Yeah. Silence. The ocean. What time is it? 6:15.
A pause. The sound of her turning over in the bed. The small adjustment of blankets. You didn't sleep well. I slept fine.
Malcolm. I slept adequately. He amended. What were you thinking about? He was quiet for a moment in the dark with the ocean outside and the pillow barrier between them that neither of them had referenced since last night's conversation.
Something about the honesty of it, the stripped down early morning honesty made the calculated answer feel like a waste of both their time. Monday, he said. She didn't answer right away. He heard her exhale slow and deliberate the breath of someone who had also been lying awake not thinking about Monday. Me too, she said.
And and I'm I don't know how to do this the right way, she said. I've been trying to construct it a framework, a process for how we go from this room back to our lives without she stopped. I can't construct it. Every version I build has a flaw. What's the flaw?
You. She said simply, "You're the flaw. You don't fit into the architecture of any version where I go back to the office Monday morning and act like this weekend was professional development." He turned his head toward her side of the room, though he couldn't see her in the dark. "That's not a flaw," he said.
"It complicates, Vanessa." His voice was quiet, but it stopped her. I know you build frameworks. I know you need the structure. I'm not asking you to abandon that.
A pause. But some things don't have frameworks. They just have next steps. And what's the next step? Breakfast, he said.
Then brunch. Then the drive. Then Monday. Then we figure out what Monday looks like together instead of separately in advance. She was quiet for a long moment.
He could hear her thinking the specific texture of her silence when she was actually processing rather than performing composure. Together, she said like she was testing the weight of the word. Together, he confirmed. Another silence. Shorter this time.