Chapter 6: Aiming

We found our clothes by feel.

He kept saying "Say that again" in the dark.

"It was you," I said, zipping my pants. "I never touched the lamp."

"I'll do it again."

"Anselm, it's one in the morning."

"I'll do it again," he said, and sat on the arm of the couch with his shirt still unbuttoned and stared at the lamp.

He held up his right hand.

He breathed in for four and out for eight, the way I'd taught him.

"Hold the light," he said.

Nothing.

His hand stayed cold, and I felt it when I took it.

He tried five more times.

Every time he breathed out, his shoulders went up.

Every time the lamp stayed dark.

"Stop," I said at last. "You're aiming."

"Of course I'm aiming. That's how a cast works. You choose a target."

"Okay. Where did you aim last time?"

"At nothing. I wasn't thinking about the lamp at all."

"What were you thinking about?"

He went red to the tips of his ears.

"You," he said.

I put my hand over my mouth.

I think the shock of it was the only thing that kept me from grinning.

"So," I said slowly, "when you aim at the lamp, you clench. When you aim at me, you don't."

"That's not a method."

"It's a data point."

"It's a crutch." He stood up. "Reya, I can't walk into the classroom with a woman strapped to my wrist."

"I can't tell the county it only works when I'm thinking about somebody I'm sleeping with."

"That's a very specific list of things not to say to the county."

"This is not funny."

"It's a little funny."

"It is not," he said, and for the first time I heard real anger in his voice.

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