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He looks at the ice bag, and then at my face, and I let him look, because it's three in the morning and I'm too tired to put anything in the way.
"The MRI," he says. "Dana wants one. I heard her in Chicago."
"You were eavesdropping."
"The training room has a very thin door. She was yelling a little." He sits up properly now, knees pulled to his chest. "When are you getting it?"
"After the trip."
"Why not before?"
"Because if it's bad, they sit me."
"What if it's bad and they don't sit you?"
I don't have anything to say to that. He doesn't push. He just nods, slowly, the way he did in the parking garage when I told him about the tutu, like I've confirmed something he already knew.
"Does anybody know?" he asks. "How bad?"
"Dana."
"What about Moretti?"
"Moretti knows what Dana tells him."
"So, not everything."
I don't answer.
He's quiet for a minute. Then he gets out of bed. He's wearing a T-shirt and boxers, and he crosses the room barefoot and takes the extra pillow off my bed and crouches down and slides it under my calf, so my leg's propped higher.
"Higher's better," he says. "My trainer in juniors used to say. Above the heart."
"I know that."
"Then why wasn't it higher?"
"Because I'm tired."
He's still crouched there, by the chair, with his hand resting on the pillow next to my ankle. Not touching me. A couple of inches away.
"I'm sorry about tonight," he says. "For real. Not the joke way."
"I know."
"I didn't think about the picture thing. I don't really think about pictures." He looks up at me. "I guess I should start."
"You shouldn't have to," I say, and I don't know where it comes from. "That's the problem. You shouldn't have to think about it at all."
He doesn't say anything to that. He stays there another second, then stands up, and his knees crack, both of them, loud in the quiet room.
"Ha," I say.
"Shut up. That's from the flight."
"You're twenty."
"Tell that to my knees." He gets back into bed, pulls the blanket up. Faces me again, instead of the wall. "How long do you have to ice it?"
