Shay - Delphine AU | Parts 6-8
Could Shay and Delphine have been a thing in a different universe?
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*
Drinks tonight? Delphine inquired of Shay by SMS late one innocuous Friday afternoon, like any number of Fridays preceding it, though perhaps busier or calmer than some, but unremarkable on the whole.
Can I take a rain check?, Shay messaged back. Delphine puzzled at the idiom, fingers typing out a query, when another message from Shay arrived: I have plans tonight, but another time?
Deleting her half-formed question, Delphine replied with a confirmation and reassurance: Sure.
She googled the idiom, smiled with amusement at the definition, filed away the new linguistic knowledge, and thought little more of the exchange, moving onto pondering what she might like to have for dinner, if a trip to restock groceries was the better option, maybe a stop at a bookstore to browse the medical nonfiction or a shoe store to pick up a new pair of boots. Shay's phrasing was out of the ordinary, but not her unavailability. They'd both been busy at some time or another, having to beg off--another phrase Shay had dropped once--last-minute proposals to meet up. While Fridays had become the usual day on which they met, neither had a monopoly in the other's calendar to occupy any of its free hours.
That was how it had been, that was how it would be, that was how Delphine understood, treated, and appreciated Shay's company. Shay was there when she was there, Shay wasn't there when she wasn't there. When they spent time together, Delphine enjoyed it: time passed quickly in Shay's presence, there was conversation, there was laughter, there was ease. When other obligations intruded, there was maybe a second's disappointment, but there would always be another time, another Friday, another rendezvous.
Their acquaintance was reliable in its way, even as it was undemanding.
It was comfortable.
They'd made patterns, they followed rhythms, they had settling routines, demarcated trails through their interactions, like the paths Shay's hands had taken across her muscles in their practiced, searching route. Only now it was words and lines of inquiry.
Which was why when they saw each other the following week, Delphine asked, as she would have any other time, "Did you have fun last week? Or was it business?"
Because that was what they did now. They filled in the blanks of the missing hours. Even if the answer was often a simple dismissal, an "Oh, just work."
But Shay deviated from the script. She hesitated. Her eyes fixed on a point for a reluctant second.
"It wasn't," Shay replied slowly, "business."
Delphine studied Shay, the disinclination in her tone and mannerism, the measured way she spoke aloud, not quite directly at Delphine. "And . . . it wasn't fun?"
Shay avoided her eyes and mumbled something so lowly that Delphine didn't catch it.
"Excuse me?" Delphine asked, leaning close to hear better.
“It was a date," Shay said quickly, clearly. She added, almost in a sigh, "I had a date."
Shay's bright eyes sought Delphine's, skittered away, a soft pink rising in her cheeks. Her body language and weary timbre, rather than her words themselves, tripped Delphine into an unbalanced sense of surprise and unease. That Shay appeared nervous, that the declaration sounded like an admission rather than an interesting tidbit to share and dissect, that it was, actually, now that Delphine quickly cast her mind back, perhaps the most personal, presently occurring aspect of her life that Shay had volunteered to her. Delphine knew about Sapphire, that Shay used it, even the type of woman Shay gravitated toward, that Shay had met some of these women, that presumably she dated, certainly had dated, but Delphine had never known of it happening contemporaneously, had never known if and how and how often Shay engaged anyone through the app or through other avenues.
It was like Delphine knew Shay had brothers, but not whether she maintained regular contact with both or either, that she was settling, settled, in Toronto and that occasionally she met with Delphine, usually on a Friday, but not what other social circles she mingled in, that Shay held a bevy of spiritual beliefs, but not if she studied or visited temples or if she belonged to a community or a sect.
Delphine thought again of their casual, carefree, sans obligation connection, the ease with which it let their lives touch for brief moments, never delving beyond the tangential contact, and plucked at a corner of the napkin resting beneath her glass.
She was seeing Shay vulnerable.
She hadn't before.
She realized that now.
"It didn't," Delphine asked softly, "go well?"
Shay sighed and the awkwardness rolled off and out of her. Her shoulders rose and fell in a sad shrug, a smile emerging in the wake. As if Delphine had given her permission to speak, Shay said, "It wasn't . . . awful. She was nice. Cute. We just . . ." Shay shook her head, "didn't have anything to talk about."
Delphine's eyebrows lifted. "Really?"
With no more than a look, Shay demanded an explanation.
Delphine gestured aimlessly. "You and I are very different, but we . . . find ways to talk. You find ways to talk."
Shay simply looked at Delphine for a time. Then she smiled. Delphine hazarded it looked fond. "Not me, Delphine. You." Shay let her clarification linger, without qualification, for a breath, then added, "I guess I should have known how it would turn out. Our messages to each other were fine, but mostly just . . . polite. Not . . ." Shay shrugged again. ". . . exciting."
Delphine, mind half-dedicated to processing Shay's earlier assertion, asked, "Then why did you meet with her?"
"Because why not?" Shay offered feebly. "She seemed nice? She was cute?" The last thought pulled Shay up short. "She was really cute. Tall. Dressed really well." Shay made a face. "I sound desperate, don't I?"
Delphine rededicated her attention to the ongoing conversation, brow scrunching. "For what?" Shay's expression went blank, prompting Delphine to ask, "Sex?"
Shay sighed heavily and slumped a bit. Delphine had the impression that at another time she might have actually draped herself across the bar top.
Delphine cocked her head. "Is it sex you're seeking?"
Tints of pink resurfaced in Shay's countenance. "Well, that's part of it, yeah."
"Part of it," Delphine repeated slowly. "But if sex is the object, or the most pressing one, can't you--how do you put it in English?"
"You mean look for something with no strings attached?" Shay supplied.
Delphine nodded. "Yes."
"Find a hookup," Shay continued.
Delphine flipped her hand palm up in concurrence. "Yes."
"Have a fling," Shay tagged on, a smile growing on her lips.
"Just so," Delphine agreed. "Is that not something you can do?"
"It's an option," Shay acceded.
"Not for you?" Delphine prodded.
“Well," Shay said slowly, smile fading, "I prefer something more . . . stable. More committed." Shay frowned faintly in contemplation. "Deeper. I like to feel . . . connected to someone."
Delphine nodded. "So you won't have sex with someone unless you feel 'connected'?"
"I didn't say that."
"So you will have sex with someone in cases where there's no 'connection'?"
Shay shook her head, smiling to herself in a way that radiated here we go again. She simply said, "It's not as satisfying. For me."
"But you can," Delphine pointed out.
"But it's not as satisfying," Shay reiterated. Her lips thinned into a line of consternation. "It's like . . . when you scratch an itch and it goes away for a second, but then it comes back, even worse."
Delphine bobbed her head to the side. "I know the feeling."
Shay appraised her with restrained amusement. "But not when it comes to sex."
Delphine shook her head.
"Do you--" Shay began and abruptly stopped.
"What?" Delphine asked when Shay didn't continue.
But it was gone, whatever the question was. Delphine saw the thought retreating fast and far into the recesses of Shay's mind. What Shay said instead was, "Do you want to go to a festival next weekend?"
"A festival?" Delphine repeated, unprepared for the turn in the conversation.
"It's a food and wine festival," Shay clarified. "I have tickets for Saturday. I was going to take my date from last week if it went well, but . . ." She smiled feebly.
"C'est la vie," Delphine murmured.
"такова жизнь," Shay echoed, momentarily confusing Delphine's ears, then filling her with surprise. "So you want to go? It'll probably be a lot like what we always do anyway. Except earlier in the day. Possibly entailing more judgment?"
Delphine chuckled. "Sounds wonderful. Are you sure you want to take me?"
"Rather than my lackluster date?" Shay countered. "Of course, yeah. I don't think I'll be hearing from her again anytime soon. Besides, you might actually know about the wine."
Delphine raised a finger in warning. "That is a stereotype."
"But is it untrue?" Shay asked.
"Do you know your way around vodka?" Delphine asked, the language Shay had spoken registering.
"I've been put down by vodka," Shay said frankly.
Delphine spread her hands in surrender. "And I may know a little about wine."
//
Delphine showed up in jeans. The sight of her in casual wear nearly made Shay regret being a few minutes late rather than early. Shay hadn't even known Delphine owned a pair of jeans. That little revelation alone would have rendered the day a success if all else proved disappointing, a mental picture from the day to tuck away in a fold of memory.
The festival held its own, however, enveloping them in a riot of sights and sounds and smells. Rows and rows of local flavors, international beverages and cuisines, and culinary art pieces offered themselves for perusal and sampling. Delphine tended toward the salty and savory, Shay for the vibrant and colorful, foods splashed with an abundance of vegetables and crunch, most nearly anything on a crisp, fried tortilla. Her penchant made Delphine smile to herself, but the Frenchwoman kept any comment about Shay's biases--or, rather, prejudices, if Delphine's slant was taken into account--to herself.
The size of the crowd had been fair in the late morning when they arrived, but by early afternoon the number of attendees had swelled. Collective movement slowed from a flowing shuffle to a game of stop-and-go to avoid the unpredictable maneuvers of other bodies and strategic dodging of incoming and slower traffic. Before long the strain of the variable pace announced itself subtly, in the muscles pinched around Delphine's eyes and the stiffening of her gait.
Shay touched Delphine's arm to stop her and get her attention. "Want to go outside and get some air?"
Delphine nodded.
The cooler air of a crisp Canadian day felt welcome after the increasing swelter of the venue. Shay breathed in deeply, enjoying too the sudden drop in decibel levels, where she could pitch her voice low and ask, "Do you want to stretch your legs out or would you rather sit and rest a bit?"
Delphine glanced over sharply, then smiled, weariness peeking out along the edges of her mouth. "Is it that obvious?"
"We did a lot of standing," Shay said, neither confirming nor denying.
Delphine, forehead furrowing, rubbed at her hip and lower back without reservation for the first time. "Sitting sounds wonderful--but I'm afraid if I do, I won't be able to stand back up."
Shay smiled. "There's a park nearby, if you want to walk."
"Is it far?"
Shay shook her head. "Not far. It's actually just along that trail." She pointed. "We can go as fast as you like."
Delphine nodded to affirm the plan and they set off at a pace it would have been generous to call leisurely. Within a minute a smile crept self-deprecating across Delphine's lips. Shay spied it and asked, "Is something funny?"
"You said we could go as 'fast' as I liked," Delphine said, laughter in her voice. "You don't have to protect my feelings."
Shay grinned. "You know, even walking slowly, your stride is still like twice the length of mine."
Delphine, who had been rolling along her lengthy stride to loosen her hip, shot her a toothy smirk. "One and a half times longer, perhaps."
"One and a half, then," Shay repeated, with a little exasperated flutter of her hands.
"It is important for a scientist to be precise," Delphine declared with authority, but a clear note of teasing rang through her tone.
"This isn't your lab," Shay said, spreading her arms to encompass the greenery around them. "I think it's okay to fudge a number or two in this case."
Delphine smiled in response, which briefly morphed into a grimace. Shay caught the spasm in her expression. Stepping closer, having been walking on Delphine's injured left side, she wordlessly held out a crooked arm. Delphine glanced down and then glanced again. Shay jerked her elbow in a little flap of her arm. Delphine laughed.
"What?" Shay asked. "Go ahead."
Delphine took a second to think about it, then slipped her arm through Shay's. A few steps later, Shay said, "You can actually lean on me. That's the point, actually. I'm not going to topple over."
"I know," Delphine said softly.
"But?" Shay prompted. "I'm just so small?"
Delphine glanced down at her out of the corner of her eye. "Maybe."
Shay looked up at her skeptically. "You know I'm around average height, right, doctor?"
"You might even be average height in heels," Delphine remarked blithely.
Shay almost--almost--hip-checked Delphine for being a smart ass but restrained the reflex in the nick of time. "You're lucky you're a woman in recovery, otherwise I might have answered that with a response you deserve."
Delphine's eyebrows shot up, perhaps wondering what sort of physical retaliation Shay was hinting at. "Then I better enjoy my advantage now."
But some of her weight came bearing down on Shay, Delphine's fingers gripping Shay's arm for balance. The park proper rested farther away than Shay had anticipated, even with a minute increase in their pace as Delphine's muscles warmed and eased, but when the quarry loomed ahead something must have altered in Shay's mien or expression.
"You enjoy being outside?" Delphine asked abruptly.
Shay tilted her head in a gesture akin to a shrug. "I do. I like green stuff."
Delphine nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. I remember there were a number of standing plants in your office."
Shay laughed, tickled at the mention of such a random detail, and clarified, "Yeah, there are a few, but I can't take all the credit for them."
"That's very generous of you," Delphine allowed.
"Credit where credit's due, right?" Shay said. "Isn't that how it goes in the research world?"
Delphine smiled tightly. "That's how you hope it will be but--" She shook her head. "Not always." She exhaled sharply. "There's a lot of . . . currency in credit and not everyone wants to share it." Her eyes scanned the creeping green growth encouraged to reclaim the quarry. "Research is about the knowledge we gain, yes, and the benefits we derive from it, but it's also a race." She smiled suddenly, amused. "Sometimes--most of the time--a very slow race--and then, without warning, very quick."
"Like a sprint to the finish line," Shay said, "at the end of a marathon."
"Yes." There was a pause, then Delphine asked, "Do they sprint at the end of a marathon?"
Shay laughed. "I actually have no idea."
They were quiet for a time, Shay comfortable thanks to the laughter, Delphine relaxed but contemplative, perhaps pursuing the thread further in her mind.
Delphine broke the silence.
"Last week," Delphine said softly, fingers pressing more firmly into Shay's arm, "before you asked me if I would like to go to the festival, you wanted to ask me something, but you didn't. What was it?"
The question caught Shay off guard. How it extended from no recognizable logic of the conversation preceding it. That Delphine had even caught Shay's abandoned, aborted question. That Delphine had noted it. That she was bringing it up.
Shay focused ahead and shook her head. "It wasn't important."
"That wasn't what I asked," Delphine countered.
She swallowed. "It . . . it wasn't an appropriate question."
Delphine let out a small gasp that drew Shay to look over at her. Amazement colored Delphine's features. "Wasn't appropriate? You know, considering what we were talking about--considering what I was asking you--I find it hard to believe that whatever you were going to ask was . . . inappropriate."
"It was inappropriate," Shay insisted.
Delphine stopped. Her hold on Shay pulled her up short as well. With the both of them at a standstill, waiting until Shay looked into her face, Delphine said, "Ask me."
"Why?" Shay demanded.
Delphine studied her with her scientist eyes, keen and observant, searching and discerning. "Because for some reason you're afraid to ask me this thing."
Shay looked away, quiet for a breath.
"Not afraid," she intoned, avoiding Delphine's face, "embarrassed."
"What did you want to know?" Delphine asked again, in that soft tone.
"Can we just put this aside?" Shay asked, turning to resume their walk.
Delphine gripped her arm, unmoved and unmoving. "I've asked you questions that were very personal, and you've never avoided them. You may not know this, but to someone like me, not asking me what you wanted to ask me makes the question far more intriguing. I like finding answers."
"You're asking for a question," Shay deadpanned.
Delphine smiled. It wasn't all kindness. There lurked a hardness in her gaze. "The question is the answer."
Shay stared back at her. Now they'd dragged out the point and the question was not only embarrassing, it was stupid. She could lie, but all the responses her mind fabricated on the fly sounded trite and transparent, and the patient, but penetrating way Delphine was watching her promised to detect any half-assed deceit.
Shay wasn't sure she even wanted to know the answer to her question. That was partly why she hadn't asked it.
Shay set her mouth in a line. In as even a tone as possible, she said, "I was going to ask you if you like sex." Delphine's lips parted. Shay drew a breath short and sharp. "I mean, if you have any interest in it."
Delphine's eyes narrowed, expression wavering between surprise, uncertainty, and cogitation. Silence descended over them. It stretched and stretched, torturous, peppering Shay with impulsive spasms to elaborate further. Needlessly. Pointlessly. Foolishly.
Shay resisted. Until Delphine said, "I see."
And nothing more.
Delphine pulled them back into the rhythm of a stroll, Shay falling wordlessly into step. They were quiet again, Delphine thinking her thoughts and Shay seeking the calm of stillness, that place where there was an absence of thought, where her mind wouldn't chase what she had just said and what Delphine might be thinking. The place in her mind where she wouldn't dwell on and poke at and scratch under the realization she'd had on her date. Because as she'd told Delphine, she'd had a date, yes, and it had been humdrum, yes, but what she hadn't mentioned was that she'd spent much of the time drawing comparisons between the sweet, albeit quiet and a tad shy, woman who dressed well and smiled in furtive spurts and Delphine, that her thoughts had been distracted by the unknowable prospects of what a real date with Delphine might be like, that it hadn't even been halfway through the meeting when Shay had concluded she had a Problem, that her heart had sunk within her chest at the thought that Delphine had wriggled far beneath her skin and lodged somewhere beyond reason and rationale where without effort she floated in Shay's thoughts.
The kicker--the most vexing part of the tableau--was that for all of her senseless preoccupation Shay didn't feel connected to Delphine. Intrigued. Challenged. Confounded. Frustrated. Amused. Sympathetic. Admiring. Sometimes even intimidated.
But not connected.
They were too different for that.
"You know," Delphine said as she swung them around to pause at the edge of the pond and peer into the waters, "I think I can see why you wondered that."
Shay attempted a laugh, but it emerged a sad little gasp. "I told you, it was an embarrassing, inappropriate question."
Delphine, eyes intent on the water's surface, cushioned Shay's resignation with a pause. When she was ready, she said, "I do. If you're still wondering."
Shay shook her head. "I'm sorry I asked."
"Don't be," Delphine said. "I'm not."
Delphine tugged on Shay's arm. "Let's go back. If we go any farther, I'm not sure I'll be able to make it."
They retraced their steps in relative silence, whether because of a newfound awkwardness or because of the degree of concentration Delphine dedicated to the task of the journey or because they had achieved a familiarity with one another that they could be silent and content in one another's presence, Shay couldn't have said. She didn't even know what she felt. She didn't know what she wanted to feel.
Not this, she wanted to think, but if that meant the subtle attraction to Delphine, or the confusion of disappointment and pragmatism that perhaps the relationship between them had been altered irreparably and the prospect that from here they could only grow apart, or the growing conviction that this day and the days before it and that first foolhardy offer to get coffee had all been a bad idea, or the hope that nothing had changed at all and the sober rationale that said nothing would change--
Shay didn't know.
//
Not out of ill will or dismissiveness. Simply with the awareness that honesty would have probably entailed a conversation. At minimum, unearthing the truth would require thinking about the question.
Delphine had never thought about the question.
About whether she liked sex.
In the immediate aftermath of Shay voicing her question, Delphine had thought: She didn't not like sex.
Right?
Right?
Thus began a spiraling mental orbit of repetition and ambivalent vagaries around the question, even as Delphine's thoughts had quested for the trail that had led Shay to the supposition. The indicators weren't hard to detect, considered from an outside perspective. How efforts to dissuade Shay from pursuing details of her love or sex life by issuing curt responses and being generally reticent could appear as tactics to mask overall indifference and disinterest.
Which they weren't.
At least, Delphine hadn't considered them such.
Rather, Delphine was well aware what kind of impression admitting to sleeping with your boss imparted to most people.
Not that she had spent time in Aldous's bed in recent months. The accident had seen to disrupting those relations. Delphine . . . didn't miss them much. Neither did Aldous, she'd wager. He was, on the whole, a busy man with a devoted, generous following ready to shower him with admiration. When the extent of her injuries had become clear, Aldous had understood better than to approach her, just as he had understood in the first place that he could, the way he knew power and influence and affluence exerted alluring magnetism.
Delphine hadn't pursued him.
She hadn't discouraged him either.
It had, in the scheme of things, seemed like the natural progression of their relationship, the inevitable track of her professional career, that he should pluck her from among a pool of excellent candidates, that he offer her exciting employment, that he should proposition her, that she should accept, that he should, fond and affectionate in his way or perhaps capable of separating business and the personal and discerning merit, take her into his confidence and unveil to her proprietary trials and pursuits previously unfathomable, but real and present and underway, far more titillating than any tryst between the sheets could be or had ever been.
Delphine felt the same held true for Aldous. They were not unlike, she and Aldous. He and she felt far more attached to the project--or any myriad of projects--than they did to one another. The sex was just part of the business of it all. An exchange, perhaps, or an assertion of their rightful roles, that he occupied a rung above, as mentor, that she should defer to him, as mentee, that to occupy his bed was a show of allegiance.
She didn't begrudge him the obeisance.
Delphine had never begrudged anyone the sexual aspect of a relationship. Not when it seemed like the next logical step. Such as the diligent lycée classmate who had passed her notes with doodles that made her laugh and convinced her to go to the cinema with him, who had touted her along for nearly a year before finding it within him to be affronted when she outperformed him on the exams. Or like the self-assured affluent young man who had courted her throughout her university days, taking her to nice restaurants and making her extravagant gifts and exhibiting his sensitivity by insisting she top him, until her career plans guaranteed her several more grueling, time-consuming years of schooling. Or the fellow medical student who was brash and bold and took the time to keep himself laundered and groomed even when all of them were running ragged and near-delirious on the fumes of naps until her ambitions, which would make her a nomad throughout Europe until carrying her overseas, had clashed with his plans to put down roots in their home country.
In any case, sex with any of them hadn't been unengaging or unaffecting. (Right?) As lovers, some of them had been kind and attentive and concerned for her pleasure (as they perceived it). Some of them had even made her laugh. But sex had never been the goal or the reward or the confirmation of the ties she had cultivated with any of those men. In some ways, the sex constituted the price of their company. They enjoyed it and she had enjoyed each of them in their respective charms and advantages. There had been times, she knew, that she had enjoyed seeing and knowing that their arousal, their efforts, their commitment to her had stemmed from the effect she exerted on them--and knowing that she could divorce herself from all of it without compunction, without regret, while they--well, sometimes they could not.
Delphine hadn't shed any tears over them. This state of her affairs had never been anything but normal to her. She'd known--for so long she'd known--the path she would pursue.
None of them had fit--or wanted to fit into--that picture.
DYAD fit that picture. DYAD and its possibilities had become that picture.
The surprise was having arrived at the goal so soon. To have, without warning, the opportunity to divert her fixed gaze from the goal and see--
What?
That there was room to stretch, to desire more?
That she . . . didn't?
Yet what did that matter?
A year ago it wouldn't have. Delphine had never measured her life by the needs she saw others profess and chase. She hadn't felt left behind by peers entering matrimony or starting families or having affairs or ending marriages or striking new ones. She hadn't lacked for direction or motivation or fulfillment.
So why did one question, from a feel-good hippie who could not have been more diametrically opposed to Delphine in the pursuit of meaning and existence, cast Delphine, at this time and at this point, spinning into self-reflection?
It wasn't the question.
It was why Shay asked the question.
It was the irrational thought the question behind the question put into Delphine's head.
That Shay pitied her.
Which ran contrary to everything Delphine had come to understand about Shay. It wasn't pity that threaded Shay's words, but shame--shame at herself for asking it. If Delphine had told Shay no, she had no interest in sex whatsoever, she had little doubt Shay would have accepted it, without judgment, with understanding.
But what did it mean for Delphine to have declared otherwise when Shay had suspected she was perhaps asexual in the first place?
Pity?
Delphine couldn't stand the thought of Shay pitying her. It made her skin itch. It made her want to display her degrees and credentials and certifications as proof of how much dedication and study had brought her here to DYAD, to this place, at this moment. It made her want to print out all the lab reports and spread them out before the other woman and explain the significance of each in contributing to the advancement of biology and technology. It made her want to scream because Shay pitying her was so utterly baseless a notion and, even if it had been true, what did it matter?
Shay had nothing Delphine wanted.
Right?
Absolutely. Delphine wanted no part in the senseless, groping loneliness that propelled Shay to parsing potential partners through the algorithms of a dating application, nor of the eroding doubts of self-worth that had her fabricating white lies to present herself as someone else that she perceived to be more worthwhile, and certainly had no desire for the undercurrent of an adrift sense of purpose that sent probing Shay probing at this and that prospect, clinging to this or that spiritual belief.
The mere thought of existing day-to-day like that pulled at Delphine's sanity like a blackhole absorbing matter.
And yet.
Delphine had never gotten to know someone like Shay before. Someone who despite all of the above was still happy, still open, still hopeful in the possibilities of life, still eager to believe in a greater goodness or some kind of universal balancing scales, who believed in the worth of someone she didn't even know and hadn't yet met but believed existed, who wanted so badly to give to someone everything at her disposal to give, so badly that even Delphine could see and sense it.
It was this person whose pity Delphine didn't want. It was from this person that Delphine had withheld any mention of her relationship with Aldous, her boss, because she hadn't wanted to see the knowledge alter the way Shay looked at her. She hadn't wanted to know if the information would engender disgust or concern or condescension or wariness or . . . pity.
Delphine didn't even have a reason to think Shay would pity her.
She just didn't want to know Shay could.
Because what else might have been done out of pity? Was that first overture to get a cup of coffee together an act of pity? How else to explain the offer when Delphine now had a good sense that extending affiliation beyond the massage table was far from a regular or normal occurance between Shay and her patients? Was the way Shay indulged all Delphine's questions, her probing and her prodding, forms of pity, some bloated sense that Delphine was a lost soul, a lost cause?
The idea, even a whiff of suspicion, that this was the case, had always been the case, should have made Delphine angry.
But it didn't.
Because if Delphine thought about it, she knew Shay had only wondered if she were interested in sex out of curiosity--as Delphine would have felt, pure and unalloyed, and that she had felt about a number of Shay's quirks beyond her purview of experience--and possibly, perhaps more importantly, out of concern. Because Delphine had spent hours beneath hands both strong and gentle, confident and cautious, searching and discerning, piercing and soothing. She had passed many more hours chatting and laughing with, learning of and exploring through the person behind that touch.
Which was why Shay's pity was such an untenable thought. Not because Delphine considered herself superior. Because she had come to regard Shay as a person. A decent person. An interesting person. A comforting person.
There were so few specific people whose welfare Delphine weighed and regarded with expansive consideration. She cared about people, of course, about the whole of human health, about eliminating disease, about tipping the odds in the favor of homo sapiens, but individuals demanded so much attention, so much more nuance and nurture, so much handling and tolerance and negotiation. Her work aimed toward the general, to maximizing dividends and the applications of treatments.
Shay operated in the opposite manner. Shay performed on a case-by-case basis. Shay was social and sociable beyond the niceties of politeness. It made sense for her to have a lot of acquaintances, to make the effort to find companions, to throw herself into the toils of forming connections, to turn a patient and stranger into a . . . friend.
If that's what Delphine was to Shay. Delphine had called herself Shay's friend once, but she'd said it because it was the socially accepted and expected term. Shay hadn't objected.
The only one who might have had reservations with the terminology was probably Delphine herself.
But perhaps Delphine had begun to think--
Well. Perhaps she wasn't the only one thinking. Maybe Shay was rethinking. After that Saturday, there was a period of missed meetings, a string of Friday proposals that Shay answered with unspecified excuses and absences, the first of which had brought their quiet goodbyes on Saturday fleetingly and ambiguously into Delphine's mind, the third of which reared the consideration that their time together, that thing that might have been a friendship, was at an end.
The fourth Friday Delphine looked at her phone, regarded it silently, and set it aside unlocked.
An hour later, a message from Shay arrived asking if she'd liked to meet for dinner.
--
Shay was early, an anomaly atop the anomaly that there could be anomalies between them, and being shown to a table when Delphine arrived. As Shay's bag slipped from her shoulder, Delphine replaced it with her hand. Shay started beneath the contact and jerked around, but smiled, relaxing, when she saw Delphine.
Her smile, Delphine noted, didn't bring a light to her eyes. Shay looked tired.
"Hey," Shay said on an exhalation. "I was just about to sit down and text you."
Delphine smiled and leaned down to press a kiss to one cheek and then the other. Shay turned her head to accommodate each gesture. Delphine, alert, noted that Shay didn't lean away, that, really, nothing occurred outside of the usual. "I'm glad you got here early. It's filling up now."
"My last appointment ended up being only a consultation, so I got away early," Shay explained as she settled into her chair.
The time slot had been the one Delphine had regularly occupied and though she knew it bore no significance, something about it did prick a sense of possessiveness. "Will they be back?"
"We'll see," Shay said. "He didn't seem keen on the idea. I think he was a little shy about being touched."
"Maybe he was shy about having you touch him," Delphine suggested with a light dusting of teasing. As she would have any other time. Though any other time before it wouldn't have felt like a projection of lightness and mirth.
"Nah," Shay said with a shake of her head. "I got the impression that if he had any ideas about me touching him, it was more along the lines of having doubts that I was strong enough to help him."
Delphine smiled. "There is a surprising amount of strength in your hands that isn't suggested by your appearance."
"Are you calling me scrawny?" Shay asked, not even bothering to divert her attention from the menu.
"No," Delphine said delicately, "but you are petite."
Shay cocked her head, as if to pick out sounds in the air. "Are you saying that the way we English speakers use 'petite' or are you just calling me small in French?"
"You are small," Delphine said frankly.
"But capable of doing my job," Shay stated archly.
"I didn't say you weren't," Delphine said. "I know very well how capable you are."
That earned half of a smile. "Damn straight. But it doesn't really matter if he comes back or not. There was a flood of referrals that came in and I've been super busy. It's been a challenge fitting everyone in. I was actually kinda glad that this guy only wanted a consultation. Not that I don't want to help him, but . . . a little break was nice."
Delphine nodded slowly. "So it has been . . . all work and no play?"
Shay exhaled a little laugh. "Yeah, a little like that." Her eyes scanned Delphine's face.
"What?" Delphine asked.
"That phrase makes me think of The Shining," Shay said. "Have you seen it?"
"The film?" Delphine asked, one eyebrow quirking. "Yes."
"Huh," Shay stifled into the menu. "I didn't really take you for the horror movie type."
"I don't mind them," Delphine corrected. "I don't find the supernatural ones to be very scary."
Shay grinned to herself.
"But," Delphine continued, "one of my exes very much enjoyed horror films and we watched many of them together."
Shay's head rose incrementally at the mention of an ex. Delphine was watching for it. For her reaction. It was, they both knew, the first reference to a romantic relationship that Delphine had made.
"Yeah?" Shay said.
Delphine hummed in affirmation. "I think he liked the excuse to cuddle. I think he wanted me to be scared."
Shay eased back into the grin. "Did he know you were destined to be dissecting cadavers and peering into human insides?"
"He did," Delphine said, "though I had not yet begun medical studies. It wasn't the, um, bloodiness--"
"Gore?" Shay suggested.
Delphine nodded. "He didn't like the gore. He liked the suspense." Delphine lifted a shoulder in a careless gesture. "So he claimed."
"You didn't believe him?" Shay wondered.
Delphine shook her head. "Not that. I didn't know what he was referring to."
Shay giggled. "He must have been so disappointed."
"He bore it well," Delphine allowed. "It didn't stop him from making me watch the films with him."
Shay's eyebrows flicked up and down with a self-contained amusement just as their waiter appeared at her elbow. They sent him off with an order of beverages and a few more minutes to decide on items of actual sustenance.
"So, the past few weeks," Delphine introduced carefully, "has only been work for you?"
Shay's form assumed a stiff stillness, which was distinct from the unstudied stillness that often inhabited her body. A listening type of stillness, as if her skin were primed to detect the minute alterations in the air currents.
"Pretty much," Shay replied with a casualness that rang with the effort that Delphine had felt possessed her earlier. She eyed Delphine over the top of her menu. "Why do you ask?"
Delphine considered the wisdom of proceeding. Perhaps this hesitation, this anxious parsing and ferreting of possible outcomes, was what Shay had felt checking and harboring her own question. Shay watched her intently. Delphine heeded her own demand for frankness of that Saturday three weeks prior. "You hadn't mentioned it before. I thought--" Delphine wet her lips. "I thought perhaps you had been avoiding me."
Shay sat quiet, gaze centered on Delphine, then gradually retreating inward, sliding away. The corners of her mouth dimpled and dipped. "You mean since the festival?"
Delphine nodded.
"Because . . ." Shay prompted, deliberately trailing off.
"Because you were so quiet when we left," Delphine provided. "And . . . I didn't hear from you after."
Shay's gaze quested about unseeingly. Cautiously, measured, with the fragility of one navigating shards of glass, Shay asked, "Should I have been avoiding you?"
"You mean was I upset?" Delphine asked with a sprinkling of incredulity.
Shay nodded. "Yeah."
"No," barked Delphine. She laughed, with unexpected ease, venting some of the tension that had sat and stewed in her muscles from the outset of this meeting. "No, I--I told you. It was intriguing." Delphine tapped out a series of beats against the corner of her menu. "Informative."
"You mean it clearly demonstrated that I'm an ass," Shay said to her menu.
Delphine tilted her head, smiling. "A donkey?"
Shay glanced at her with annoyance, but her mouth twitched on the verge of her own smile. "Don't pull that."
Delphine grinned. "Well, I am not the only one here who knows more than one language."
Shay shook her head. "You're the only one here fluent in more than one language."
"So you're not fluent in Russian?" Delphine wondered.
"I just know a little bit here and there. Whatever I picked up from my grandmother, mostly." Shay smiled to herself, as if at some private joke. "I probably know as much Russian as I do Spanish."
Delphine sucked in a breath through her teeth in a tease of admonishment. "There are other worthy Romance languages to learn."
"Quite possibly," Shay agreed amiably, but not ceding the victory.
Delphine smiled, feeling no need to contest or challenge. Her body relaxed into the rhythms, the atmosphere settled, as if they were now fully slipping back into a natural give-and-take, casting away whatever misgiving had festered in Delphine's mind--her imagination--in the course of estrangement.
"For the record," Shay added, eyes scanning the pages, "I was avoiding you."
Delphine's smile faded.
"Sort of," Shay amended. "But not just you." She glanced quickly at Delphine, away again. "People. In general."
Delphine rubbed the corner of the menu between her thumb and forefinger. When a lengthy silence indicated that Shay was done, Delphine ventured, "Were you . . . okay?"
Shay nodded. "Yeah. It's just something that happens sometimes. I have these . . . rough patches. Where I don't feel fit for human interaction." She shrugged, a gesture crafted for casualness and carelessness, but neither of which were present in the lines of Shay's body. "I make for really bad company so . . . I try to spare people that." She chanced another look at Delphine. "It wasn't anything you did or anything like that, it just happens."
The texture of the leatherbound menu yielded its softness to Delphine's restless finger. With consideration, Delphine hazarded in a hush, "Depression?"
"Rough patch," Shay asserted. "Nothing that meditation can't help. Stuff like that."
"You're okay?" Delphine asked.
"Mmhm," Shay said, nodding. She broadcasted a feeble smile across the table. "It's not something new. I manage it." She took a deep breath and let it out in a controlled release. She peered into Delphine's face. Not quite into her eyes, but directly at her. "I'm telling you because you were right, but so that there's no misunderstanding--this wasn't about you. And if it happens again you don't . . . have to worry."
Delphine absorbed the explanation long enough to be interrupted by the waiter with their drinks and the expectation of an order. Preoccupied, Delphine named the first familiar item she could recall being on the menu. When they were alone again, Delphine said, "But doesn't knowing make people worry more?"
Shay shrugged, a smile brushed with amusement on her lips. "At first, maybe? But you get used to it. I think you learn that I'll always come back eventually. That it's okay to give me some space."
So this was an occurrence that not only happened but had been happening for some time. Maybe had happened, quietly and undetected, while they'd known each other. With Delphine none the wiser.
"But," Delphine said, tracing a line across the linen tablecloth, as if to blot out her sudden disquiet, "it's not good, is it, to be alone at a time like that?"
Shay folded her arms upon the table and hunched forward. "My rough patches aren't . . . debilitating. I can get out of bed. I can get through my routine. I make sure I eat meals. It's more like a . . . disconnect. Like I'm . . . waiting to snap back into place. To try to come back--" She untangled a hand and tapped the tabletop. "--here. To be present again."
"Okay," Delphine breathed, feeling something old stir and brush up through her abdomen. "What if that sounds worrying?"
Shay smiled in a manner that sidled up to a laugh. "People check up on me. I replied to your messages, didn't I? I'm capable of letting people know I'm still alive."
Delphine simmered in quiet.
Shay peered at her with intensifying concentration until finally she asked, "What are you thinking?"
"I was thinking," Delphine said with a heavy sigh, "that I don't even know where you live. I couldn't check up on you even if I wanted to."
"You know where I work," Shay pointed out. "I don't even know that about you."
"My work is very confidential," Delphine replied automatically with the soft air of absentmindedness, still processing the truth of her admission, that she didn't know where Shay lived, that she hadn't cared, but now felt pressed with a sense of the information's worth.
"Right," Shay agreed, with the good nature of having heard such a response countless times before. "In the military, every other thing was 'confidential.' A friend and I used to joke that whenever someone used 'confidential' you could never tell if what was so secret were efforts to save the world or destroy it."
Delphine's attention returned to the conversation. When their eyes met, Shay smiled, the twinkle lurking in the depths of her eyes.
"I told that story to a girl I was dating once," Shay added. "You know what she said? Why would you have to keep saving the world a secret?"
Consternation pinched at Delphine's eyes. "What did you tell her?"
Shay shrugged. "I didn't tell her anything. By that point I was already planning to leave the military."
"Are you asking me, then, if I'm working to save the world or destroy it?" Delphine queried.
A smile curved Shay's lips. "No."
"No?" Delphine echoed. "You're not curious? You're not worried?"
"I might be," Shay conceded, "but the military also taught me that confidential means confidential. I don't expect you to tell me."
Delphine smiled at the tabletop. "I can't."
Shay smiled impishly, more of her familiar energy surfacing. "You can't tell me what you do that's so confidential or you can't tell me whether you're working to save the world or destroy it?"
Delphine tapped the table, twice, in quick succession. "I can't."
"Right. Confidential. My only choice is to keep wondering, then," Shay declared blithely.
"If you're allowed to wonder," Delphine posited, "then am I allowed to worry?"
"You're not allowing me to wonder," Shay pointed out. "You're leaving me to wonder. And I didn't say you couldn't worry. I was just trying to express that you shouldn't, that there's nothing to worry about."
"Then we're clear," Delphine said. "You can wonder. I can worry."
"I don't want you to worry," Shay said flatly.
"That's too bad," Delphine lamented, "because I do enjoy your wondering."
Shay eyed her thoughtfully. "If that's the case, it's either a really boring secret or a really juicy secret."
"It can't be something in between?" Delphine wondered.
Shay leaned forward and subjected her to a narrow-eyed scrutiny. Reaching a conclusion, Shay shook her head. "It's definitely boring or juicy."
Delphine smiled, not laughing, but the sensation of laughter warm in her chest. "It's good to see you again, Shay."
Shay's head canted a few skeptical degrees. "Yeah?"
"Yes," Delphine breathed, as a sincere assurance to Shay's flippancy, as an answer to her questions.
Shay nodded, gaze drifting to the tabletop. "Feels good to be here."
It did.
//
"Where do you live?" Delphine slipped casually into a lull in conversation the following week.
Shay shook her head, bemused and exasperated and a little uncertain if she should be touched or concerned. She eyed Delphine critically. "Are you asking what general vicinity I live in or for my actual address?" Shay cocked her head. "Are you looking for a new place? I think there are vacancies in my building."
Delphine smiled tightly, an indication that she recognized the admonishment in Shay's teasing. "No, I'm not. It occurred to me that I have no idea where you reside. I know where your office is, of course, so I know when we meet after hours whether you have to travel far or not, but I don't know if you then have to go far to get home."
"Uh huh," Shay droned. "And that's all you were thinking?"
"Well," Delphine continued, undeterred, almost, Shay had to admit, admirably so, "I was also thinking that we don't always have to meet like this."
Shay raised her eyebrows. "You mean stay in instead of go out? You're proposing that we kick off our shoes, get cozy, gossip and play board games?"
Delphine's confusion manifested immediately. "You play board games? Like chess?"
Shay giggled. "Less like chess, more like Monopoly--but not Monopoly. There was an incident with Monopoly where my brothers almost disowned each other."
"They're competitive?"
Shay nodded. "Oh, yeah. I can even be a little competitive."
"Really?" Delphine gave her a reconsidering study. "How competitive?"
"Maybe not your level of competitive," Shay cautioned to temper any fermenting expectations.
"My level?" Delphine wondered, all innocence. "You think I'm competitive?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe just a little," Shay said airily. "What with your MD, PhD, and super secret job."
Delphine laughed. "Okay, I can see how those things would make you think I'm . . ." She trailed off, as if the English eluded her.
"An overachiever," suggested Shay.
"I was going to say something like 'ambitious,'" Delphine hedged. "But whether I am ambitious or . . . an overachiever, that would not necessarily make me competitive."
"Are you competitive?" Shay asked bluntly.
"Yes," confirmed Delphine without hesitation. "In certain matters. But I will contend that does not necessarily follow from being ambitious, as you are suggesting."
Shay shrugged. "If you want to think that."
Delphine eyed her blankly for a sizeable stretch.
"What?" queried Shay.
"What is the phrase?" sought Delphine aloud, frowning. "A taste of one's own medicine? It's a very bitter élixir."
Shay laughed, startled into it.
"You're not correct," Delphine said, to burst Shay's bubble.
"But in this case I'm not wrong," Shay retorted, calming down. She clasped her hands and leaned upon them, smiling sunnily, marveling internally that Delphine managed to surprise her again and again.
"Mmm," Delphine intoned in a frequency that achieved neutral. "You are avoiding the original question."
Shay smirked. "I'll trade you my address for yours."
Delphine's lips parted, emitting no sound. Shay's eyebrows leapt and fell.
"You hesitated," Shay pointed out.
Delphine's mouth pulled one way in a half-smile. "I was trying to determine if you already have that information. I filled out so many forms for so many different things, I can't remember."
"Mmhmm," Shay hummed sweetly. "And I'm sure you were also trying to figure out when you wanted to invite me over."
From the sharp glance that answered her words Shay knew the notion hadn't passed through the doctor's mind, but Delphine said, "Would you like to come over?"
Shay's head jerked to one side, in an aborted shake of her head, unsure if the invitation was a genuine one. "You . . . commit to a long, hard game, Delphine Cormier."
Mischief brightened Delphine's gaze. "Some might call me an overachiever."
Shay surrendered to that shake of her head.
"Well?" Delphine prodded.
Shay breathed out heavily. "Now it's weird."
Delphine's eyebrows clenched together. "It wasn't weird . . . until right now?" Her gaze softened. Shay shifted, uneasy beneath those eyes, a twinge racing between her gut and her chest. "Why is it weird?"
Shay sighed and said in a resigned rush, "Because you're inviting me over to your place because I made you a silly offer because you're only asking to know where I live because now you have this idea that you might need to check up on me one day, whereas two weeks ago you didn't care."
Against the deluge of words, Delphine sat expressionless, watching Shay steadily. She spoke in softened tones. "Yes, two weeks ago it hadn't crossed my mind yet. One week ago you brought the gap in my knowledge to my attention. Now it may be that I'm simply . . . curious."
"To know where I live?" Shay asked, skeptical.
"Well," Delphine said slowly, "to see it."
Shay stewed in the answer, eyes narrowing on Delphine's expectant features, until she gasped out a laugh, shaking her head. "Now it's definitely too weird."
"What, why?" protested Delphine.
"Because I made it weird," Shay declared grandly, hoping to leave it at that.
"No," Delphine insisted. She laid a hand on Shay's forearm. "Then make it unweird."
"Can't," Shay said, rendered less eloquent by a preoccupation with the odd phrasing of Delphine's entreaty.
Delphine's fingers curled and gripped, eyes coolly assessing. "You don't want to tell me."
"I don't," admitted Shay.
"Why not?" Delphine asked.
"Maybe . . . I've already told you too much," Shay muttered. She ducked her head to disguise a self-deprecating smile. "I can't even imagine you being in my place now."
"No?" countered Delphine, gaze raking over Shay's face. Her hand withdrew. Her lips pursed. "Okay." She raised her glass to her lips, sipped, and put the tumbler down with exaggerated care. "One day, then."
She made it sound like a promise.
//
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