Page 274 of Safe With You

I put the lid on the container and opened the refrigerator.

“You can put it on the second shelf.”

I moved the milk aside to make room.

There were drawings stuck to the refrigerator door with magnets, a grocery list in handwriting I assumed belonged to Ellis, a school lunch calendar, and one photograph of Mila grinning with two front teeth missing.

Normal pieces of somebody else’s life.

Except standing there didn’t feel quite as much like being in somebody else’s life as I expected it to.

I closed the refrigerator.

Ellis was watching me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking at me and saying nothing.”

“I look at you all the time.”

“That is not a defense.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.”

I shook my head and reached for the dish towel.

He caught my wrist before I could pick it up.

“I said I got it.”

“And I said⁠—”

“I know what you said.”

His thumb moved once over the inside of my wrist.

“Go sit down.”

I looked at him.

“You kicking me out of your kitchen?”

“I’m telling you that you don’t have to clean it.”

“I know.”

The answer came before I thought about it, and Ellis paused, the corner of his mouth pulling slightly.

“I thought you were learning.”

“I am.”