Page 26 of I Almost Do

“I’m serious, James. I’m no fun to be around.”

“Then we’re even. I’m shitty company too. How about we renegotiate terms? Half an hour in the same room, no conversation necessary.”

She blinks, then moves to shut the door. “Tomorrow.”

I stop it with my foot. “Why not now?”

She lifts her shoulders briefly, then swings her door open. “You can come in here. I don’t want to go downstairs.”

It’s progress. I’ll take it.

I’ve never given much thought to Clarissa’s bedroom. The first time I’d been in it, I was too distracted by the fact that I’d walked in on her lying on her bed.

The subsequent times were overshadowed by the feel of her in my arms and the odd sort of tunnel vision that comes with functioning in the midst of a crisis.

But now I do, and I’m a little nonplussed by what I see. “This room doesn’t look like you.”

She’d been headed to a seating area near her cold fireplace. At my words, she turns around, showing some interest. “What isn’t me about it?”

“Well, you hate pink and cutesy, for starters. And everything about this room is cute.”

She frowns. “How do you know I hate pink?”

“You made this face every time you saw something pink at our wedding reception.” I arrange my features into a prissy and mildly disgusted expression.

There’s the tiniest spark of humor in her eyes. “I did not.”

“I’ve also never seen you wear pink. Your favorite color is green.”

She drops into an overstuffed chair and curls one leg under her. “Who told you that?”

She doesn’t invite me to sit, but I do it anyway, making myself comfortable in the other chair and dropping the bag I’m carrying onto the floor by my feet. “No one told me. I have eyes. Your favorite scarf is green, your favorite earrings are jade, and the journal you use to write down your story ideas is green.”

She blinks at me, startled. Then she says, “You’re right. I don’t really like pink. I think it’s mostly because I went through a pink phase when I was around ten years old and overdid it until I got sick of it. And greenismy favorite color. Very observant, Mr. Mellinger.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Harcourt-Mellinger.”

She lapses into silence and leans back against the chair, staring at nothing. She shivers a little, so I get up and light the gas fireplace. Then I pull a throw blanket off the bench at the end of her bed and drape it over her.

I sit back down and say nothing. I did promise we could sit in silence if she didn’t want to talk.

She watches the flames and doesn’t look at me when she says, “Your favorite color is blue.”

I smile a little. “It used to be. Lately, I prefer green. The mossy kind with flecks of gold.”

She looks at me curiously, and I could kick myself for saying that out loud.

I change the subject. “If you hate pink, you should change your room.”

“I don’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings. He picked all of this ou—” She freezes, and then devastation floods her features. For a moment, she’d forgotten that Marcus wasn’t alive and well and just downstairs. That he won’t care that she’s changing a room he obviously had a part in choosing. Because he isn’t here to care.

I’ve done it more than once. I think to myself that I need to tell Marcus something or he’ll get a kick out of something. Then I remember. And in that moment, it’s like I’m losing my best friend for the first time all over again.

Her shoulders shake, and I think,Fuck it.I walk over and pick her up, then sit back down with her, wrapped in the throw blanket, on my lap.

And true to my word, we sit in silence.

At some point, she falls asleep on me. And then I drift off myself.

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