Chapter 9: Eyes Shut

I decided to ask him on my own.

I did not know what that meant, so I looked it up.

The first result had 4.9 stars and was called "How To Say What You Really Mean."

I closed it, because that was the kind of thing he had caught me doing.

I thought about it for two days instead, with a pen and a notepad, in my bookshop, with the door locked.

I had sold three thousand books about other people's feelings.

When I tried to write one sentence of my own, the pen stopped.

The first attempt was at bedtime.

I put in earplugs and a sleep mask, so I could not hear anyone and no box could slide into my view.

I walked down the corridor to the guest room with one hand on the wall.

"Tobias," I said, to the closet.

"I'm over here," he said, from the bed.

"I know. I wanted to say something."

"Go ahead."

"I want," I said, and I opened my mouth, and a phrase fell out that I had read online.

"I want to explore a deeper connection."

There was a long silence.

"Take off the mask," Tobias said gently.

I took it off.

He was sitting up in bed with the lamp on.

He looked at me with great kindness and no hope at all.

"That one has four and a half stars," I said.

"I'm sure it does."

The second attempt was at a stoplight.

I had read that important things are easier to say in a car.

You do not have to look at each other.

Dennis was in the front seat. I told him to look at the road, and he said he always did.

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