Shay - Delphine AU | Part 12* (Rough Draft)
Could Shay and Delphine have been a thing in a different universe?
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*, 11*, 12*
Delphine swept into the room, absorbed in the chart she held in hand, looked up, and stopped. Jennifer and Greg were present as expected, but so was a tripod topped by a camcorder.
"Am I interrupting?" Delphine asked.
"No, you're fine, Dr. Cormier," Jennifer assured her. She sucked in a breath, shaking her head. "It's not on."
Delphine approached the pair and the set up with the wariness of encountering a wild animal. "You're recording something?"
"I keep a video diary," Jennifer said, a mite sheepish. "I have since--since we found the polyps. A counselor told me that it might help me . . . cope."
"I wasn't aware that you were seeing a counselor," Delphine said gently.
"Oh, I'm not. Not now. This was back in the States."
"I think it, um, helps, though, to keep doing it," Greg said, scratching at the back of his neck. "It's like a, uh, outlet."
Jennifer smiled at Greg, though her mouth beneath the cannula was tight at the corners. "We lugged it along today. Do you want to say hi, Dr. Cormier? We can turn it on."
Delphine shook her head. "No, thank you, that's okay. Is it just for you?"
Jennifer nodded. "It's . . . easier to be honest that way."
Greg shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced over his shoulder. Delphine noted the discomfort in his posture.
Perhaps his unease stemmed from having heard Jennifer vent choice words concerning Delphine and the staff. It wouldn't have shocked Delphine.
"I'm, uh, gonna take all this stuff out to the car, okay, babe?" Greg muttered. He leaned over Jennifer and pressed a kiss to her temple. He glanced at Delphine, as if to convey he was giving them privacy, and summarily gathered the tripod up and marched out.
They both remained looking after him for a second, then Delphine turned to Jennifer with a smile. "I wanted to see how you're feeling. Sorry to make you give another account if you've already taken the trouble."
Jennifer waved her off. "The camera doesn't care."
Delphine clutched the chart to her chest and nodded. She supposed it didn't.
*
One wall of Aldous's office was entirely glass. The transparency afforded Delphine a view of the large television monitor in the corner as she passed by the reception desk, early to her appointment.
On display was Jennifer. She looked directly out of the monitor, framed close and intimately, lips moving, pausing here and there.
Every now and again another figure dropped in and out of frame.
Greg.
Delphine stood at the door of Aldous's office and stared.
"You're free to go in," Aldous's secretary startled her after some time. Delphine jerked around, wearing some sort of expression that raised the assistant's eyebrows. "He's expecting you."
Delphine leaned into the door, gathered herself, and pushed her way inside. The screen blinked off and Aldous turned to her with a smile.
"Hello, Delphine."
Delphine stood beside one of the chairs before his desk and gripped the back for balance. "Aldous."
They both upheld fronts of silence. Aldous was clearly in no hurry.
Delphine swallowed. "How did you get the video?"
"What video?"
"The video you were just watching. Jennifer's video diary."
"So you know about that," Aldous remarked.
"How do you?" retorted Delphine.
Aldous spread his hands. "Your questions keep circling back to the same theme, Delphine."
Delphine moved to stand directly behind the chair and gripped the back with both hands. There was only one party Delphine knew that might bridge the video and Aldous. "I can see only one connection."
Aldous prompted her with a hand.
"Greg."
Confirmation lit Aldous's expression, a sort of smug approval. It bowed Delphine's head beneath the wave of realizations that hit her.
"Merde," she breathed.
Greg was the avenue of access. He was feeding Aldous information. And Aldous was doing the same?
"You reached out to Greg. He didn't reach out to you. He didn't find you. You found him." Jennifer hadn't asked. It hadn't mattered to her. Nor, apparently, to Greg.
"You're only scratching the surface, Delphine," chided Aldous. Delphine lifted her head. "You have to go deeper."
"How deep?" Delphine said. "Are you saying that your connection with Greg goes further back? Since when? Since--" She pulled up short. Aldous's gaze was steady. "He's a plant." Delphine processed implications. "How? I thought you said that the subjects have freedom of choice."
"They do," Aldous said. "Jennifer was free to go where she wanted, live how she wanted, socialize how she wanted. She chose Greg. Do you think we could have forced cohabitation on her? Though I have to say that this was one of the great hurdles of uncertainty that we faced as the subjects continued to age and prosper."
"And the solution was, what? Throw someone in their path and see if they take?"
Aldous smiled. "Remarkably simple, wouldn't you say? Yet rewardingly effective."
"But the security risks," Delphine pointed out. "How could you know that these--these--"
"Monitors," supplied Aldous.
"Monitors," Delphine enunciated carefully. She moistened her lips and checked her racing adrenaline. "How could you know that these monitors wouldn't betray the truth to the subjects?"
"What truth?"
"The nature of the subjects. That they're clones, an engineered experiment."
Aldous cocked his head, fingers buttressing his cheek. "How could the monitors tell the subjects something they don't know?"
Delphine exhaled slowly. "A double blind."
"Think about it, Delphine," Aldous said airily. "If our sole intent had been to test issues of viability and longevity, why not keep all the subjects together, here, and raise them and care for them without all these . . . troublesome logistics?"
"You wanted to observe nature versus nurture, yes," Delphine said lowly. "The monitors observe and report on the behavior of the subjects. But how do they know what to report when they don't know what they're reporting on?"
"They report to those who do know what to look for, of course. Like any basic academic social study. Levels and levels, Delphine. This wasn't put into place overnight." Aldous leaned back in his chair. "You should consider yourself privileged. Not many get a peek at this much of the picture."
"What about the medical data?"
"This shouldn't be much of a leap now," prodded Aldous.
"The monitors . . . provide direct access," Delphine suggested measuredly, though the idea of it, the pure logistics impressed a scope of surety and impunity that bowled her over.
Aldous waved a careless hand.
Delphine straightened up, easing her grip on the chair so that her fingertips merely rested on it, and mentally constructed the scenarios.
She shook her head.
"The monitors know what they're doing. But they don't know why. So then why--" Delphine caught herself.
But Aldous was watching. He folded his hands and placed them serenely atop the desk.
"Why do they do it? If not for science? Or knowledge? Or progress?" Aldous smiled. "People have simple desires, Delphine. It's just a matter of determining what they are."
A chill prickled Delphine's skin.
Just as Aldous had determined what she wanted.
Science. Knowledge. Progress.
He hadn't been wrong.
Delphine wet her lips. "Jennifer's video diaries--you have them all?"
Aldous's eyebrows rose.
"May I see them?" Delphine requested.
Aldous's eyes narrowed, as if in the spot Delphine occupied something unexpected had appeared.
Delphine met his scrutiny calmly. "I need to start looking at the bigger picture."
*
By the time Shay made her way to the door, she partly suspected--or perhaps hoped--her unanticipated visitor had left. It wasn't the likeliest scenario. The few lights on in the apartment shed into the hallway through the glass pane set in the front door--one of the few scruples Shay had with the space--so there was little pretense in pretending not to be home. Not that Shay would. Not these days, though the temptation to lie on the ground cocooned in the dim of a darkened room and idle for an interminable lump of time, letting seconds slip and stretch as much as they pleased until she might fall through the resultant cracks, gripped still with an appeal that was difficult to shrug away.
But getting up off the floor to answer a knock at the door was a far cry from having the wherewithal to socialize.
A crack between frame and door, about as much as a chain would have allowed, admitted the sight of a back receding down the hall and stopping.
Delphine. The boundless golden curls permitted no mistake. Hands empty tonight. Bearing no gifts. Now buried in her hair. Fingers plowing through the mass of tresses.
An ache radiated dully from the pit of Shay's stomach.
In the second Delphine began to initiate her turn, an impulse spurred Shay to shut the door. Because she was tired and the mere sight of Delphine's back struck the chord of loneliness she had no reserves to ignore. She got halfway there. Maybe she was deterred by speed, that half-second dullness that left a sliver through which Delphine glimpsed Shay, their eyes meeting with the electric suddenness of discovered surveillance. Maybe it was some base instinct that recognized before conscious thought the frantic energy of Delphine's movements, that she hadn't been retreating but pacing. Maybe it was just manners that dictated it was rude to shut the door on a visitor.
Maybe it was Delphine. From whom Shay wanted to hide. Whom Shay was apparently loath to refuse.
Shay eased the door back to an approximation of ajar.
Delphine had managed but a step after their eyes met, body language downshifting through the slowing momentum, hands falling to her sides, from restless to pleased to unsure to, coming to a standstill, uncertain and wary.
Shay remained behind the door, face obscured by its edge. The wood leeched coolness into Shay where she lay her forehead against it.
"Shay," Delphine said at last, partly a question, somewhat a greeting, a hint of embarrassed reluctance.
"Hey," Shay said in acknowledgement. Then, clutching the edge of the door, added, "I wish you had messaged ahead. I could have saved you a trip."
Delphine breathed evenly. Her eyes took a studied, intent interest on Shay's face. "I'm sorry. I should have. I wasn't thinking." She wet her lips. "I wasn't planning to come."
Common courtesy might have allowed Shay a brusque exchange and dismissal, but friendship urged an invitation of respite for a distressed friend. Shay could. Shay could usher Delphine inside and coax forth her anxieties and listen and appear mindful and maybe even feel like she was--all the while sitting there with the presence of mind of a meat puppet, tracking the minutes as faithfully as the hands of a clock, wondering when she might reclaim her solitude, at what point would it be polite to herd her guest toward the door.
Shay pressed her lips together. "I can't, Delphine."
Delphine nodded. "I understand."
Delphine did understand. In her eyes Shay saw kindness and compassion that made her gut roil with relief and regret, an astringent that scrubbed over Shay's nerves so that she felt raw and exposed.
There was anger, too, small and petty. Because if Delphine had called, they wouldn't be having this exchange and Delphine wouldn't be seeing her like this and Shay wouldn't feel guilty and coddled and inadequate and resentful.
Neither said anything. Several times Delphine looked on the verge of speaking, but refrained.
"I'm sorry," Shay said, plainly, to save Delphine the trouble.
Delphine shook her head. "No, no. I'll go."
Shay nodded. Delphine shifted her weight--from one foot to the other, not to go. She bit at her lower lip.
"May I have a hug before I go?" Delphine asked.
The request was so unexpected and uncharacteristic that Shay simply didn't react.
Delphine watched her carefully, equally as still, until it occurred to Shay that neither of them was going to move until the other did something.
"A hug?" Shay asked.
Delphine nodded. "Yes."
A hug. Shay and Delphine didn't hug. Gestures akin to hugs, a hand on a shoulder or a grip on an arm as they said hello or goodbye, but mostly for balance trading pecks of salutations and departure.
Shay wasn't against hugs. She hadn't known Delphine was for them.
Granted, she still didn't know.
Shay pulled the door open wider in response. Delphine crossed to her in a telegraphed approach and waited for Shay to extend her arms to slip her arms gingerly around Shay's shoulders. Shay let herself be engulfed, not moving much, but as Delphine held on, embrace tightening, Shay raised her arms to hang onto Delphine doubled over, palms spread flat upon Delphine's back, and rested her cheek on the taller woman's shoulder.
Delphine breathed in deeply and exhaled.
Shay inhaled and floated in the scent of Delphine's perfume.
"I bet I know what you're doing," Shay murmured.
"What am I doing?" Delphine asked.
"Trying to trigger oxytocin."
Delphine exhalation stuttered into Shay's hair in what might have been a laugh. "Is it working?"
"For you or for me?"
"Did you have a bad day at work?"
Shay shook her head against Delphine. "No. Not really. It was a pretty average day. I was the one performing below average. Did you have a bad day?"
Delphine was quiet. "It was not . . . bad." A second later, rubbing absentmindedly at Shay's back, she reinforced her words, as if repetition imbued truth. "It wasn't bad. It was unexpected. There were things that were unexpected."
"In a bad way?"
"A surprising one."
"How did you end up here?"
"I was driving around. Then I noticed I was here." Delphine's grip squeezed then relented. Delphine pulled back, gripping Shay at the elbows.
"Was that long enough?" Shay asked sardonically.
"I believe studies say hugs need to last at least twenty seconds to have an effect."
Shay summoned a smirk. "I think we're good to go."
Delphine peered at her closely. "Will you be okay if I go?"
"Will you?" Shay countered, because she was familiar with where she was. What she didn't know was if wherever Delphine was, whatever headspace had taken her winding through the streets and brought her here, was foreign territory to Delphine.
A part of Shay anticipated Delphine asking to stay. A part of her wished Delphine would stay for her.
But Delphine nodded. "I will."
Shay nodded back. Then she hugged Delphine again, briefly, before they parted.
*
The text arrived around noon: Are you okay?
Shay stared at it. Her drafted reply read: Please don't.
Her thumb hovered over the send button. Shaking her head she detoured to the delete key.
I'm OK. How are u?
Okay. But not enough data to determine if due to hugs.
To her surprise, Shay laughed out loud.
//
Next
Prev: 1-5 (edited), 6-8, 9*, 10*, 11*, 12*
Delphine swept into the room, absorbed in the chart she held in hand, looked up, and stopped. Jennifer and Greg were present as expected, but so was a tripod topped by a camcorder.
"Am I interrupting?" Delphine asked.
"No, you're fine, Dr. Cormier," Jennifer assured her. She sucked in a breath, shaking her head. "It's not on."
Delphine approached the pair and the set up with the wariness of encountering a wild animal. "You're recording something?"
"I keep a video diary," Jennifer said, a mite sheepish. "I have since--since we found the polyps. A counselor told me that it might help me . . . cope."
"I wasn't aware that you were seeing a counselor," Delphine said gently.
"Oh, I'm not. Not now. This was back in the States."
"I think it, um, helps, though, to keep doing it," Greg said, scratching at the back of his neck. "It's like a, uh, outlet."
Jennifer smiled at Greg, though her mouth beneath the cannula was tight at the corners. "We lugged it along today. Do you want to say hi, Dr. Cormier? We can turn it on."
Delphine shook her head. "No, thank you, that's okay. Is it just for you?"
Jennifer nodded. "It's . . . easier to be honest that way."
Greg shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced over his shoulder. Delphine noted the discomfort in his posture.
Perhaps his unease stemmed from having heard Jennifer vent choice words concerning Delphine and the staff. It wouldn't have shocked Delphine.
"I'm, uh, gonna take all this stuff out to the car, okay, babe?" Greg muttered. He leaned over Jennifer and pressed a kiss to her temple. He glanced at Delphine, as if to convey he was giving them privacy, and summarily gathered the tripod up and marched out.
They both remained looking after him for a second, then Delphine turned to Jennifer with a smile. "I wanted to see how you're feeling. Sorry to make you give another account if you've already taken the trouble."
Jennifer waved her off. "The camera doesn't care."
Delphine clutched the chart to her chest and nodded. She supposed it didn't.
*
One wall of Aldous's office was entirely glass. The transparency afforded Delphine a view of the large television monitor in the corner as she passed by the reception desk, early to her appointment.
On display was Jennifer. She looked directly out of the monitor, framed close and intimately, lips moving, pausing here and there.
Every now and again another figure dropped in and out of frame.
Greg.
Delphine stood at the door of Aldous's office and stared.
"You're free to go in," Aldous's secretary startled her after some time. Delphine jerked around, wearing some sort of expression that raised the assistant's eyebrows. "He's expecting you."
Delphine leaned into the door, gathered herself, and pushed her way inside. The screen blinked off and Aldous turned to her with a smile.
"Hello, Delphine."
Delphine stood beside one of the chairs before his desk and gripped the back for balance. "Aldous."
They both upheld fronts of silence. Aldous was clearly in no hurry.
Delphine swallowed. "How did you get the video?"
"What video?"
"The video you were just watching. Jennifer's video diary."
"So you know about that," Aldous remarked.
"How do you?" retorted Delphine.
Aldous spread his hands. "Your questions keep circling back to the same theme, Delphine."
Delphine moved to stand directly behind the chair and gripped the back with both hands. There was only one party Delphine knew that might bridge the video and Aldous. "I can see only one connection."
Aldous prompted her with a hand.
"Greg."
Confirmation lit Aldous's expression, a sort of smug approval. It bowed Delphine's head beneath the wave of realizations that hit her.
"Merde," she breathed.
Greg was the avenue of access. He was feeding Aldous information. And Aldous was doing the same?
"You reached out to Greg. He didn't reach out to you. He didn't find you. You found him." Jennifer hadn't asked. It hadn't mattered to her. Nor, apparently, to Greg.
"You're only scratching the surface, Delphine," chided Aldous. Delphine lifted her head. "You have to go deeper."
"How deep?" Delphine said. "Are you saying that your connection with Greg goes further back? Since when? Since--" She pulled up short. Aldous's gaze was steady. "He's a plant." Delphine processed implications. "How? I thought you said that the subjects have freedom of choice."
"They do," Aldous said. "Jennifer was free to go where she wanted, live how she wanted, socialize how she wanted. She chose Greg. Do you think we could have forced cohabitation on her? Though I have to say that this was one of the great hurdles of uncertainty that we faced as the subjects continued to age and prosper."
"And the solution was, what? Throw someone in their path and see if they take?"
Aldous smiled. "Remarkably simple, wouldn't you say? Yet rewardingly effective."
"But the security risks," Delphine pointed out. "How could you know that these--these--"
"Monitors," supplied Aldous.
"Monitors," Delphine enunciated carefully. She moistened her lips and checked her racing adrenaline. "How could you know that these monitors wouldn't betray the truth to the subjects?"
"What truth?"
"The nature of the subjects. That they're clones, an engineered experiment."
Aldous cocked his head, fingers buttressing his cheek. "How could the monitors tell the subjects something they don't know?"
Delphine exhaled slowly. "A double blind."
"Think about it, Delphine," Aldous said airily. "If our sole intent had been to test issues of viability and longevity, why not keep all the subjects together, here, and raise them and care for them without all these . . . troublesome logistics?"
"You wanted to observe nature versus nurture, yes," Delphine said lowly. "The monitors observe and report on the behavior of the subjects. But how do they know what to report when they don't know what they're reporting on?"
"They report to those who do know what to look for, of course. Like any basic academic social study. Levels and levels, Delphine. This wasn't put into place overnight." Aldous leaned back in his chair. "You should consider yourself privileged. Not many get a peek at this much of the picture."
"What about the medical data?"
"This shouldn't be much of a leap now," prodded Aldous.
"The monitors . . . provide direct access," Delphine suggested measuredly, though the idea of it, the pure logistics impressed a scope of surety and impunity that bowled her over.
Aldous waved a careless hand.
Delphine straightened up, easing her grip on the chair so that her fingertips merely rested on it, and mentally constructed the scenarios.
She shook her head.
"The monitors know what they're doing. But they don't know why. So then why--" Delphine caught herself.
But Aldous was watching. He folded his hands and placed them serenely atop the desk.
"Why do they do it? If not for science? Or knowledge? Or progress?" Aldous smiled. "People have simple desires, Delphine. It's just a matter of determining what they are."
A chill prickled Delphine's skin.
Just as Aldous had determined what she wanted.
Science. Knowledge. Progress.
He hadn't been wrong.
Delphine wet her lips. "Jennifer's video diaries--you have them all?"
Aldous's eyebrows rose.
"May I see them?" Delphine requested.
Aldous's eyes narrowed, as if in the spot Delphine occupied something unexpected had appeared.
Delphine met his scrutiny calmly. "I need to start looking at the bigger picture."
*
By the time Shay made her way to the door, she partly suspected--or perhaps hoped--her unanticipated visitor had left. It wasn't the likeliest scenario. The few lights on in the apartment shed into the hallway through the glass pane set in the front door--one of the few scruples Shay had with the space--so there was little pretense in pretending not to be home. Not that Shay would. Not these days, though the temptation to lie on the ground cocooned in the dim of a darkened room and idle for an interminable lump of time, letting seconds slip and stretch as much as they pleased until she might fall through the resultant cracks, gripped still with an appeal that was difficult to shrug away.
But getting up off the floor to answer a knock at the door was a far cry from having the wherewithal to socialize.
A crack between frame and door, about as much as a chain would have allowed, admitted the sight of a back receding down the hall and stopping.
Delphine. The boundless golden curls permitted no mistake. Hands empty tonight. Bearing no gifts. Now buried in her hair. Fingers plowing through the mass of tresses.
An ache radiated dully from the pit of Shay's stomach.
In the second Delphine began to initiate her turn, an impulse spurred Shay to shut the door. Because she was tired and the mere sight of Delphine's back struck the chord of loneliness she had no reserves to ignore. She got halfway there. Maybe she was deterred by speed, that half-second dullness that left a sliver through which Delphine glimpsed Shay, their eyes meeting with the electric suddenness of discovered surveillance. Maybe it was some base instinct that recognized before conscious thought the frantic energy of Delphine's movements, that she hadn't been retreating but pacing. Maybe it was just manners that dictated it was rude to shut the door on a visitor.
Maybe it was Delphine. From whom Shay wanted to hide. Whom Shay was apparently loath to refuse.
Shay eased the door back to an approximation of ajar.
Delphine had managed but a step after their eyes met, body language downshifting through the slowing momentum, hands falling to her sides, from restless to pleased to unsure to, coming to a standstill, uncertain and wary.
Shay remained behind the door, face obscured by its edge. The wood leeched coolness into Shay where she lay her forehead against it.
"Shay," Delphine said at last, partly a question, somewhat a greeting, a hint of embarrassed reluctance.
"Hey," Shay said in acknowledgement. Then, clutching the edge of the door, added, "I wish you had messaged ahead. I could have saved you a trip."
Delphine breathed evenly. Her eyes took a studied, intent interest on Shay's face. "I'm sorry. I should have. I wasn't thinking." She wet her lips. "I wasn't planning to come."
Common courtesy might have allowed Shay a brusque exchange and dismissal, but friendship urged an invitation of respite for a distressed friend. Shay could. Shay could usher Delphine inside and coax forth her anxieties and listen and appear mindful and maybe even feel like she was--all the while sitting there with the presence of mind of a meat puppet, tracking the minutes as faithfully as the hands of a clock, wondering when she might reclaim her solitude, at what point would it be polite to herd her guest toward the door.
Shay pressed her lips together. "I can't, Delphine."
Delphine nodded. "I understand."
Delphine did understand. In her eyes Shay saw kindness and compassion that made her gut roil with relief and regret, an astringent that scrubbed over Shay's nerves so that she felt raw and exposed.
There was anger, too, small and petty. Because if Delphine had called, they wouldn't be having this exchange and Delphine wouldn't be seeing her like this and Shay wouldn't feel guilty and coddled and inadequate and resentful.
Neither said anything. Several times Delphine looked on the verge of speaking, but refrained.
"I'm sorry," Shay said, plainly, to save Delphine the trouble.
Delphine shook her head. "No, no. I'll go."
Shay nodded. Delphine shifted her weight--from one foot to the other, not to go. She bit at her lower lip.
"May I have a hug before I go?" Delphine asked.
The request was so unexpected and uncharacteristic that Shay simply didn't react.
Delphine watched her carefully, equally as still, until it occurred to Shay that neither of them was going to move until the other did something.
"A hug?" Shay asked.
Delphine nodded. "Yes."
A hug. Shay and Delphine didn't hug. Gestures akin to hugs, a hand on a shoulder or a grip on an arm as they said hello or goodbye, but mostly for balance trading pecks of salutations and departure.
Shay wasn't against hugs. She hadn't known Delphine was for them.
Granted, she still didn't know.
Shay pulled the door open wider in response. Delphine crossed to her in a telegraphed approach and waited for Shay to extend her arms to slip her arms gingerly around Shay's shoulders. Shay let herself be engulfed, not moving much, but as Delphine held on, embrace tightening, Shay raised her arms to hang onto Delphine doubled over, palms spread flat upon Delphine's back, and rested her cheek on the taller woman's shoulder.
Delphine breathed in deeply and exhaled.
Shay inhaled and floated in the scent of Delphine's perfume.
"I bet I know what you're doing," Shay murmured.
"What am I doing?" Delphine asked.
"Trying to trigger oxytocin."
Delphine exhalation stuttered into Shay's hair in what might have been a laugh. "Is it working?"
"For you or for me?"
"Did you have a bad day at work?"
Shay shook her head against Delphine. "No. Not really. It was a pretty average day. I was the one performing below average. Did you have a bad day?"
Delphine was quiet. "It was not . . . bad." A second later, rubbing absentmindedly at Shay's back, she reinforced her words, as if repetition imbued truth. "It wasn't bad. It was unexpected. There were things that were unexpected."
"In a bad way?"
"A surprising one."
"How did you end up here?"
"I was driving around. Then I noticed I was here." Delphine's grip squeezed then relented. Delphine pulled back, gripping Shay at the elbows.
"Was that long enough?" Shay asked sardonically.
"I believe studies say hugs need to last at least twenty seconds to have an effect."
Shay summoned a smirk. "I think we're good to go."
Delphine peered at her closely. "Will you be okay if I go?"
"Will you?" Shay countered, because she was familiar with where she was. What she didn't know was if wherever Delphine was, whatever headspace had taken her winding through the streets and brought her here, was foreign territory to Delphine.
A part of Shay anticipated Delphine asking to stay. A part of her wished Delphine would stay for her.
But Delphine nodded. "I will."
Shay nodded back. Then she hugged Delphine again, briefly, before they parted.
*
The text arrived around noon: Are you okay?
Shay stared at it. Her drafted reply read: Please don't.
Her thumb hovered over the send button. Shaking her head she detoured to the delete key.
I'm OK. How are u?
Okay. But not enough data to determine if due to hugs.
To her surprise, Shay laughed out loud.
//
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