The Day After

I woke up first.

The light was pale and grey, slipping through the curtain like it wasn't sure it was welcome. For a moment I forgot. Then I turned my head and saw him.

Still asleep. His face relaxed in a way it never was when he was awake. Younger, somehow. Less guarded.

I lay there and watched him breathe for longer than I should have. Tried to remember the last time I'd woken up next to someone and felt glad about it. I couldn't.

---

Last night felt like a dream I wasn't quite part of.

I'd barely settled into the room. If you can call it settling, when all you own fits in one bag, when the knock came. I opened the door and there he was. Willers. Standing in the hallway like he'd been trying to talk himself out of it the whole way there.

"Changed your mind?" I asked.

"Something like that."

I let him in.

The room is not mine. I keep having to remind myself of that. The bed is not my bed. The chair is not my chair. The only things in here that belong to me are the bundle of herbs by the window and the spare shirt hanging over the back of the chair. Everything else is just borrowed space.

But last night, with him here, it almost felt like it could be mine. Like I was building something, instead of just passing through.

---

We talked for hours. I told him about the Wetlands and the dwarf and the enormous black boar that had evaluated me and apparently found me acceptable. He told me about Westfall and a treasure map and a cold swim to a rock in the middle of the sea.

When he talked about the treasure, about finding it, about proving to himself that he could. There was something in his voice that sounded familiar. That same quiet satisfaction I feel when I mix the right poultice and watch it work.

We walked down to the harbour. Sat on the dock until our feet went numb and the lights went out one by one in the houses along the shore. He asked about my father, and I told him more than I meant to. Not everything. But more than I usually do.

---

When we got back to my door, I heard myself say the same thing I'd said to him in Goldshire, months ago.

"I usually have something better than the inn's ale inside. If you feel like talking more."

I hadn't planned it. The words just came out. But this time, instead of that careful smile and a polite decline, he just looked at me for a moment and said:

"That sounds good."

I think that was the moment I knew I was in trouble.

---

The second day was easier. Harder. Both.

We walked through Southshore like we belonged here. Like we were just two people with nowhere particular to be. He bought me a small leather pouch for my herbs, nicer than the cloth I'd been using. I didn't know what to say, so I just held it and tried not to think about what it meant.

He mentioned a job. A delivery, further north. Someone needed something moved, and the pay was good. He said it casually, like it was nothing, but I saw the way his jaw tightened when he said it.

"That sounds like a bad idea," I said.

"Most of my ideas are."

I didn't try to stop him. I barely know him. I have no claim on his choices. But I wanted to. I wanted to tell him to stay, to find something safer, to not walk into whatever trouble was waiting for him up that road.

I didn't. Because I know what it's like when someone tries to tell you what to do. And because I'm not sure I'd stay even if he asked.

---

He left at dusk.

We were standing at my door. The street behind him was getting dark. He said "I should go" in that same careful voice he uses when he's trying not to show how he feels.

I asked if I'd see him again. I didn't mean to. The question slipped out before I could stop it.

He said "I'll try."

He leaned in. Brief. Warm. Then he was gone, walking north into the fading light, and I was standing in the doorway with my hand resting on the little leather pouch at my belt.

I watched until I couldn't see him anymore.

---

The room felt different after he left. Bigger. Emptier. His coat was still hanging over the back of the chair. He'd forgotten it, or left it on purpose, I couldn't tell. I picked it up and held it for a moment. It smelled like the road. Like pine and salt and something I couldn't name.

I folded it carefully and laid it on the chair.

I made the bed. The sheets were cool. Two small dents in the pillow where our heads had been.

I stood there for a long time, looking at it. Then I went to the window, made myself a cup of tea I didn't really want, and watched the last light drain out of the sky.

I barely know him. Two days. That's all it was.

It's strange how two days can feel like more than all the empty ones that came before.