We walk to the car without saying a word.
Once inside, I stare at my hands in my lap, unable to look at him.
"I'm sorry you had to—"
"Erica." His voice is rough, almost angry. He shifts to face me, and I feel rather than see his hand come up.
For a second there, I think he might touch my face, offer the comfort I desperately need but can't possibly ask for.
It hovers, that hand—millimeters from my cheek, near enough that I feel the heat radiating from his palm.
His fingers curl and I realize he's fighting
himself, waging war against whatever impulse brought his hand up in the first place.
The almost-touch is worse than actual touch would be. It's Schrödinger's intimacy: both happening and not-happening simultaneously.
My face tilts toward his palm without permission from my brain. A stupid evolutionary response to warmth and nearness.
Big man touch face. Me let big man.
