Chapter 21: Fifty Cents

Roan's POV

I woke at seven with my arm numb and a woman's hair in my mouth.

For a second I did not know the ceiling.

Then I saw the shelf of children's paperbacks over the desk, and the quilt with a faded lake-stone pattern, and I remembered where I was.

Anja's room.

She was asleep on her side with her back against my chest, her hand curled under her chin.

Her breathing was slow and deep and even.

I had watched that woman not sleep for two years, in a sodium light, through the whole of a night shift.

I did not move.

I did not want to be the reason it stopped.

Downstairs a pan clattered, and a radio came on low.

She stirred, and I felt the moment she woke.

Her whole body went still, and I knew she was checking for the old fear.

"It's fine," I said into her hair. "You slept six hours."

"I slept." She turned over and looked at me, and her eyes were wide and green and very awake. "Roan, I slept."

"I know."

"All night."

"I know. I was there."

She laughed, then pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth.

"Don't," I said. "Don't hide it. Please."

She took the hand away.

I had spent two years holding one sentence behind my teeth.

I had said it by accident on a loading dock, and told her not to answer it.

I'd said I loved her.

I had never once said it on purpose.

"I love you," I said.

She did not move.

"I'm not asking you for anything. I'm saying it because you said no lies, and I have one that I told myself every night for two years."

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