Pg. 14

The next morning, I pretended to be sick. The phone rang and rang, and I pretended to be sick. I lay in bed and I listened to him call me. I knew it was him. And then I knew it wasn't him and he'd enlisted other people to call me, to find out what was wrong. And I knew he knew something was wrong. Maybe he even knew what was wrong.

I didn't.

I had a queer, butterflies burning in my stomach kind of feeling, and I kept dozing off and waking with a start, as if he'd touched me. But he wasn't in the room.

And then he was.

He climbed in through my window and sat on my bed.

"Cyn," He said. "You're being an idiot."

"I'm sick," I told him. He stared at me, all seriousness, except for his eyes, which were laughing at me. I rolled my eyes. "I am!" I told him. He reached over and touched my face, and I really did feel as if I were going to be ill, right there, right in front of him.

He passed his hand over my eyes and I couldn't seem to be able to keep them awake anymore. And I felt calm.

He sat next to me and talked softly to me. "I'm sorry," He said. "I shouldn't have looked."

God, what a fool I was! Probably still am, too. I felt so smug, so happy, so heartened to hear him admit that he'd lied, that he'd cheated. As if that changed anything. As if that made it so that he hadn't looked, or hadn't lied. Or wouldn't later.

He told me to lie on my side and he rubbed my back for a few minutes. Then he lay down next to me and we fell asleep.