Leda hovered in the doorway, eyes darting between the bright television, the man sprawled on the couch, and the dark doorway to her left. She should just go back into her room, leave him alone. It would be too awkward, too much to ask…
“Is it seven already?”
She jumped, eyes flicking back to Jerome, who was looking up at her from the couch.
“No, you’re fine,” she said, quickly, trying to come up with something else to say, anything besides the real reason she had been standing in the hall.
His brow furrowed. “Well, what, then?”
Leda waited a beat, two, before the words spilled from her lips, rushing out of her before she could stop them.
“I know this is awkward, since we broke up three weeks ago right before the quarantine, and we’ve been stuck here together anyway, and we’ve managed to stay out of each other’s way so far, and it’s been fine, but…” She trailed off, brushing away a few stray tears.
“But what?” Jerome asked, his voice softening slightly.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “I’m scared of what’s going to happen, I’m scared for our families and friends, I’m scared for us, I’m scared about what the world is going to be like, if this ever ends. And I just… I need…” She broken down, tears streaming down her face, arms clutching her sides.
Jerome watched her from the couch, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. In the beginning, she had been able to read every expression in his eyes, understand every look, every smile. Now, she wasn’t sure if it was the tears obscuring her vision, or if things had just changed too much between them.
Finally, Jerome stood, and slowly made his way toward her. She shuffled back a few steps, embarrassed, but he held her shoulders gently, keeping her in place.
“What do you need, Leda?” His voice was so kind, so soft.
It took everything in her to not burst into a fresh wave of sobs. “Can you… can you just, hold me, for a while?” She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see anger, or pain, or rejection in his face.
He stood silently before her for what felt like forever. Just as she was about to pull away, run back to her room, hide, he pulled her closer.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “That’s fine.”
He guided her back to the couch, where they sat next to each other, touching but not close. Jerome lifted the remote to turn off the television, but Leda held her hand out to stop him.
“No, it’s fine. You can keep watching whatever it is. I’ll just sit here, quietly. Pretend I’m not here.”
“It’s just a rerun of that show we used to watch,” Jerome said, glancing at the screen.
“Oh,” Leda said, following his gaze. “I remember this one. This was a good episode.”
“I’ll leave it on, then.”
Leda just nodded. They sat that way for the rest of the episode, the only sound coming from the television. The show’s laugh track seemed loud, jarring, but somehow it was soothing, too. Some things hadn’t changed.
The episode ended, and as the second began, Leda started to shiver. She wished she had brought a blanket out, or at least a sweater. She tried to stop, tried not to bring attention to herself, but Jerome still noticed.
“You’re cold,” he said, and it took everything in her to not respond with No shit, Sherlock, like she would have when they were together. Instead, she shrugged mutely, rubbing her arms a little.
Jerome shook his head slightly, as if arguing with himself, before pulling her closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.
“You should have said something sooner.”
“I didn’t want to make things too weird. Or awkward. Or whatever,” Leda mumbled.
Jerome laughed a little. “This whole situation is weird. The world is so messed up right now, a simple hug isn’t going to break anything.”
“True.” She didn’t know what else to say. They hadn’t had a real conversation in weeks, not since their blowout fight.
“Do you remember…” Jerome started, then paused, as if reconsidering what he was going to say.
“Do I remember what?”
“Do you remember last winter when we went to that resort, and the power went out and it was so, so cold?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling at the memory. “It sucked.”
They both laughed.
“But it was still a great trip,” she said.
“And an even better story.”
Another pause.
“What happened?”
Leda looked over at him, realizing just how close their faces were. “What do you mean?”
“What happened to us?”
Leda pulled back a little, watching him resolutely watch the TV. “I don’t know.” She said. “It all just kind of kicked in at once.”
Jerome nodded, absently.
Leda kept talking, not realizing until then that the same question had been racing through her mind for weeks. “We were fighting all the time. It was always over little stuff, stuff that didn’t matter, but everything became a fight. And whenever we fought, or I tried to talk to you, you shut me out.”
“Yeah, you couldn’t just let things go,” he said, but his tone wasn’t accusatory, or angry. It was almost wistful.
“I tried, for ages, to get you to talk to me, to anybody,” Leda said, more words racing from her mouth. “But you just wouldn’t. And I got tired of trying to guess what you were feeling.” She smiled, weakly. “And I just couldn’t take it anymore. And so we fought, and we-”
“Broke up,” Jerome finished.
Leda sighed. “Yeah.” She wanted to say more, wanted to understand what he was thinking, what he was going through. But he had pulled the shutters down over his eyes, was blocking her out yet again.
“I have my own feelings to deal with,” she whispered, not sure he could hear her, but needing to say the words. “I couldn’t keep trying to manage yours, too.”
They watched the familiar characters move around on the screen, watched as the actors performed normal human actions that they couldn’t anymore.
“I’m scared, too.”
Leda almost missed Jerome’s admission over the yelling on the television.
“What?”
“I’m scared, too,” he repeated, still not looking at her. But she could see that the shutters had been flung open, that he was, finally, letting her in.
“I’m scared of everything happening out there, just like you,” he continued, “but I was scared before all this happened.”
Leda felt like she was holding her breath. She wanted to help him, talk him through it, hold him tight, but she feared any of those actions would just make him close up again.
“I was scared about my future, our future. I had just given up on making a career out of music, and was trying to figure out what to do with myself. And you stood by me, but I worried that I wasn’t enough, that you wanted more from me that I didn’t think I could give you. And then with everything happening out in the world…” He sighed, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. “I just shut down. And I didn’t realize that you were just trying to help. That maybe you weren’t angry or disappointed in me, but just… trying to help.”
Leda sniffed softly, and pulled him closer. “I was never disappointed in you. I never have been, and never will be.”
“I know that now, I think, but for the last few months? It felt like everything was ending, and like it was only a matter of time before we did, too.”
“And now?”
“And now,” he said, and she could hear the waver in his voice. “I don’t want it to end like this, Leddy. Where we spend the next weeks, or months, avoiding each other before splitting off. I don’t want to lose you, any more than I already have.”
“You haven’t lost me,” she breathed, resting her forehead against his, and feeling his tears drip onto her chest. “I’m right here. I’ll always be right here.”
They stayed that way for the rest of the night, huddled on the couch, and felt the promise of a new day as the morning sunlight crept its way through their window.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020