Page 70 of The Circle

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Excuse me, Ms. Keene?Mr. Fortnight? Mr. Van den Berg?” comes Nigel’s jovial British voice from beyond the door, accompanied by polite but incessant knocking. “We will be arriving soon.”

Danny, lying next to me on the bed, yawns and stretches out, whacking me in the face as he does.

“Ow,” I say, rubbing at my nose.

“Fuck, sorry,” he coughs, readjusting on the bed and kissing around my just-dinged face like he’s trying to repair any damage done by smooching it away.

“It’s fine, I’m fine, I’m—Danny. Dude, stop. I’m fine,” I insist until he finally flops back on the bed and stops semi-mauling me.

I don’t even remember falling asleep. The last thing I recall is coming back here with Danny and Alec and that’s basically it. I clearly must have just collapsed onto the bed, because my clothes are still on. Danny’s too.

“Morning, loves,” Alec says. He’s sitting just out in the living room area, sunk deep into a club chair, legs crossed, clearly having been watching us sleep just as I watched Danny earlier.

In the moment, I am transported back to a recollection that isn’t mine, but I feel it just the same. I slumbered through Alec’s return to our lives after I fell from the roof and Danny found me in that basement apartment and brought me back to his place—the one that got shot to shit not that long after—but I know Alec was sitting watching us sleep then as well.

This time is so very different.

Not threatening. Not contentious. Not packed with bitter history.

This is just Alec, of Alec, Christine, and Danny, sitting quietly, watching his partners rest before we head off into yet another new unknown.

Of course, what he doesn’t know is that he’s not just watching the two of us. I mean, in the most literal sense it’s true that that’s what he’s doing, but in a more metaphorical sense, he’s watching three of us sleep. Although I don’t know if this new kid I’m carrying sleeps yet. In fact, I’m not even thinking of it yet as “a kid.” I’m still coming to embrace the reality that I am pregnant. And that if nothing goes horribly wrong, it may one day become “a kid.”

It’s that word “if” that’s stopping me from thinking too much beyond that. “If” nothing goes wrong. That’s a great big motherfucking “if.” I’m not usually a worrier. And, if I’m being honest, I’m not all that worried now. What will be will be. If this last bit of time has taught me to stop resisting anything, it’s the reality that at least that much about life is true even if so much else they tell you about life isn’t. But, still and all, as I wake to see Alec watching us, a brief flicker of anxiousness floats through me.

And then it’s gone again.

“Is it morning?” I ask, reaching across Danny to lift the shade and find the answer to my question reflected through the windowpane. It’s not morning. It looks more like mid-afternoon. “Did you sleep?” I follow up.

“Not really. I may have dozed off for a moment or two,” Alec answers.

“Why didn’t you come to bed?”

He shrugs. “I’m fine.” He stands, steps over to the bed, and sits down on one side of me. Danny sits up on the other side as he and I slide ourselves down the length of the mattress so we can all just… be. Together. Side by side by side.

“What time is it?” Danny asks.

“Now, man,” Alec answers. “It’s now o’clock.”

We all turn our heads almost simultaneously to look out the window at what must be the Austrian countryside passing by.

“Has anyone—” I start to ask, but before I can finish the sentence, there is another knock at the door.

“Yeah, Nigel,” Danny half-says, half-asks.

“It’s Eliza,” comes her voice from the other side.

Without waiting, I stand. I don’t know why her voice causes me to hop to my feet, but it does. It feels uniquely important that I be the one to open the door and invite her in. I have no concept of what that’s about, but it doesn’t really matter because I’m already at the door, opening it, before I can psychoanalyze myself.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hi,” she responds.

There’s a beat before I pull on the knob and open us up slightly wider to her in invitation. She steps in, looking around at the suite. She nods, acknowledging silently that it’s pretty fucking nice. Or at least that’s how I interpret the nod. She walks over to the club chair Alec was sitting in and places herself down. I start to head back to the bed where Alec and Danny are still sitting, but instead opt for the chaise and place myself there.

I can’t help but notice that if you drew a line connecting the four of us together it would resemble some kind of fucked-up, misshapen square. That’s funny. I suppose.