Everything about Harry Moran was agonizing. The way he refused to hold onto me or accept any kind of help for that matter, while we walked toward our Uber. The way he proceeded to proudly move as slow as a snail while I awkwardly strolled next to him with my hands in my pockets. The way his bicycle accident-induced limp made him trip on the sidewalk right next to the car, but he played it off and batted my hand away when I tried to help and open the door for him.

Basically, the way he was stubborn in the exact same way that I was. And it was agonizing.

The car was passing by a very flashy casino when I took a deep breath and finally brought myself back to reality. I unglued my eyes from the rear door window and faced the back of the leather front seat, before moving my head further to the side until the pair of legs clad in pale denim next to me came into view.

I was playing with my hands in my lap, the numbness at the news of Harry's health was slowly fading and being replaced with discomfort; I felt like I should've been saying something, whether to show compassion or just fill the air with words, anything. I'd already asked him if he was feeling alright multiple times, I could imagine a man in his condition getting tired from hearing that.

"How's the football going?"

Harry lifted his head as it had been leaned back against the headrest, and looked at me; I was hoping that the look on my face conveyed confidence and not my devastating lack of knowledge of football. Regardless, I was going to ask and listen about his interests, and he was going to feel better and take his mind off of everything for a few minutes. That was my objective.

"It ended."

"What do you mean?"

"It's the end of the season, the new one starts in a couple of months." He rested his head and sighed, "I was supposed to be in Istanbul."

"But you didn't really miss out on anything, seeing as City won. I've seen funerals with better atmosphere."

I'd chosen the best possible moment to look in front of myself again, leaning my head to the side to get a better view through the windshield while Harry's eyes burned a hole through my head. I knew I'd won that round, but I hoped we would stop there before he figured out that I'd just gotten lucky with that notorious Manchester City fact. If he was to attempt prodding for anything beyond surface knowledge, all I could do was go to hell.

My hands were playing with the loose material of my jumpsuit when I turned to him, the silence longer than I had anticipated. He was still staring at me so I shrugged in reply, "What?"

"You found a guy." Oh, I found him, alright. Wiping blood off of his face after a bicycle ambushed him. "You found a guy who taught you stuff about football, and I'm gonna have to beat him up."

"Please, don't, I can't defend you against another guy."

I could hear the sickeningly sweet grin on his face as he responded, "Aw, you'd defend me?"

"I just said I wouldn't."

He eyed me for a moment, biting back that smug smile, "Just you wait until I get better. I'll take on any guy of yours in my prime. All day."

"If that fails, I know a good bicycle that could help you out."

As soon as I smiled wider at the sight and sound of him laughing, the car started slowing down; looking out the window on my side, I realized the street we were on was familiar, just a few miles from where I lived. As he got his wallet out to pay the driver, I also realized it made perfect sense that he'd been on my bus when we first met, as his place was a few bus stops away from mine.

The car stopped, and I got out on the side of the sidewalk. Harry finished paying and scooted to get out on the same side but struggled to stand up, gripping the top of the door and the handle to pull himself up; without thinking anything of it, I quickly stepped closer and wrapped an arm around him to help him up. One of his hands was still on the door but the other one was grasping my shoulder, his concentrated expression and furrowed brows a complete contrast to how he'd been laughing thirty seconds prior. I swallowed down the bad feeling rising in my chest again at the reminder of why I was there with him at all, and focused on bringing back the lightheartedness from a minute earlier.

At least he was letting me help him.

"There you go," I breathed out with a smile as he stood firmly on his feet, though his face, unfortunately, didn't change. I used the arm around his back to close the door after wishing the driver a nice evening, and soon we were on the sidewalk alone, the sound of the Toyota engine fading as the car disappeared down the street. "You good?"

"Yeah, I just got really dizzy, give me a second."

"Mhm." I cleared my throat and casually looked down, only then noticing that we'd been standing with our arms around each other for a good minute since I'd helped him out of the car. For a moment Harry leaned onto me, and I took a step back under his weight and gripped his shirt to keep us both on our feet; while the goal was to support his back until he found his balance, I was somehow finding my other hand on his firm chest, his gray shirt bunched up in my fist, and could only blink at the sight. It was definitely not helping me focus on the lightheartedness. It was not helping me focus at all.

"Okay," He sighed, straightening his back so he was even taller, "We can go. Well, actually..."

As soon as he took a step he stopped, and I stopped with him; we definitely still had our arms around each other, and whether it was his condition, the fact that he was still a little drunk, or that he'd gotten hit by a bicycle, I definitely still didn't trust him walking on his own. The thought of having to leave him all alone in that condition had still not fully sunk in yet, and I didn't want it to, either. "How are you gonna get home all by yourself?"

Waiting for my answer, he looked as nauseated as I felt. "I'll take the bus from here."

"Fucking hell no, not after what happened last time."

"Do you think I haven't gotten on a bus since then? I get on buses exclusively when you're around?"

We were slowly making our way toward a five-story building just a few feet down the road, and I found it a little comical that he was worried about basically the same thing that I was—how was one supposed to carry on all on their own without the blessed help of the other? "Okay, true," He spoke, and when I looked up at the side of his head, he looked like he was doing some serious math in his head. "But it's late."

"I've taken late buses, don't worry about me. Let's just get you home."

"Why would you go anywhere at this hour? It's not safe."

"Looking for strange men to take care of, obviously."

We stopped in front of the door of the white building, just as Harry let out the first laugh since the one right before we'd gotten out of the car. The sound is comforting. "Nice." He nodded, fishing his keys out of his pocket. "Good thing you ran into a nice one, then."

"Oh, absolutely."

"Also handsome, and smart. Loves children and animals and long walks on the beach." He suddenly yelped, and pressed one hand to his rib while his other one squeezed my shoulder, "Just don't let the fact that he got fucked up by a bicycle turn you off."

"Nah, you're already way ahead of all the other strange men I've romanced." Harry gave a breathy laugh at my words as I observed the closed bakery right next to the entrance of the short building, and decided against letting go of him just yet. "What floor do you live on?"

"Third."

"No elevator?"

"...Naturally." I loved that he realized how nothing, not even his own home, wanted to make that night easier for either of us.

"Alright, then," I sighed, content that I had an excuse to continue enjoying the muscles in his back that my palm was still pressed against, but not especially loving the physical aspect of the next task. "I have no choice but to invade your privacy. Let's get you up."

"I can walk on my own, you know."

"And I can walk back home instead of taking the bus, but we're not about to do that."

"I'm still not liking that you wanna take a bus back, either."

"I've lived in New York City my whole life, I can deal with a college town."

"Really?" He asks genuinely, "You're from New York?"

"Born and raised."

"What's that like?"

We'd already completed floor one, so I was happy that something was keeping him occupied and distracted from the fact that a total stranger was about to find out where he lived. For someone so worried about how I was gonna get back home, he was incredibly relaxed with me prying into his life. "Loud, cold, and full of rats."

"Yeah, no, I know that part too, but like, what about the true New York experience?"

"What do you mean? I just said rats."

"I mean... you ever lived in a brownstone or something?"

The hand around his back squeezed his shoulder blade in reflex; there I was, thinking he was talking about the ball drop, or possibly meth. Bless his heart. "Yeah, actually. My parents still live there."

"Really?"

"Yeah, they got a condo before I was born."

"You grew up–"

"Lower your voice, dumbass."

"You grew up in a brownstone building?" The drunken squeak in his voice was remarkable, and despite fighting for my breath and life while I carried us both up the stairs, I was once more entertained to the point where I was forgetting the real reason I was there with him. So far he'd been pretty successful at making this feel completely intentional. "That's the coolest thing I've ever heard!"

"Love the enthusiasm."

"Is it like Sex and the City? Do you feel like Carrie?"

"Absolutely, if it's that episode where she takes Aidan's dog out for a walk and it immediately has diarrhea."

"Aidan deserved better."

So do you. "Agreed." A thin layer of sweat was forming around my hairline, and if I hadn't already regretted wearing my jean jacket, I definitely would have at that point. If my first-grade math skills were still as astounding as ever, I'd successfully counted to three and gotten us to the third floor of the building. "Okay, you recognize any of these doors?"

"I'm drunk, I'm not that drunk." I suddenly felt light as a feather as his arm slipped from around my shoulder and he surprisingly confidently walked over to a door, which he then equally flawlessly unlocked. "Would've been able to get up the stairs myself too."

As life would usually have it, he ate his words immediately after opening the door—I found myself holding him up again after he comically tripped on his own threshold, this time my fingers digging into his bicep, both of us already all the way inside his apartment just from the struggle to keep him on his feet. Sprinkle that struggle with some gravity and him being a fair amount heavier than me, the best I managed was to sit him on the floor of his hallway, much like a box during moving day, and tower over him with my hands on my hips as if I was contemplating which corner to shove him in so he wouldn't take up much space.

I felt the wall for a light switch and when I looked back at him, Harry had his knees bent and was loosely hugging his legs close to his chest, looking up at me with a wide, childlike grin, now less pale under the warm white light.

"Hi." He beamed, and for the life of me, I could not have shoved him into any corner. He would've been a centerpiece if it were up to me.

"You ate shit so bad right now."

"Guess I am drunk." Getting him up from the floor after carrying him up the stairs was obviously a piece of cake.

"Guess so."

"You're very pretty."

"So are you. Where is your room?" As soon as the words left my mouth, he walked us through a door and stopped dead in his tracks. From the light in the hallway, I could make out that its layout was much like a living room, and after switching the light on in that room too, I concluded it was definitely not a bedroom. Couch, TV with a console next to it, dining table a bit farther down the room. Definitely the living area. "Okay, I'm pretty sure you don't sleep here, so–"

"She really left." His words took me aback, and the atmosphere thickened when his grip on my arm tightened, making me realize that my arms were wrapped around him once again and I was having him hold onto me the same as while he'd been dizzy. For two strangers, two touchy situations in half an hour were quite a lot to process. "Her suitcase was right over there. By the TV. She left."

"Where would she go?"

"She has some family here and she stayed with them when I had a roommate, I... guess she's there."

"...I'm sorry, buddy." Before I'd managed to finish my sentence he was walking out of his apartment, steps defined by great determination, and barely even stumbled in his state when he crouched down in front of the welcome mat. He retrieved a key from underneath it with a sour expression on his face, and the same alarm that screamed at me to say something to take the pain away in our Uber went off in my head again.

"I just..." He took a deep breath, "I need to lie down. I am in shit condition."

The door was closed with a semi-heavy slam, and Harry disappeared into a different room from the small, square hallway. The same anxiety I'd felt during our car ride to his place was creeping up on me again, having been pushed down by the banter and good spirits he'd been in. God, I couldn't imagine the mental strength he had to possess to be able to goof around with me in his situation. I knew for a fact that I would've been crying for my mother, the warmth of my home, my cousins ten times removed, God, and who knew what else; meanwhile, this man was alone in an apartment several states away from home, coping with life by drinking.

My heart sank further down my chest at the absolutely empty feeling of the apartment I was in, and the fact that I had to leave him there, all on his own. With a hard swallow, I finally left the spot I had been frozen in, the old wooden floor creaking with every step I took as I followed the open door to the room he was in. Sure enough, the light from the hallway was seeping into the room just enough for me to make out a bed against a wall, and a very heartbreaking sight of Harry lying on his back with his hands over his face. I supposed he heard me as well because he proceeded to rub his face and lay his hands on his stomach, and look at me standing in the doorway again.

"I'm dizzy again," He said with what was too weak to be called a laugh, but he did try. "Should probably just go to sleep."

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

"I told you you shouldn't have come."

I pressed my lips together in a line, half in compassion, half ready to get in another pissing contest with him. "You didn't, actually. You said you were fine."

"And I am."

"We are not seeing the same thing, buddy."

"I wish you never saw me like this." His fingers were rubbing his forehead, but I'd have given him a hundred more headaches if it meant he wouldn't have to go through his problems alone even for a fraction of time.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I'd rather see you like this than just go my own way."

"...Your guy is so getting beaten up."

He caught me off guard and I laughed harder than I'd thought I would. He was grinning in response while I shook my head at him, letting him have this jab. As long as he was making jokes and laughing, it wasn't all bad; in addition, I remembered how he'd been checked out for his wounds at the hospital, and it took one singular thing I had to worry about when it came to this man off of my list. "Funny. Do you have any friends that live close by?"

"For what?"

"For help, if you need it."

"They're all home for the summer, but I'll be fine, Evie, my folks are coming in the next couple of days. I'll be fine. I promise. Pinky promise."

"You're going to kill me."

"Gotta balance it out with saving your life last time, right?"

"...I'm going to kill you."

He laughed, but with each reassurance, the lump in my throat grew, at that point about five times as big as it was when he realized his girlfriend had left. I wasn't exactly sure what my brain wanted me to do—keep boring him with offering help, keep boring him with questions, ask if he would like me to stay the night with him because of course a stranger is whom he wanted most by his side now—but I sure was getting yelled at from within my skull.

"Save that for the next cursed time we run into each other." Next time? "And thanks for caring enough to ask."

"Yeah, of course."

"I appreciate it." Commercial break for awkward smiling at each other. "By the way, you're forgetting something."

I blinked dumbly, "What?"

"You promised me your number if I let you take me home."

"I didn't promise fuck all." My voice was firm but the smile that could've broken across my face had my reply been longer was completely siding with Harry. I was going to get whiplash from all of the emotions he'd managed to get out of me in such a short period. I finally left my spot at the door frame to walk into the room and head toward his desk, right next to his bed, "But since you were a good boy tonight..."

My whole being was extremely concentrated on finding the closest piece of paper and pen and scribbling down my number, afraid that giving him any kind of attention would keep us on the path of that dicey reply and I'd be even more unsure of what to do with myself. For a whole different reason this time.

I was silently thanking any deity that was listening when he stayed quiet, and the dialogue ended there. I stared at my phone number either like it was the most interesting thing in the world or like I hadn't known it by heart for six years and needed to check it at least seventy times before I carried the post-it to Harry. Only when he took it oh-so-casually from my hand with his index and middle finger did I look up at his face again, eyes set on the most annoying smile of all time. "Only three and a half hours since my woman left me, I got a phone number."

"Oh my God."

"I still got it!"

"That was horrible." And I was fully walking out of his room. "Don't ever call or text me, ever, in your life."

"Sure thing, doll."

"Good night, Harry."

"Good night, doll."

"Jesus Christ." I was fighting back another smile when he continued laughing even after I closed the door of his apartment, and I walked down the stairs with a good feeling of having helped someone, even if it was short-lived. Somewhere on the staircase between the first and second floor, I heard a door being locked from the floor above and concluded that he was safe and getting some much-needed sleep soon.

Safe.

Safe.

An uneasy sigh left my lips as I made my way down the sidewalk, the objective being to find the closest bus stop. The weather was nice and usually, I would've been walking home without even thinking of getting some kind of a ride, but the dull ache bubbling in my chest was really not the kind of company I wanted on a pleasant stroll. Should I've been mean to him at the end? It wasn't like I truly found him repulsive and didn't want to hear from him ever again. Plus he'd pretty much reacted the way I'd expected him to, laughing off my words. Knowing I hadn't been serious, to begin with. But maybe, with everything that had happened to him just tonight, I should've been nicer. Maybe those laughs had been forced. Maybe I should've told him that he should call me and text me anytime.

By the time the bus arrived, I'd gone through the most gut-wrenching stages of grief several times. I barely caught the number of the bus to determine if it was the one that was going to take me home before my thoughts brought me right back to Harry, all alone in his apartment with no one around to help. Well, at least in the next couple of days, if he'd been truthful about his parents coming to New York. If he hadn't said it just to have me stop worrying about him, oh, God, what if that was exactly what he'd done?

It wasn't even the fact that there was no one with him in that apartment, it was the words that would haunt me for at least three to five business days—my insurance plan won't cover the rest of the treatment I need. She was all I had left. What the hell was he going to do? Was it possible for his family to come up with something? What was any of them–

I inhaled deeply as the vibration of my phone partially pulled me out of my thoughts; I blinked several times at the screen, my anxiety giving me a hard time deciphering the word Mom flashing across the screen. "Hey, Mom."

"Hey, baby!" I was greeted by her warm voice, the rustling on the other side indicating she'd already started whatever task she had planned out to complete while she was on the phone with me. Probably breakfast for her and Dad, or laundry. My brain found a little opening in the Harry Moran tragedy where I was kind of bummed about not being home for our call, doing my own task, since we treated our phone calls as a kind of podcast to help with mundane work around the house. "How are you doing, what's up?"

"Not much, uh..." Brain fart. I could at least pretend like I hadn't had an unnerving evening. "I brought Vi dinner, so I'm just leaving the hospital. What about you?"

She began speaking, but I caught not one of her words as my phone vibrated once more, this time being a single buzz. Mom's story about how she was currently making banana pancakes for breakfast tomorrow grew faint as I took my phone away from my ear to check the screen, and saw a text message from an unknown number.

Text when you get home. H

What would've usually been a sweet and caring message that could've brought a smile to my face and maybe, maybe some heat to my cheeks, actually brought yet another wave of nausea and sinking of my heart to my toes. It was amazing how my heart, at the very least, had been in my stomach the entire evening, yet my chest still ached. God, he's all alone. He's sick and unwell and alone. And with no solution.

"Hey, Mom? I have a question." I blinked as she stuttered on a couple of words, clearly not having expected me to suddenly speak up. "Sorry for interrupting you, but I wanna know something."

"Uh, yeah- yeah, sure, honey, absolutely. What's on your mind?"

"...What's our health insurance like?"

○○○

My alarm going off at 10:30 had never taken longer in the history of the universe.

Violet had barely gotten an explanation as to why I couldn't have tea with her when she came home from work that night. I was pretty sure that I'm too tired had been an unconvincing excuse anyway, seeing as I'd spent the next two hours pacing around my room and that the wall separating our rooms was thin enough for her to figure that out. At least the frenzy wore me out enough to take a decent nap when the sun came up.

And... remembering why I had the alarm set for 10:30 in the first place, my heart was in my throat once again.

My body was operating on auto-pilot, and I was dressed and ready to leave the apartment before I even realized it. It was a warm, sunny Wednesday morning, and the sound of busy traffic was the first thing that had managed to drown out my thoughts since about twelve hours earlier. When I'd run into Harry. And couldn't stop thinking about Harry. And after getting used to the noise after one whole minute, still couldn't stop thinking about Harry. Harry Harry Harry.

I was doing no better after a three-hour nap, half a cup of bitter coffee, and a stale croissant, either; and I was once again doing no better with music blasting from my headphones and concentrating on not tripping over anyone, or touching anyone's hand on the overhead handle in the packed bus.

It was 11:07 when I got off the bus, and it was 11:11 when I reached my destination. Maybe making a wish will help me with this incoming debacle, ha. The fact that his building didn't have an elevator did not help with my heartbeat, erratic ever since I'd woken up. Hell, erratic ever since I'd made the decision to come to his place at the earliest appropriate hour.

I hesitated knocking, furrowing my brows at the fist I made, right in front of his door; is eleven in the morning an appropriate time? He'd had an eventful evening, maybe he wanted to sleep in? Even without the events of the previous night, I didn't doubt he was tired all the time.

Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad bad bad–

"Oh my God," I murmured through gritted teeth to no one in particular, cringing when my knuckle finally made contact with his door. Well. It was happening. I'd known it would happen, even with my brain screaming at me through every step I'd made that led me to this place. I'd known I wouldn't chicken out. It had nothing to do with courage, anyway, just compassion and a lot of stupidity.

The door swung open after a minute, and I was met with the last thing I'd expected after leaving him all alone—a woman. "Hi," the blond girl, one hundred percent younger than me, said with a cautious voice, "Can I help you?"

Her blue eyes were giving me a puzzled but friendly look, a million times better than whatever emotion my face had frozen on when the door had opened and Harry wasn't on the other side. I took a breath, deciding not to be a weirdo, despite being washed over by the feeling of utter idiocy. Of course his girlfriend would come back. She'd freaked out at first but had then come to her senses. Of course she wouldn't have just left him like that. Of course.

"Yeah, uh..." Overthinking everything and letting my brain take the situation way too seriously had my mouth dry, "I was just looking for Harry, I'm, uh– I'm Evie, I'm a friend from college–"

"Oh, sure, come on in." She stepped away from the door and I was once again baffled beyond words. While I stood motionless from confusion, she stood motionless with a smile on her face, waiting for magic to happen in my brain and have me walk into the apartment.

"Thanks," I managed, matching her smile, and took the few needed steps to let her close the door behind me.

"No problem. Harry's in his room. Don't mind me, I'll be walking around the place since I'm helping him pack and all."

My only reply was a nod, partly because my mind was still blank and partly because as soon as she was done speaking, a door opened and had both of us turning our heads toward the sound–

"Stella?" Came from a familiar voice, only his head peeking out at first before he fully came into view, clad in a wrinkled white shirt and grey sweatpants, standing at the doorframe of his room the same way I had the previous evening. His face was scrunched up in a frown from just waking up, but as soon as our eyes met, I could tell that his head cleared out any thoughts he might have had. "Evie?"

"Oh, shit, right, sorry, I'm Stella," the girl said, offering me her hand, "Sorry, I've been quiet all morning so I forgot how to talk to people."

"Yeah, don't worry about it."

She turned to Harry, "You move on fast."

"Fuck off."

Stella waltzed out of the hallway, sticking her tongue out on her way and grinning when Harry replied with a middle finger. "Nice meeting you, Evie."

"You too," I replied, voice barely over a mumble but thankfully not quite matching the baffled state I was in. Harry stepped out to look into the living room, where Stella had gone in and disappeared from our view, and then turned to look at me. Oh, shit, there he is. There was the person I'd almost thrown up about seeing again several times. I'd almost forgotten.

"Okay, uh..." He nodded to himself as if just establishing that I was at his place again, "Hi."

"Hi."

"...You forget something last night?"

"Uh, no."

"Oh." He nodded again like that had made the reason as to why I'd come back crystal clear. "Well, come on in."

I quickly took my sandals off and followed him to his room, where he'd already dived into moving stuff around. "Sorry about the mess, I had no idea she'd be coming today."

"It's fine."

"She was supposed to come with my parents and brother next week, but, I don't know– youngest child, has the most free time, yadda yadda, send her out to help before the adults."

I nodded, both at his words and the confirmation of what I'd assumed after their interaction: sister. "It's really no problem, if anything, I came over unannounced."

He'd thrown all of the visible clutter into a box, and had shoved it under his desk by the end of my reply; he pulled the chair out and motioned for me to sit down. "Anything to drink?"

"No, I'm fine. Thanks."

"Stella!"

He snorted when I winced at his voice halfway through sitting down on the chair, without a doubt looking like a frightened cat for a split second. A faint 'what' sounded from somewhere in the apartment, and Harry replied with 'coffee,' after which the exchange ended and he sat down on his bed. "So..." He crossed his legs and held onto his ankle, "I hear you came home safely last night."

I let out something between a laugh and a wheeze, fully unprepared for him to mention our brief correspondence after I'd come home from his place. My hands were clasped between my legs, and I looked down meekly, "Yeah, you forced me to be safe so I came over to thank you in person."

"...Is that what this is?"

His tone suggested my joke wasn't being taken entirely as a joke; I looked up and he slightly raised his brows when our eyes met, a small smile on his otherwise curious face. "Well... no," I finally responded with a sigh, squeezing my hands tighter between my thighs when it dawned on me that we'd gotten to the part where I explained why I was there. I just had to sum up all of the rollercoasters my thoughts had gone on in the past twelve hours. Piece of cake. "I actually have... a suggestion."

Harry's face had relaxed as he waited for my answer, but his eyebrows were once again raised. "Okay?"

"God, this is..." I was thankful to have only put on sunscreen and lip balm before leaving as I rubbed my face in frustration; it didn't help that the other person was not freaking out with me but patiently waiting for me to gather myself. I didn't work well with calm people. I was chaos. "Okay, you know I'm... not insane, right?"

Just as confidently as he started nodding, it turned into him shaking his head, "I'm about 97% sure at this point."

"Okay, good, I might as well say it before it goes down to forty."

"You came in at ninety-eight, so you'd really have to work to get to forty." His expression suddenly turned worried, "Unless you need... help to bury a body, but even then you'd drop to like sixty, at best."

"...That is reassuring. I'm just going to say it, alright?"

He nodded encouragingly but then looked around the room awkwardly when I stayed quiet, like I was waiting for an official verbal response. I wasn't. I just couldn't believe what I was about to say. After twelve hours I still hadn't processed it. "...Be cool if you did. Just so I know we're not burying a body."

"You'd- would you actually help me bury a–"

"Can you please fucking get it out already?"

"Okay! Okay, I was thinking... I-I don't mean anything bad or weird or disrespectful with this, I just want... to help, if I can." The wording wasn't important. I just needed to do the conversation type of throwing up, and we'd piece my thoughts together later on. "And I was thinking, since you need health insurance, and I have a good... kind of... that, we could get... for health insurance... married."

If there was an analog clock anywhere in that apartment, I could hear it ticking. I could feel time pass between my staring right in front of myself, through Harry's pillow, and looking down at my hands, almost scared to hear and see his reaction. I knew that the worst-case scenario was that he threw me out and we both carried on with our lives cringing at this shared memory, but right then in that moment and in his bedroom, I felt like my head was going to explode.

"Oh, we are..." I moved my eyes to Harry and felt my lungs pause. I didn't know how long we were sitting in silence—less than a minute?—but his face had not changed in the slightest. He was so shocked that his brows were permanently plastered high on his face. "You... this is a joke, right?"

And the circus music began.

"Coffee!"

And with his sister coming into the room, the circus music intensified.