"I told ya-You didn't believe me... I told ya"😏

He picks up on the second ring.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Your voice comes out fine. You think it comes out fine. “How was practice?”

“Long.” There’s a rustle on his end, the sound of him moving through his kitchen. “Zac kept us late. How was your day?”

You take a sip of the wine. It’s too cold. You bought it three days ago and forgot to take it out of the fridge in time.

“Long,” you say back, and you try to make it sound like a joke, like you’re matching him. It doesn’t quite land. “Yeah, it was — yeah.”

There’s a pause on his end. Not long. Just a second where the rustling stops.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” You set the wine down on the coffee table because your hand isn’t doing what you want it to. “I think we’re going to have to take another look at the Breedlove stuff. They want a different direction.”

“After all that?”

“Mhm.”

“Babe.”

“It’s fine. It’s — it’ll be fine. I’ll figure out where to start tomorrow.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second.

“You eat?”

“I will.”

“Okay.”

You can hear him thinking. You change the subject before he can land on what he’s thinking about. You ask him what he wants for dinner this weekend. You ask him if Tee texted him back about Saturday. You keep your voice in the register it’s supposed to be in. You sound like yourself. You’re pretty sure you sound like yourself.

He answers your questions. He doesn’t ask you anything else about Breedlove.

When you finally say you’re going to take a shower and get to bed early, he says okay. He says he’s going to let you rest. He tells you he loves you and you tell him you love him back and you hang up and you sit on the couch in the dark and you finish the wine and you do not cry.

—

The knock comes forty minutes later.

You know before you open the door. You’ve known since you hung up. You walk to it slow anyway, because some part of you still wants to be the kind of person who can handle her own bad day.

He’s on the other side in a hoodie and gray sweats, duffel slung over his shoulder, hair still wet from the shower he took before he got in the car.

“Joe.”

“Hi.”

“You didn’t have to —”

“I know.”

He steps inside. Sets the duffel down by the door. Toes his shoes off the way he always does, lining them up against the wall without looking, because he’s been here enough now that his body knows where they go.

His eyes catch on the kitchen island — your laptop still open where you left it, the Breedlove binder closed but sitting on top of a stack of mood boards you’d printed out two weeks ago. He doesn’t say anything about it. Just clocks it.

“You eat?” he asks.

“I told you I would.”

He looks at you.

“I’ll figure something out.”

“Sit down.”

“Joe —”

“Sit down, baby.”

He says it the way he says everything that matters. Quiet. Not a request. He passes you on his way to the kitchen and his hand brushes your lower back as he goes, just for a second, and you sit down on the couch because your legs feel suddenly like they’ve been waiting for permission.

You hear him open the fridge. You hear him open it again. You hear him swear under his breath at whatever he finds.

“Babe.”

“Don’t start.”

“There’s a lemon. And ketchup.”

“I went to the store on Sunday.”

“It’s Thursday.”

You don’t answer. You hear him close the fridge. Hear him pick up his phone. Hear him order something — he knows the place, he knows your order, he doesn’t have to ask. He’s quiet and efficient about it the way he’s quiet and efficient about everything, and you sit on the couch listening to him do this for you and you press your fingers against your eyes until you see colors.

He comes back into the living room. Sits down next to you. Doesn’t pull you in yet. Just sits, close enough that his thigh is against yours, and rests his hand on your knee.

“Twenty minutes,” he says.

“Okay.”

“You wanna put something on?”

“Okay.”

He picks up the remote. Doesn’t ask what you want to watch. Puts on the cooking show you’ve fallen asleep to a hundred times. Volume low. He doesn’t look at you while he does it. He’s giving you the room to be in the same space as him without having to be looked at, and you don’t know how he knows to do that but he does.

—

The food comes. He pays the delivery guy at the door and brings it in and sets it on the coffee table because he knows you don’t want to sit at the kitchen island tonight. He opens the containers. Hands you yours. Sits back down.

You eat about half of it.

He doesn’t comment. Just finishes his and takes both containers to the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water that he sets in front of you without saying anything about the wine.

Then he sits down and opens his arm.

You go.

You go without thinking about it, without making it a thing, and his arm closes around you and pulls you in against his chest and his other hand comes up to the back of your head and you close your eyes.

He doesn’t say anything.

The cooking show is still on. Someone’s making a galette. The host is whispering for some reason. Joe’s chest moves slow under your cheek, and his thumb is on the back of your neck, not stroking, just there, and you can smell his soap and the faint trace of laundry detergent on his hoodie and you can feel his heartbeat through three layers of fabric.

“It was a good project,” you say.

You don’t know you’re going to say it until it’s out.

“I know it was.”

“I worked on it for —”

“I know.”

Your throat closes. You stop.

He doesn’t push. His hand stays on the back of your neck. He’s quiet for a second, and then —

“Tell me what they said.”

“Joe —”

“Not all of it. Just what they said.”

So you tell him. Not the whole meeting. Just the part where Daniel said the direction wasn’t landing the way they’d hoped, and the part where Megan wouldn’t look at you, and the part where you realized halfway through that the version you’d been building for four months was already dead in the room and nobody had told you yet.

You tell it flat. No editorializing. Just the facts.

He listens. His thumb moves once on the back of your neck.

“That’s bullshit.”

“Joe.”

“It is. They let you build the whole thing and then changed their mind. That’s bullshit.”

“It’s how it works sometimes.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not bullshit.”

You almost laugh. It comes out more like a breath.

He shifts a little, gets his other arm around you too. Doesn’t say anything for a minute. The cooking show is still on. Someone’s whisking something. The host is whispering for some reason.

“You did good work on that project.”

“You didn’t see it.”

“I heard you talk about it for four months. I know what good work sounds like when you talk about it. You did good work.”

Your throat closes.

“I’m sorry, baby.”

That’s the thing that almost gets you. Not the validation. Not even the bullshit. Just I’m sorry — like he’s allowed to be sorry for you, like it’s not asking too much of him to feel it with you.

You press your forehead harder into his chest.

He tightens his arm.

—

His arm is tight around you. His hand is still on the back of your neck. You can feel his heartbeat through his hoodie and you can feel him breathing slow on purpose and you can feel the careful, contained way he’s holding you, like he knows you’re closer to the edge than you’ve said.

That’s what does it.

Not the meeting. Not the four months. Not even the wine.

The fact that he knows.

Your chest goes wrong before your brain catches up. One second you’re fine — wrung out, but fine — and the next second your lungs have forgotten what they’re supposed to do. The air’s there. You can feel it. It just isn’t going in right. It’s getting stuck somewhere in your throat and your shoulders are up by your ears and your hands have started shaking, the small useless kind of shake that you can’t make stop just by looking at it.

You try to sit up. You try to get off his chest because you don’t want him to see this, you don’t want him to see you like this, this isn’t —

“Hey. Hey, no. Come here.”

His arm tightens. Doesn’t let you pull back.

“Joe —”

“I got you.”

“I can’t — I’m sorry, I can’t —”

“You don’t have to do anything. Come here.”

He pulls you back down against him. Doesn’t ask what’s happening. Doesn’t tell you to breathe. Doesn’t tell you it’s okay. Just gets you against his chest and gets his arm around you and puts his other hand flat between your shoulder blades and holds on.

Your hands are shaking against his ribs. You can hear yourself, the wrong-sounding pull of your own breath, and the sound of it makes it worse, makes your chest go tighter, and you think I’m going to throw up and then you think I’m going to embarrass myself and then you think I’m going to scare him and that one is the worst one, that one makes it so much worse —

“Baby.”

His voice is right next to your ear. Low. Not soft like he’s trying to be soft. Just there.

“Feel me breathing.”

You try.

“That’s it. Just feel it.”

His chest moves under your cheek. In. Out. Slower than yours. Much slower. He doesn’t tell you to match it. Doesn’t count. Doesn’t do any of the things people sometimes try to do that make it worse. He just breathes slow against you and keeps his hand spread wide on your back and lets you find it on your own.

You don’t, at first.

You can’t.

Your body is doing its thing and your body doesn’t care that he’s here. Your body is going to do this whether you want it to or not, and some part of you that’s still online enough to be embarrassed is screaming at the rest of you to get it together, to stop, to not do this in front of him — and that part is making the other part worse, and the loop is tightening, and your hands won’t stop —

“Hey.”

His hand moves. Comes up to the back of your head. Holds it.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

You make a sound. You don’t mean to.

“I know,” he says. Quiet. “I know, baby. I got you.”

He doesn’t move otherwise. Doesn’t shift, doesn’t reach for his phone, doesn’t try to do anything other than be the thing you’re pressed against. His chest keeps going slow. In. Out. The hand on the back of your head is heavy, anchoring, and somewhere in the part of your brain that’s still working you register that he’s done this before. That he knows not to talk too much. That he knows not to make it bigger than it is. That he’s not scared.

That’s what finally cracks it.

Not the breathing. Not the hand. The fact that he’s not scared.

The first real breath comes ragged. The second one comes a little better. The third one breaks, and that’s when you start crying — not the controlled kind, not the dignified kind, the kind you’ve been refusing since two o’clock this afternoon. Wet and ugly and shaking and into his hoodie.

He doesn’t say anything.

Just keeps his hand on the back of your head and lets you.

—

You cry for a long time.

Not the whole time at the same volume. It comes in waves — hard, then quieter, then hard again when you think about something specific (Daniel’s face, the look Megan gave the floor, four months, four months) and then quieter again. He doesn’t rush any of it. His hand stays on the back of your head through the loud parts. Moves to your back during the quiet ones. His hoodie is wet under your cheek and he doesn’t seem to care.

Eventually you stop.

Not because you’re done. Because you’re empty.

You stay there with your face against his chest, breathing in the damp spot you made, and you don’t move because moving means he might see your face and you don’t want anyone to see your face right now, not even him.

He seems to know that too.

He doesn’t try to tilt your chin up. Doesn’t ask if you’re okay. Just keeps his hand moving slow on your back and lets you stay hidden against him for as long as you need to.

“I’m sorry,” you say, eventually. Your voice is shot.

“For what.”

“That.”

“Baby.”

“I didn’t want you to see that.”

“I know you didn’t.”

He’s quiet for a second.

“I’m glad I did.”

You make a sound that isn’t quite a laugh.

“Don’t.”

“I am.”

His hand keeps moving on your back.

“I didn’t ask you to come.”

“I know.”

“How’d you know.”

“I just did.”

“Joe.”

“Baby. You called me to tell me about your day. You didn’t tell me about your day. I’m not gonna sit at home when you sound like that.”

“I sounded fine.”

“You sounded like you were trying to sound fine.”

You don’t have anything to say to that.

He turns a little, gets his hand under your jaw — careful, slow, giving you time to stop him if you want to — and tilts your face up the rest of the way. You let him. Your eyes are swollen and your nose is running and you look like exactly what you are, which is a thirty-five-year-old woman who just had a panic attack on her couch, and he looks at you like none of that registers as anything other than you.

“You’re not gonna ask. I know you’re not gonna ask. That’s okay. I’m not waiting for you to ask.”

“Joe.”

“I meant it. Whatever this looks like. I’m here for it.”

You close your eyes.

He pulls you back down to him, slow, his hand at the back of your neck guiding you until your cheek is against his chest again. His thumb starts moving on your back.

“Go to sleep, baby.”

You do.

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