit by a car or I’ll never forgive you.” She hesitated for a moment. When she spoke again, he could hear her amber-freckled smile in her voice. “My brave knight.”
—
He wasn’t as surprised as he thought he would be, when he heard the knock on his door at ten-thirty. Her face looked strange in the familiar light of his apartment, and he had to keep wondering if he was dreaming.
She called him her brave knight again, and made it very clear she didn’t mean it platonically.
He couldn’t have planned it better.
—
The bitter days of winter breezed by in a golden haze. Before he knew it, the steely sky thawed into tender blue, and the damp black trees began to shyly dress themselves in veils of green, white, and pink. The world was enchanted.
Whatever she touched became sacred. She cast her golden light upon every surface, gradually hallowing every corner of his existence. He filtered everything through her. It was as if his own mind was unable to process anything without first translating it into what she would make of it. The smell of coffee, the sound of paper, dull white documents glaring from his inbox. It was all mysteriously imbued with expectancy, the scent of wild hope and unguarded delight.
The long hours at work became too short, as her mere presence seemed to awaken the stale air with warmth and fragrance. He couldn’t think like he used to. He couldn’t apply himself to any task without his mind wandering into a froth of delighted distraction, and sinking blissfully under its weight. He was reeling, weak, and silly. He was useless for anything else.
The city, which before had towered above him, imperious, mystical, and strange — it all belonged to him. Every block of pavement, every pane of glass, every street light, and every brick — it was all there for him, and for her.
His apartment was transformed. The barren walls echoed with the sound of her voice, and the spare furniture — the chair, the couch, the bed — became priceless and rare because she had touched them. In her absence, the sight of them reminded him of every word, toss of her hair, and movement of her body. Only the box under his bed glowered silently below, unmoved, implacable, and accusing. But there it remained, unseen and unheeded.
Even after she left, traces of her remained. An earring, a pin, a strand of her hair. The very dust swirled differently in the light, and her fragrance lingered in her absence. It was their sanctuary, the only place they could be completely alone. Where nobody could disturb them, where their paradise could exist without another soul to contaminate it. They were alone in their universe, exalting in their hiddenness.
There were moments he ached to reveal it to the world, to shake everyone by the shoulders till they too came to gape at the treasure he’d unearthed. He wanted to hold it up so he could watch them marvel over his good fortune. It certainly evinced some corresponding virtue in himself, though he didn’t know what it was. He was afraid to think too much about it. To analyze the mechanics of such a miracle would be like driving a pin through a butterfly.
All the same, he relished the intricacies of his secret labor to conceal it, the devices he employed which nobody knew but him. Not even she knew, and he wanted to keep it that way. He liked the thrill he felt when he lied — the way it surged through him, cold and bracing and energizing. Of course, he rarely needed to lie. Most of his evasion was mere omission of facts, sleight of hand. And it was only his family. Who else did a man need to protect himself from? At work, he couldn’t help if people made assumptions.
For the first time, he didn’t care. He was impenetrable, immovable. It was all her doing, and he adored her for it.
But every night, after she disappeared in the tender hours of dawn and he was left alone, he lay awake. He scrolled through his phone, he tried to read, he lay staring at the ceiling, striving with himself and growing more agitated each moment that sleep evaded him.
Ever since he was a boy, he’d been plagued by bouts of insomnia. Tracing the green and brown striped wallpaper of his bedroom while his family slept contentedly in the silent house, he hoped to drift off and away from his thoughts.
But he feared sleep as much as he longed for it. His dreams terrified him, sometimes even wandering into his waking hours. He could be helping Dad and Nick with the tractor, but instead of looking at a plow attachment, he was staring at a hot, swirling maw of smoke beneath his feet, as his toes clung to a receding edge. Even as he grew older, it kept happening. He could be taking notes in a kinesiology lecture when his heart was seized with panic before a harsh, blinding light which slowly bore into his flesh.
He had found a way to endure such moments. He recited the same words, over and over again, turning them over in his mind like a talisman in his palm. Lord, I’m a sinner, the prayer began. The formula which somehow conferred him to the kingdom of light. At least, that was its purpose. For him, those words had done nothing but compound the truth that nothing could save him.
He knew he was on borrowed time. His life was a string of indefinite length which stretched as far as he could see into whiteness, but ahead was nothing but a white wall. On the other side of the wall, his fate was cruelly concealed. He had never been sure, not even in his best moments, what his fate would be. He was expected to know, but he had never been granted that luxury. The satisfaction of having his destiny sealed, the complacence he was promised to feel in those moments when terror stalked him — such comforts had neglected him.
Whatever. Forget it.
He sank into sleep, reciting.
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Katie Bertola 
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