Page 72 of Between the Lines
“Nathan, what’s wrong?”
He sighs, a breath so long that goosebumps fall over my skin like dominoes, but still says nothing. I feel the shift behind me, where his arms are still caged on his desk, his cell phone in hand. He’s tapping it, those errant drumming strokes.
“Did you get bad news or something?” He blinks. Says nothing still. “Nathan, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me how.”
I lift his face, dipping mine at the same time so that the dark brown of his eyes has no choice but to meet mine.
“We’re friends, right?”
This is the first true reaction from him that I’ve received.
Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. The moment he saw me, after I shut the door, I convinced myself that hehadn’trelaxed. I ignored the way tension seemed to slip slowly from his shoulders the moment I curled myself there. At that wordfriends, though? He stiffens. His body is hard beneath mine, a rigid deterrent of that syllable.My eyes soften, and I stroke his clean shaven face with my thumb, offering him a smile that I hope conveys that I’m not going anywhere.
His arms move between us, and he unlocks his phone, opening it to his missed calls.
“The doctor called with the results from my brother’s cancer scan. I’ve never done this alone before.”
My body experiences a whirlwind in that moment. Shock is absorbed by sadness, which melts into a river of anger and a flood of uncertainty. Questions pile up as high as Mount Everest, and I don’t know whether I want to hug him, hold him, or drag him far far away from here first.
“I…”
“He has been in remission since before our parents died, but it still doesn’t get any easier.”
I deflate like a balloon, exhaling so strongly that my forehead falls to his chest.
He shouldn’t be supporting you right now, Claire! Be more sensitive!
I start to lift my head, but suddenly, Nathan holds me there, the other laying over my back.
“No. I need this. Just for a minute though, okay?”
“Okay.”
We finagle ourselves on his big desk chair so that I can wind my arms around his back, so that he can hold me. So that for just a moment in time, we have nothing to worry about except each other.
“The doctor’s office closes at five.”
He says it to the crown of my head, letting his lips linger there before he lifts heavy hands between us.
“Do you want me to?—”
“No. Please, stay.”
I shift in his lap so that I’m sitting sideways across him.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I cup my hand over the back of his as he clicks the screen to return the call. He doesn’t put it on speaker, but being in his lap like this, I can hear it as clear as a bell. As clearly as I can hear every stutter that his deep breaths skip over.
On the third ring, someone answers, though it doesn’t sound like a receptionist. I can vaguely make out a joyful,Nathan, my boy! Good to…
The air is somehow thick and hollow, like we’re suspended in the in between. His brother has been in remission foryears? That question is at the tip top of a miles deep iceberg. I slide my hand up his chest, resting it over the racehorse of his heartbeat, and squeeze there.
The moment I hear the voice on the other end of the line sayHe has a clean bill of health, Nathan, it’s like coming up from the bottom of a swimming pool. Sounds are no longer muffled, my lungs fill with oxygen, and the world becomes a technicolor array instead of a hazy blur of shades and shadows.
Nathan’s heart stutters beneath my palm, kicking up as he exhales the capacity of his lungs, and then slows as his body deflates like a popped balloon. As his body sags, he rests his forehead onto my shoulder, somehow stuttering his way through the rest of the short phone call. I catch,Been too long,and,Come for dinner soon, but by the time he hangs up, the only words I cling to areclean bill of health.
The second his phone is hung up and placed on the desk behind us, I wrap my arms around his body in a bear hug.