Chapter 238

The blindfold stays on the entire drive back. Eli keeps one hand wrapped around mine the whole way, his thumb moving in slow absent circles against my knuckles, and I don’t ask him to remove the blindfold, don’t trust myself yet to see anything at all, not the road, not his face, not the world that’s apparently still continuing to exist outside whatever’s happening inside me right now.

He doesn’t take it off until we’re through the front gates, until the car has stopped and the house is right there in front of us, familiar and lit up and completely wrong feeling in a way I can’t articulate.

The fabric falls away and as my eyes adjust slowly to the porch light, the first thing I do, before I can stop myself, before I can remind my own brain of the facts it already knows, is look toward the doorway.

Like Zeke might be there. Like he might come jogging down the front steps with that dry half smile, already lecturing me about elbow position, already telling me this