When we got home, Marcus set me down on the living room sofa and went to get water and my medication. He crouched beside me and asked quietly, "Still want to take them?"
I nodded and held out my hand. He passed them over, and I swallowed them without argument. The sharp edges inside me dulled a little after that. I leaned back into the cushions, too drained to hold myself upright.
He sat down beside me and stayed there. Neither of us spoke for a long time, and I was grateful for that too, for someone who understood that silence could hold a person just as well as words. I had been lucky that way, even when everything else fell apart. When my grandmother died, George Fuller had been the one sitting close enough to catch me. Now it was Marcus. I didn't know how much longer I could keep going, but some part of me quietly feared the day when no one would be there and I would finally stop holding on.
