Starting the next day, Nathan did not seem different in any obvious way.
He still said good morning. He still sat down at the dining table. When he passed behind my chair, he still nudged it in a little, almost without thinking. But I felt it anyway.
He no longer came close.
It was not avoidance, not exactly, and it was not deliberate coldness. It was only that every time we might have ended up a little too close, he stopped naturally, as if there had never been any reason to take another step.
When I asked him about something, he no longer came over to look the way he used to; he only told me, from where he stood, which page I should look at. When I held out a cup to him, he did not take it, only said, “Just leave it there.”
He said it gently.
But my hand stayed there for a seco
