Michael’s throat tightens. His arms fall limply to his sides and he blinks a few times like he can’t see clearly. His focus shifts to a point just past Leah, or maybe through her—to an elsewhere and an elsewhen. Blood is trying to rush to his head, but his clothes are too constricting, he feels like he’s suffocating, he can’t think.
“Yeah,” he mumbles belatedly. “Yeah, I’ll just…”
Dazedly, he wanders out of the bedroom and into the main apartment. He takes his time on the way to the kitchen, stopping to toe his shoes and socks off, get rid of his belt, and shed his tie and shirt. Left only in his trousers and underclothes, he proceeds, breathing slightly easier but mind now buzzing much too loudly. It sounds like nothing, like static on the radio. It looks like that fuzzy ‘snow’ on the television.
He mechanically collects the parts required to brew coffee the way Leah likes it, goes through the motions distantly as he tries to process everything, and some time later returns to her with a mug. (He can’t have coffee in the evening. It only ends in misery for everyone.) Once she’s taken it, he settles by her side, lying on his back with his arms wrapped around himself again, staring at the ceiling.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I wanted to speak to him, to know that... what happened before would not happen again. Things got heated. I got mad... I told him — I said there are things he should talk to you about. You should talk to each other about... I don’t know. I don’t know.”
She cups the mug between her hands, seated on the edge of the bed with her feet pointed slightly inwards.
“I think maybe he understands now. I don’t know.”
