I handed him the mug of soup. “Drink as much of this as you can.”

Duncan took it. Then he said, “My sister keeps sending me the succulents. I know I shouldn’t water them. But I keep doing it anyway.”

“Watering them to death.”

“Pretty much.”

“What if you moved them to another part of the house?”

He took a swig of soup. “Tried it. Didn’t work.”

“Maybe you should get some different plants. Ones that like to be watered.”

“Too late.”

He gulped the rest of the soup down, and then I handed him his pain pill. He knocked that back with the last sip.

Then I helped him get under the covers, and I tucked him in like he was a little kid.

He patted the bed next to him, and said, “Sit for a second.”

He’d be conked out again soon. “Just for a second,” I said, sitting to face him.

He held my gaze for a second. Then he said, “I hate nighttime now. I can never sleep anymore. Every tiny noise makes me jump.”

I leaned over to get his phone off the bedside table. I thought he’d closed his eyes again, but when I looked up, he was watching me.

“I’m going to download this white-noise app I love for you.”

Duncan kept watching me.

I played a couple of sounds for him. “What do you want?” I asked, trying to stay all business. “Ocean? Waterfall? Bath faucet?”

“You choose.”

But I kept going. “Car motor? Dishwasher? Campfire? You can combine them, too.”

“I trust you.”

In the end, I gave him what I had: thunderstorm, city trucks, and cat purr.

“This is going to change your life,” I said, turning it up a little.

“Perfect,” he said, eyes still closed. “I always knew you’d do that.”

“You should get some sleep now,” I said, setting his phone on the bedside table.

“Sam?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“I’m so sorry about your butterflies.”

Oh. “I am, too,” I said.

He let his eyes close again. “I just have to keep everybody safe.”

I couldn’t help it. I reached out and stroked his hair. “Nobody can keep everybody safe.”

He was half asleep. “I have to try.”

I watched him a minute, until I thought he was out, but when I shifted to stand, he took my hand and pulled me toward the bed. “Stay here with me,” he said.

“I can’t. I’ll be right nearby.”

“Stay here,” he said. He closed his eyes. “We’re never going to remember it, anyway.”

“You’re never going to remember it,” I said.

“Oh. Yeah.”

I stayed close by until he was truly out. And I could have walked back to the living room and curled up on the couch there. He never would have known the difference.

But I didn’t.

I edged around to the far side of the bed, kicked off my shoes, and let myself curl up beside him. And when Chuck Norris jumped up on the bed to sleep at our feet, I decided to just add it to the long list of things Duncan would be forgetting … and I let him.

fifteen

By the next morning, when I woke up at six, slipped my shoes back on, loaded up all of Duncan’s succulents into a grocery sack for a rescue-op, and snuck back down under the house to call a car, I had a lot to process.

Fact: I had slept with Duncan Carpenter.

In a manner of speaking.

It wasn’t quite as great as it sounded, but it was still pretty great.

I blamed the shirtlessness. And all his confessions. And the way he kept looking at me like he was in love.

Oh, and that epic, transformative, metamorphic kiss.

Jesus. I’m only human.

On the ride home I texted an APB to Babette and Alice to meet me in Babette’s kitchen.

Alice showed up first, which felt counterintuitive. But Babette was not much of a morning person.

“What’s up?” Alice said, when I let her in the back door.

“Shocking plot twist!” I announced. “Duncan Carpenter kissed me.”

Alice was not shocked. “You didn’t see that coming?”

“No! Did you?”

“We’ve been placing bets in the teachers’ lounge for weeks.”

“Alice! You can’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t worry, polka dots. I’m a vault.” Then, shaking her head: “I can’t believe it took so long.”

“Alice!” I scolded again. “He’s my boss.”

“Max was Babette’s boss.”

“No comparison!” I said.

“I’m just saying. Extenuating circumstances.”

“Alice! He’s the enemy! He painted over the butterflies.”

“With removable paint.”

“So he claims.”

Alice looked me over. “Are you trying to say it was a bad kiss?”

I shook my head. “It was an amazing kiss.”

She smiled, like That’s better. “Who kissed who?”

“He kissed me. But he fell on me first.”

“Case in point. You two had a spark from day one.”

I shook my head. “It’s a disaster.”

“Incorrect,” Alice declared. “Mathematically, it was almost unavoidable.”

“Alice,” I said, “there was no math involved. Trust me. This comes from a lady who never finished learning her times tables.”

But Alice started counting off points in support of her theory: “You’re both adorable. You’re both single. You’re both lonesome. You’re drawn to each other like magnets. And you’re exactly the polar opposite of his misery. So were you one hundred percent guaranteed to pair bond? No—”

“Pair bond?” I interrupted, like Really?

“But looking at it statistically, yes. Mathematically, it works.”

“None of that is math.”

Alice gave me a look like I was pitiably na?ve. “Everything is math.”

I sighed.

“I’m just saying,” Alice said, suppressing a little smile, “if I plotted your slopes on a graph, they’d intersect.”

I pointed at her. “Nope.”

But she was having fun. “If you were geometry, you’d have proved yourselves weeks ago.”

“Alice!”

But she couldn’t resist one more. “If you were algebra, you’d both be solving for X, if you know what I mean.”

“Cut it out!”

She straightened, hearing something real in my voice. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s bad,” I said.

She shifted gears. “Why is it bad, again?”

But I didn’t know how to answer that question.

Because it was too good. Because it made me want him even more, and there was no way wanting him was going to end well. Because he would never remember that kiss, and I would never forget it.

“It’s bad,” I finally said, “because it was so good.”

“Oh, Sam,” Alice said.

Did she understand? Could she? I wasn’t even sure that I understood. All I knew was this feeling I had—like I was carrying a terrible secret about myself … a secret that would always ruin everything.

“If you never let yourself want anything,” I said, trying to explain it without saying it, “then you’re never disappointed. But if you want something … someone…”

Alice leaned in, her eyes soft with sympathy now. “Are you afraid he won’t want you back? Because—I promise you—he does.”

“It’s not that,” I said.

I didn’t know how to explain. But this was why I hadn’t even tried to date anyone since my epilepsy came back. I said I needed stability, and that was true—but it was deeper than that.

The truth was, there was something wrong with me. Something I couldn’t fix.

Something disqualifying.

On the night my father had left my mother, when I was eight, I’d overheard them arguing. I’d had a grand mal seizure that night—I’d had them constantly back then—and this was a particularly bad one that made me lose all bladder and bowel control at a country-club party for some of my father’s clients. Back home, after my mother had cleaned me up and put me to bed in my favorite flannel nightgown, I had slept—you always sleep after a seizure—but the sound of them arguing woke me up a few hours later.

I listened for a little bit, but when it didn’t stop, I crept to the edge of the stairs, where I could peer down at the entryway.

They were just out of view, standing close to the front door. I could only see their shadows, but I could hear the voices loud and clear.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” my father was saying.

“None of us did,” my mom said.

“She’s not getting better, she’s getting worse.”

“We’re doing everything we—”

“I couldn’t believe my eyes tonight. I’ve never been so humiliated. You can’t take her anywhere.”

My mother’s voice broke. “Steven—”

“It’s too much for me,” he said, his voice tight. And then I heard the click of our front door handle.

“Don’t you dare walk out that door,” my mother said, her voice low and threatening.

“I can’t take it anymore,” my father said. “I never wanted this.”

“You did want this! When we decided to start a family.”

“You were the one who wanted to start a family. You pushed and pushed for a baby. And look what we got. I never should have given in.”

“How can you say that? She’s our daughter!”

“She’s also the thing that ruined our marriage.”

There was a long pause, and when my father spoke again, his voice sounded like it was made of wood. “I just can’t live like this anymore.”