“I hope so,” he said. Without another word, he left, the door closing softly behind him.

“You can,” I murmured into the space where he’d been. But I couldn’t think of a reason he should believe me.

The Failures of the Flesh

I MEANT WHAT I’d said to her: I do not care why it happened, what brought us together. But this is what I did not say: I don’t know if I can bear its ending.

That is, I suppose, why I’ve deemed it best to keep my heart to myself for these many years. A life of perfect solitude was the jewel that I had. And now it bears a flaw I cannot avoid seeing, a breach I cannot repair. I would give anything to touch her one more time. I never thought I would feel that way again. But there it is. I cannot close the door I have opened.

After I got home Sunday, I changed into my running clothes and headed out. I barely warmed up. I ran for miles—I don’t know how far—far enough that I was gasping and aching and finally incapable of thought by the time I returned home. I sat on my front step for a long time after my run, watching the light shift and change before me. Then I went into the house, showered, dressed, prepared dinner, ate without tasting, fought a blinding impulse to call her, put on a Stevie Wonder album, blinked back unreasoning tears. Thus ended my day.

Monday was better. I’d read for a while Sunday night when I couldn’t sleep and had somehow managed to get myself somewhat in hand. The prospect of work was calming. Things would be the same there. And I’d find some way to avoid her. I was not prepared to render our interactions at school bland and normal. Not yet.

I did manage to avoid her all day (though that required that I eat lunch in my office), but I had forgotten that this Monday was our November faculty meeting. The school’s faculty meets once a month. As you might expect, it is an event largely filled with routine moments and lengthy discussions of minutiae, enlivened by the occasional ideological debate or school scandal. At these meetings, people tend to group themselves by department. The members of the English Department sit by the window. Jana gave me a slight, awkward smile from the window seat where she sat but did not invite me to join her. Clichéd though it is, my heart was pounding so rapidly that I felt ill. I sat down quickly, hoping no one noticed my discomfort. I usually sit alone, not far from the English teachers, since I constitute an entire department. As I took my seat this time, I was acutely aware of Jana sitting behind me and slightly to my left. I fancied I could hear her breathing.