Warm Enough to Be Real

I turned so quickly that my bag slipped off my shoulder.

Julian stood beneath the streetlight, looking at me as if we had arranged to meet there. His dark coat was buttoned crookedly at the collar, and a pale cut interrupted his hairline. For several seconds, those were the only things I could understand: the coat, the cut, the familiar face.

The headline I had read a week earlier belonged to someone dead. The man in front of me had just breathed out a small cloud into the cold air.

I took a step toward him, then stopped.

Julian’s expression changed. He started to lift his hand, but seemed to think better of it.

“Evan, it’s me.”

“That isn’t helpful. It was you in my bedroom, too, and I thought I needed an exorcist.”

My voice sounded strange. Too thin, and much too loud.

I crossed the remaining distance and caught his sleeve. Beneath the fabric, his wrist was warm. I pressed two fingers against it, trying to find a pulse, but my hand shook so badly that I couldn’t tell what I was feeling.

Julian turned his wrist gently beneath my fingers.

“You’re pressing too hard. Here.”

I found it then: a steady beat beneath his skin. I stared at my hand as though it belonged to someone else.

“You’re alive,” I said.

“I survived the accident.”

He said something after that, but I didn’t hear it. I was looking at the bruise along his jaw, at the faint movement in his throat when he swallowed. He was doing all the ordinary things I had spent days imagining he would never do again.

I reached up and touched his cheek.

He flinched when my thumb brushed the bruise, and that small, unwilling movement broke whatever had been holding me still.

I shoved him in the chest.

“You idiot.”

He absorbed it without stepping away. When I shoved him again, he looked down at my hands but didn’t try to catch them.

“You let me think—” I stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “I thought you were gone.”

“I know. I should have told you.”

The answer came too late to be useful. I grabbed the front of his coat instead of pushing him a third time, and suddenly I couldn’t look at him.

There had been a scarf in his car. A message I hadn’t answered. Years of arguments I had assumed we would keep having because neither of us ever seemed capable of leaving the other alone.

I had thought all of it was finished.

Now his coat bunched beneath my fists, and I couldn’t make my fingers let go.

Julian stood very still. When I moved closer and pressed my forehead against his chest, his hand settled lightly between my shoulders.

He didn’t tell me to calm down. He didn’t ask why I was crying, which was fortunate, because I would have argued with the premise.

He simply stayed there while I tried to breathe.

“I hate you,” I said into his coat.

“You have plenty of reasons.”

“Stop being reasonable. It’s making this worse.”

His hand moved once against my back, then became still again. I closed my eyes and listened to him breathe.

He smelled like himself. That familiar clean scent, the wool of his coat, the faint trace of coffee underneath it. I had recognized it in the dark and convinced myself that fear was making things up.

I wasn’t imagining it now.

***

Eventually, I remembered that we were standing on a public sidewalk.

I lifted my head and found Julian watching me with an expression I didn’t know what to do with. His usual composure had slipped. He looked relieved, worried, and almost as shaken as I felt.

“Don’t mention this,” I warned.

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“To anyone. Especially Miles.”

“He’ll probably notice your face.”

I rubbed at my eyes with the heel of my hand.

“My face is cold.”

“Then we should get you somewhere warm.”

He glanced down, and I followed his gaze. I was still holding his coat.

I loosened my fingers immediately.

“I was checking whether you were real.”

“I think you’ve established that.”

“Don’t sound pleased with yourself. I haven’t decided what to do with you.”

The corner of his mouth moved, but he restrained it. I appreciated the effort more than I wanted to.

A bus passed us, splashing through a shallow puddle. Julian shifted between me and the curb, then looked toward a café across the street.

“We could sit down in there. You can ask me whatever you need to.”

“You’re paying,” I said.

“I assumed that would be one of the conditions.”

“For food as well. I’ve had a terrible week.”

His gaze softened again.

“I know, Evan.”

This time, I couldn’t make a joke out of it.

I picked up my bag. When he reached toward it, I handed it over, then pointed at him.

“That doesn’t mean you’re forgiven. It means my shoulder hurts.”

“I’ll carry it without drawing any conclusions.”

He waited for the crossing signal instead of steering me across the road, and I walked beside him with my hand still remembering the pulse beneath his skin.

***

Inside, I chose a table near the counter and ordered hot chocolate, a sandwich, and a pastry.

Julian brought everything over without commenting on the amount. He sat opposite me and let me eat for a few minutes.

I kept looking at him.

He lifted his cup. Turned toward the sound of the coffee machine. Brushed his thumb over a scrape on his knuckle.

Every movement reassured me, which made me angry all over again.

“Was the accident real?” I asked.

“It was. My car went off the road, and I was taken to a private hospital. The first report said I hadn’t survived.”

“And you let everyone believe it.”

He set down his coffee.

“There had already been threats around the company. Someone close to us was passing information to people trying to force me out. While they believed I was dead, the people helping me had a chance to find out who was involved.”

I watched his face while he spoke. He wasn’t giving me a presentation, but I could hear the careful way he had arranged the explanation.

“So you disappeared for business reasons.”

“For safety first. The company situation was part of it.”

“Did your mother know?”

“She knew as soon as I could contact her.”

That eased something I hadn’t realized I was worrying about. I looked down at my sandwich.

“Miles didn’t know. Neither did I.”

“I kept the number of people involved small. I thought I could explain afterward.”

“You thought we’d be upset afterward instead of terrified now.”

He looked at me for a long moment.

“I didn’t think carefully enough about what it would do to you.”

I took another bite because I needed time before the next question.

When I finally asked about my apartment, his posture changed.

“The voice was you?”

“I came there. I was the one you heard.”

“And the electricity?”

“I switched it off at the hallway panel. I didn’t want anyone noticing me through the windows.”

I stared at him.

“You thought frightening me in the dark was the better option?”

“There isn’t a good explanation for that decision. I should have knocked and told you.”

I remembered the first morning: my clothes, the unfamiliar marks, the missing parts of the night. The relief of seeing him alive didn’t protect me from what those memories meant.

“What happened while I was drunk?” I asked.

Julian put both hands on the table, where I could see them.

“You weren’t awake enough to agree to what happened. I crossed a line, and I’m responsible for that.”

I looked away. The café was too bright, too busy, and I was still trying to believe the man opposite me existed.

“You’re going to explain it properly,” I said. “Not while I’m sitting here trying to catch up with all of this. Send me an account I can read when I’m ready, and answer whatever I ask afterward.”

“I’ll give you the account and answer your questions.”

“And you’re not coming into my apartment unless I invite you.”

He took a key from his pocket and placed it beside my cup.

I looked at it, then at him.

“We’ll discuss that, too.”

“I understand.”

I put the key in my bag. I could be grateful he was alive and still need him to leave me alone. I wasn’t going to make myself choose one feeling for his convenience.

***

Miles came to get me.

He climbed out of his car, looked at Julian, and stopped long enough for the driver behind him to honk.

“Get out of the road,” I called.

Miles obeyed, came over, and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m ready to go home.”

He glanced at Julian again.

“You and I are going to talk.”

Julian nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“That’s going to be a long conversation.”

I opened the passenger door before they could begin it on the sidewalk. Julian stayed a few feet away.

“May I contact you?” he asked.

“You can send what I asked for. After that, wait until I decide.”

“I’ll wait.”

As I started to get in, I noticed my scarf around his neck. He had tucked most of it beneath his coat, but the frayed edge was unmistakable.

He followed my gaze and began unwinding it.

“Keep it tonight,” I said.

His hands stopped.

“It’s cold,” I added, then got into the car before he could make anything of it.

Miles pulled away. I watched the side mirror until Julian became too small to see.

My hands were warm now. I rested them on my knees and let the feeling settle.

For the first time since the phone call, I didn’t have to imagine whether he was breathing.

I had stood close enough to hear it.