“I want to.” The way he said it suddenly permeated her fuzzy hearing and alerted her that he’d been speaking in an uncharacteristically somber tone. His face was equally somber. He looked like shattered glass; like a spider webbed windshield after a car accident.
Liza attempted to reach for his hand, but he was just out of reach as he moved toward the bedroom door. “Hey, wait.”
Connor glanced at her.
“Are you okay?”
He blinked and then nodded.
She squinted at him. “Are you sure?”
His hulking shoulders flexed as he shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Connor, you look like a kicked puppy.”
A quick smile tugged one corner of his mouth. “I hope you’ve never kicked a puppy, Liza.”
“I just mean you look really upset about something.”
Connor opened his mouth as his gaze drifted to the wall behind her head, and then he closed it. He opened and closed it again a couple of times, as if trying to string words together; as if something were really,reallybothering him; so much so that she was gripped with anxiety about what he might say.
“So is this yourimpersonation of a really cute fish?” Liza asked, smiling and hoping it might ease the tension of whatever was wrong.
He closed his mouth and stretched his lips into a smile that didn’t reach his troubled blue eyes. “Yeah, I guess so.”
She patted the mattress. “Talk to me.”
He sat. He rubbed his palms on his large thigh muscles. His gaze darted all over the room. He opened and closed his mouth again. And then he stood back up.
“I need to feed you,” he finally said, and then held her shoulder as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
Then he left the room.
Liza stared at the closed bedroom door, more perplexed than she ever remembered being becausethatwas not the Connor she knew. Not the new Connor she’d met upon moving to New Orleans, and not the old Connor she knew from many years ago.
This latest incarnation of Connor was soft and quiet; clearly shaken and upset by something new. It was hard to believe he might be that distraught over her sickness. After all, Connor was largely indifferent to her outside of their pseudo-friendship at work. She wasn’t so naive to think he actually thought about her on a personal level. But she wasn’t sure what else it could be if the last time she’d seen him, he was in the bar enjoying himself.
Liza pursed her lips, recalling the reason Brennan had brought her home that night in the first place.
Connor had been in great spirits on Friday until his dad showed up.
So maybe that was it. Maybe over the weekend, he’d gone to visit like his dad had requested. And maybe it went horribly.
A heavy sensation weighed down Liza’s shoulders, and it told her that sitting up was pushing the boundaries of her limited stamina. She slid back down to nestle in the pillow and wrap the blankets around her. The weight of her eyelids was more than she could support right then, and she let them close. Just for a second. Just until Connor came back with the soup.
It seemed like only an instant had passed when she felt a firm, cool sensation on her forehead. She peeled open her eyelids again with a mammoth amount of effort.
Connor was there again, his face still draped in that somber expression, and it all was very disorienting. Like she suddenly doubted her age and where she was and the things she’d experienced. She wasso tired. A nagging ache radiated in the back of her neck and in the joints of her elbows and knees
He looked so sad, which made Liza think of all the things that had made her so sad so long ago.
None of it made any sense, and not being able to make it make sense was frustrating to the point that a lump formed in her throat and her eye rims burned.
“I don’t feel good,” she perceived herself saying through a squeak and sounding like a child.
“I know you don’t, baby.” That word again. His thumb rubbed below one of her eyes, and he brought his other hand to stroke her cheek as he held the sides of her face. “You will soon. You’re doing a lot better.”
“Everything hurts.”
