Love Is Not a Number

I didn't know how long I'd been asleep. Thirst was what finally woke me.

I heard the fingerprint lock click open behind me. I didn't turn around.

Kimberly Nicholl came in wearing house slippers, her footsteps dull and heavy, and stopped a few feet behind me.

"How are you feeling? You didn't answer any of my texts."

I said nothing. She stepped closer and reached out to touch my forehead.

I caught the sharp, woodsy scent clinging to her, the cologne her assistant Gary Yoch always wore. I turned my face away.

Her hand hung there for a second, then dropped.

"Right," she said, her voice flat and cool. "With a number like yours, what could possibly be wrong?"

Her eyes lingered on my face, then drifted upward, hovering somewhere above my head. Again.

My throat felt like it had been sanded raw.

"Can't you just turn my number off," I said. "Can't you look at me, just once, without it?"

I remembered her telling me once that the thing could be switched off.

Kimberly went quiet for a few seconds. She didn't answer. She only set the bag she'd been carrying down on the coffee table.

"Something for the fever. Use it."

I stayed silent a moment, then walked over and crouched by the table. My hands shook a little as I picked at the knot in the bag.

"Gary got it for you. He said you weren't feeling well, so he picked it up on the way."

My hands didn't stop moving. In the past, I probably would have pushed the bag back and said I didn't need it, that I could buy my own things. But today I felt too awful for that. Even the knot in the bag seemed to be fighting me.

She stood there for a while, and when I didn't say anything, she went on.

"Be nicer to him. He's a good kid, straightforward. He's barely started working. He doesn't know as much as you do."

The bag finally came open. Inside was a box of ibuprofen, a box of cold medicine, and a box of cooling patches.

And two slips of paper. One was a pharmacy receipt. The other was a purchase confirmation for a custom-tailored suit. The payment had gone through at four twenty-four that afternoon, for a large amount.

I stared at the receipt for two seconds, said nothing, and tucked it back under everything else in the bag. I pulled out a cooling patch, tore off the wrapper, and pressed it to my forehead. The cold press dulled the throbbing at my temples.

I got to my feet and started toward the bedroom. "I'm tired tonight. Sleep in the guest room."

I closed the door before she could answer and lay back down. The room went quiet again.

I didn't know how much time passed before the phone rang out in the living room. Kimberly picked it up, her voice dropping low, laced with a few soft laughs, then fading further away. The door latch clicked shut.

I rolled over to face the wall and pulled the blanket over my head. My phone buzzed once under the pillow.

I didn't look at it.