Elodie’s favorite American show at the moment was Scandal. She was binge-watching it for the first time, and while it was on, she was completely checked out. I wished I could find something that I loved as much, to distract my mind from its constant flow of thought.

“What season are you on now?” I asked, watching her spring up again.

“Two,” she said softly, as she moved toward the kitchen.

She was being so quiet. I pulled my shoes off, and it wasn’t until I dropped one on the floor and something moved in my peripheral vision that I realized another person was in my house.

A noise, a little like a shriek, flew from my mouth when I saw him. He was staring at me, the one-syllable client. He was sitting in my chair—the dark pink, used-to-be-red one that my nana gave my mom before I was born. I always loved it, and because it had sat in my dad’s storage unit after my mom left, I decided it was mine to take. She left it, and us, and the chair was a tiny victory for me.

“Um, hey?” I said when my heart stopped doing little flips from the aftershock of surprise. How did I not see a whole human in my living room?

“How was work?” Elodie asked, looking at the TV while her fingers picked at the fabric on her frayed shorts, and then back at me.

“Good . . .”

I stared at this Kael guy and he stared back at me. When I would recall this later, the first time he was inside my house, the memory would linger in my thoughts, changing from a burning pain to pure bliss and back—again and again and again. But when it happened in real life, it happened fast. Before he was anything to me—before he was everything—he was just a quiet stranger with a blank face and distant eyes. There was something inscrutable about him, something so closed that I couldn’t even begin to read him. He hated peppermint oil and hadn’t wanted me to touch his legs during his treatment—those were the only clues I had about who he was. He stared at me for a few seconds, then looked away and stared at the wall for so long that I almost wanted to count the seconds until he blinked.

I smelled the popcorn right before the popping sound started. “I’m making popcorn,” Elodie announced. She was nervous. What was going on here? Were they having a movie night? Netflix and chill? The whole situation was weird. He was fucking weird.

“Okay . . .” I excused myself. “I’m going to take a shower. Have to be at my dad’s at seven.”

I walked down the hallway. Elodie followed, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Well?” I asked.