Every step feels like it takes a decade, and every step feels like shedding Raoul’s warmth like a second skin, exposing my frozen core. It is miles from my car to the front door. Many miles and many years. I’m replaying my last conversation with Erik as I climb. Not the words, but the gestures. The way that he drew so close to me. The smell of him. The weight of his expectation. How badly I wanted him to touch me. My bones are burning with expectation as the entrance to his house looms. Erik is waiting for me at the top. He stands back in the shadows as if he can’t bear for the light to touch him. He is tanned from his time on the lake, I know, but he still manages to look ghostly on the other side of the threshold. Waiting. Anticipant. For a moment—a moment, or a lifetime—I pause on the top step, swaying on the stoop, one hard gust of wind away from tumbling backwards. “He’s gone,” I say. An invisible wall between us shatters. Erik steps back. I step inside. To close the door, he must move behind me, and his arm grazes my back.
