Page 41 of While I’m Still Here

“Dogs exist at all hours, Danny,” I snark.

Normally that would earn me something stupid back, or filthy. This time it doesn’t. Instead, he leans one hip against the edge of my desk and looks at me for another moment. “You’re wearing concealer.”

I turn slowly in my chair. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“Because you don’t normally.”

“You know whether I wear concealer?”

Danny gives me a look that suggests that I’m the stupid one. “I’ve been looking at your face for nearly three years.”

My stomach gives a small, traitorous flip. I pick up my tea, so I have something to do with my hands. “Creepy.”

“I call it being observant.”

“Stalker more like.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?” I ask, because maybe if I play dumb, he’ll leave me alone.

“What’s wrong, Beatrice?”

And there it is. The door I absolutely do not want to open at work because behind that door is cancer, crying, and the very real possibility that I’ll accidentally tell Danny Clarke about my tits before lunchtime. Again, not in the fun way.

There are approximately nine hundred acceptable workplace conversations we could be having instead. The weather, the printer. I’ll even let Sandra from accounts microwave fish again. My potentially murderous breasts are not among them.

Maybe if I remain very still, he’ll lose interest. Works with some predators… unsure about the effects on Danny.

I remain very still.

Danny, unfortunately, remains very Danny.

Fuck

I briefly consider throwing myself out of the window, but we’re on the ground floor, and I refuse to add humiliation to the existing situation. I’d have to climb onto my desk, wrestle with the stupid safety latch, squeeze my fat arse through the gap and then drop approximately four feet into the begonias. Only to have Danny lean out after me and ask, “So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Death, suddenly, has its advantages.

Jesus Christ.

I take a sip of my tea and look at my emails, trying to banish all thoughts of death from my head. “Nothing,” I lie.

Danny is quiet for a moment, and I'm already preparing myself for the usual speech. “You can talk to me. I'm here if you need anything. You don't seem yourself.”

Instead, he pushes away from my desk. “All right.”

I look up. He's already walking back towards his chair. “That's it?”

Danny glances over his shoulder. “You said nothing's wrong.”

“Yes.”

“So nothing's wrong.”

I stare at him as he sits down. I should be relieved.

I am in fact not.