May I: Little Lies

She was lying. He was lying. What were their lives becoming, other than a life full of lies? His thoughts and apparently hers were interrupted by a ringing phone—Gillian’s. She slipped away from the table, with that look that she knew he was lying.

Cal took a sip of water as he looked around the restaurant—anything to take his mind of who was calling her this late in the evening. He had pried into the video feed and scrutinized every detail of her leaving that day she slept into her office. 

What had improved? Gillian was no longer sleeping in her office anymore. They were starting to talk again, slightly, although awkwardly. There were still things that she was keeping from him, and vice versa.

He had always been rough and less-fine tuned than she was. However, from the moment that he had met her . . . she had him in the palm of his hands. Until tonight, he had only suspected that she had felt the same way—even though all the signs had been there.

She returned to the table before he could finish the rest of his thoughts—though that was all that was needed to know what he needed to do. “You first.” He met her questioning eyes as he took another sip of water.

Sitting there momentarily, it was if she were reluctantly holding onto the words as she pocketed the phone again. “That was my friend, Anna Keller. She’s a psychiatrist who practices in Virginia—just out of Richmond.

“I take it wasn’t for fun.” Cal mused, his eyes dancing wildly; not with amusement, but with a spark of recognition that filled in some of the blanks in his mind. He knew that she had gone off somewhere after getting the call that Ava had been taken to the hospital.  

The image of Gillian’s wild, slightly reddened eyes as she had rushed into the ER; burned into his mind. He had felt slightly at odds that he had worried her at all, but she had looked relieved when their eyes connected.

“Anna was like the sister I never had.” Gillian continued, looking back to see their waitress walking towards them. “We stayed up late together, studied, made sure the other was doing alright—” She trailed off, almost hesitantly—as if she had said too $much—only to force herself to continue. “She moved back about six months ago, and I made a promise that I would go back when I had the time.” He listened intently, keeping an eye on their surroundings.

“So you were with her when you heard about Ava.”

“I didn’t know that at the time.” Gillian made an initial shrug. “I thought maybe something had happened at the office—which it did—but I thought something had happened to you.” Their eyes met and they had made a silent gesture, a fleeting motion that seemed to dissipate when their waitress set their food in front of them.

“Is there anything else I can get you two tonight?”

“No, thank you.” Gillian chimed in, picking up her fork. With a slight nod, their waitress went over to the next table and left them alone—but it took a couple bites of food before they continued their conversation.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you were talking to someone?” 

“In a week’s time I’ve been hospitalized twice, had pneumonia, been assaulted and dealing with PTSD, and became a guardian to a little girl that I thought that I would never see again; who come to find out, now has a heart condition. I may not have my sanity right now, so I’m not really sure what to say. I could be far worse if you and Reynolds hadn’t stepped in.” Picking up her fork again, Gillian stirred her food around on her plate.

Cal cleared his throat. “You’re right. You’re dealing with a lot right now, but you don’t have to do it alone.” After those words it was a quiet dinner. It took awhile before she got her appetite back; eating not as much as she could have, but enough.

Akira must have sensed that they needed to be alone, as she often hovered at a distance, but didn’t actually come back to the table until they had stopped eating. “Two boxes?” She questioned as her eyes darted towards each of them.

Cal nodded in response as he reached into his wallet. “And the bill as well.”

“I’ll be right back.” Tapping the table with her hand, Akira cleared the table of a couple dishes and left.

“Thank you.” Gillian uttered quietly, just as Akira returned with the boxes and the bill. Cal quickly looked it over and slipped a five dollar bill onto the table before boxing up his own food. Akira cleared their dishes and thanked them for coming in.

“For what?”

“For everything. I know this hasn’t been the easiest thing to deal with—and before you say that it’s not; it is a big deal.” They both stood up and she adjusted the jacket that she had slipped on. Her movements were slow and somewhat deliberate. He could tell that her shoulder was still bugging her a bit as she moved it back in short movements.

“Yeah well—I would kiss you if you weren’t contagious.”  His response came off more as teasing, but the inflection in his voice proved to be more serious. She suddenly had a renewed energy that she hadn’t felt all week, and tried to keep up as he walked to the front of the building. He seemed to be walking deliberately faster than usual—making it harder to read exactly what he was thinking.

Their bags rustled in the wind as he held the door open for her a few minutes later. She found she could fit under his outstretched arm; only to get a sudden chill that wasn’t because of the cooler weather.  

It was dawning on her that in some sense of the word, Cal Lightman was telling her that he loved her--not in that strict, platonic way. When he mentioned that she didn’t have to do it alone, she knew that he was saying that he could do it with her, more in that “I want to be with you” kind of relationship.

Besides that they worked together, at this point the thought slipped in her mind that it would be kind of nice to eventually have someone around. And the first of many problems: would be complicating their friendship even further than it was at the moment.