I set the deck down. Maybe another time, I said.  

"Oh, come on," Lacy said.

"Leave her alone, Lacy."  Cam sat down next to me.  "You know you don't have to do anything you don't want to."

Dog stretched and sat up.  "Do you think you can do pictures, Echo?" he asked.  "Have you ever tried?"

I shook my head.

"Why don't you try on me," he said.  "Forget the stupid cards.”

(“Hey,” Lacy said.)

“Just send me whatever you feel like,” he went on.  “An image.  An idea. Anything that isn't just words."

That sounded all right.  It even sounded like fun.

I thought for a minute.

I thought about music.

"Why don't you try it the other way?" Dog said.  He looked at me.  "You're a sender, right?"

I didn't answer, but Lacy went with it right off.  "Here," she said, handing me the deck.  "Hit me."

"Not literally," she added.

Thanks.

I held the cards and looked at Cam.  He smiled at me.  "You'll be fine," he said.  "Why not give it a try."

Lacy sat down very precisely, cross-legged.  She shut her eyes.  "Okay, focus," she said.

I sighed.  Cross, I sent her.

"Not like that," Lacy said, opening her eyes.

What do you mean?

"Well -- that's just, you know, talking."

I looked at Cam for help again.  "Lacy, that's what she does," he said.  "You wanted her to do it."

"Well, yeah, but...I think it's supposed to be more like a picture, you know?"

"Then you should have said so," Dog said.

"Fine.  I just did."

Lacy tried a few more times:  the same.  I just couldn't get past that feeling.

I thought it might have worked better if it had been Cam instead of her, but I didn't want to say so.

I kind of hated the whole thing anyway.

"I'm going to look at a card," Lacy said.  "I'll try to think just about the picture on it.  You try to tell me which one I'm looking at, okay?"

I felt like an idiot.

Dog seemed to get that.  He winked.

Okay, I said.

"Okay." Lacy sat and stared at a card.

And stared, and stared, and stared.

Cam watched me.

"Anything?" Lacy asked.

I shook my head.

I thought I could almost see the picture she was trying to show me, but it was like I'd have to push past something to get to it.  It felt rude.  It felt personal.

I was worried I might hurt her.

"All you do," Lacy said, "is -- well, where you're sitting is fine.  I guess.  I mean, I guess James Randi would want you in another room or another apartment or something --"

"Lacy, come on," Cam said.

"Well, I'm just saying," Lacy said.  "But for what we're doing now, this is fine.  Just sit right there.  And I'll sit right here."

"What about me?" Dog rumbled behind her.  "Is this couch scientific enough, or should I move?"

"No, you're fine," Lacy said absently, shuffling through the cards.  "Well, actually you can stay, but don't look at the cards, okay?  I think.  She's supposed to be trying to get the picture of the card in her head from me.  Although I guess even if she's getting it from you, or both of us -- "

"Lacy, come on."

"Okay, all right, okay."

I didn't dare look up. That would only make it worse.

I made an emptiness where I was standing.  Wishing I could be a book on a shelf.  Trying to be just a thicker piece of darkness.

I am not here is a contradiction in terms I'd been managing to get away with.  It wasn't working now.

He kept looking at me, and after a while he started coming toward me.

I thought of leaving.

I'd have more places to hide.

But outside darkness is so open.  Anyone could do anything there.  There were limits in here, at least.

Anyway, he was between me and the door.

"Hey," he said.  He was about my size. A little older.  Pale.

"Hi," he said.

For all I knew, he wasn't even talking to me.

"It's okay," he said.  "I'm not going to bother you or anything."

I was still shaking, but part of me registered that.   I liked the way he phrased it.  As if being "bothered" by someone was the biggest thing I could have to worry about, the worst threat either of us could think of.

"I'd just like to talk, if that's okay," he said.  He wasn't talking loudly, but I could hear him easily.  It was like he slipped the words under the music, like a letter under the door.  

"Do you mind if I sit down?"  Not asking me to, but taking a chair himself.  

He just sat quietly for a minute.  I thought I'd walk away, but what would I do if he followed me?  Call for help?

You have to exist for that.  

People who haven't been at the worst think that when you're up against something or being hunted down, eventually you just want to turn around, give up, let it happen. Get it over with.  At least you'd be done.

Knowing what I'd be brought back to, all I wanted to know was which end of kill or be killed I was up for.

"The music sounded a lot better a minute ago," he said.  "It felt really strong.  I was hoping I could hear it like that again."

He looked at me, right at me.  No one had done that for a while.

The last person who bothered only wanted to find me so he could hurt me.

"These are the cards," Lacy said.

I looked.  Each card had a line drawing on it.  

Three wavy lines; square; circle; five-pointed star; truncated cross.

These are really lame.

"Well, they're not art, sure," Lacy said.  "They're not supposed to be.  Here, look at them again.  It's good to know what they all are before we start."

I think I've got it.  Trying hard not to sound sarcastic.

I don't know how many days I'd been out when Cam found me.  I don't think it was a week, but maybe around that.

I was awake, but very tired.

The music was really good, which helped.  There weren't too many people there, which was a little scary.  Nobody to hide behind.

I just stayed as background as I could and felt the sound.  It was the first time the group had played this one song for an audience, and they were nervous but angry, too, daring us not to feel it the way they did.  It was really beautiful, so rough and raw.  Refusing to lie about anything.  I forgot who I was, listening to that.

Until I felt someone looking at me.

I faded out, quick, but he still saw me.

I'm everyone's science project now.  

They're all being very kind, but just the same I could do without it.

"Look what I got," Lacy said.  She was wearing a dress like a fishing net, only solid, and waving a little stack of cards.

"We used to play with these when I was a kid," Lacy said, fanning them like a poker hand.  "Funny thing is? I was lousy at it."  

"And yet what a talented young lady you grew up to be," Dog said, lounging on the couch behind her.

"That's different."  She folded herself neatly on the floor.

"It's all the same."

"The same, but different.  Here, Echo, try this."

I looked at her doubtfully.  The cards she showed me had pictures on them, lame ones.

Why can't we just use normal cards?

"It's more, you know, official this way," Lacy said.  

Behind her, Dog rolled his eyes.  

"Come on. It'll be fun."

I don't know what to do.

"It's easy. Here, I'll show you."

Cam and I met in a club.

That's as far back as I'm willing to go right now.

I was there for the reasons I was always at clubs.

I had just escaped and I had to have somewhere to go at night.  Somewhere safe.

During the day was scary, too, but in a different way.  I didn't have to hide, exactly.  I just had to be.

Mostly I would go to the library.  It felt so safe and good, being with all those books.  I never could quite get up the nerve to try to check one out, but I read a lot.

I did my best to make sure that no one noticed me.  I couldn't pull a Lacy, but I could kind of fade.  Not out of sight, but out of mind.

It was kind of strange to watch gazes slip past me exactly as they would past a book on a shelf. I liked feeling like part of the collection.

I could get some sleep, but I had to be careful.  I kind of had to keep an eye out, make sure that I just looked like someone with a book.  It wasn't very restful, but it was better than nothing.

When I was feeling very brave or very tired, I would sleep outside.  I found bus stops on quiet streets and made myself very neat and mostly let go.  Still had to keep a bit of an eye out.

I would sleep some at night, at the clubs.

It was easier in some ways to disappear there.  But it was more dangerous to get caught.

It was best to disappear into the music.

I was so tired I pretty much had to, anyway.

That was how Cam found me.

Cam brought Lacy and Dog over again.  I might have been happy to see them if I hadn't known they were there for an argument.

"So, how many interventions can one person have?" Lacy asked.  "I mean, shouldn't there be a legal limit or something?"  I couldn't tell if she minded for my sake or hers, but either way I was with her.

"This isn't the same as last time," Cam said.  "Last time we were here to show Echo that she's not the only one who can do things.  Now it turns out that she's fine with the idea that we can do things; she just doesn't think she can."

Dog was impassive and accepting, as usual.  Lacy looked like she didn't know what to think.

"Well, she'd be the best person to judge that, wouldn't she?" she said reasonably.

Yes, I said.

"No," Cam said, almost angrily, and Dog smiled.

"How about we try to act like grownups, just for a change," he said, sitting up. "If there's something there, we can check it out.  We can test for it."

"Hey, yeah," Lacy said, brightening up.  "We could call The Amazing Randi or something."  Then her face fell.  "Oh.  Wait.  He's like three thousand miles away or something, isn't he.  Does he make house calls?  Or, hey," turning to me, "would you want to go to Florida?"

"Yeah, Lacy, that's a great idea," Cam said, unusually sarcastic for him. "Let's take your private jet."

"Excuse me for trying to help," she said, ruffling up like a falcon.  "I thought that's what we were here for."

"Randi's got test centers all over the place," Dog said.  "There's one not too far from here.  But even if they'd be interested in us, and I think they charge for that kind of thing now -- "

"Figures," said Lacy.

" -- we might not be interested in them."  Dog looked at me, and I could see just a hint of what he'd been the other night. I liked it.  "I have the feeling that the last thing our little sister needs now is some experts poking at her."

I shook my head, hard, and Cam put his hand over mine.

"Don't," he said.  "It's okay. We're not doing anything like that."

"Oh, we can do the kind of tests they do," Dog said easily.  "Some of them, anyway.  I've read about it.  But it would help if I knew what we were looking at here."

"She's a telepath," Cam said.

I didn't know I'd hit him until I felt one of Dog's hands holding both of mine.  "Keep it down," he said quietly, and looked over at Cam.  "You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," Cam said in a muffled voice.  One hand was to his face.  I wanted to see what was behind it, but I was afraid to, too.

Lacy looked like she'd rented a romantic comedy and turned it on only to see the opening scenes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  "Okay, can I just say right now that that is not cool," she said. "We don't hit people, even when we don't like what they're saying."

"Thank you, Mr. Rogers," Dog said.  Except I'm not sure "thank" was the word he used.

I didn't mean to, I said.  I didn't even know I did it.  I didn't want to.

"Of course you didn't," Dog said.  He hadn't let go of my hands, and I didn't know if that was because he wanted to make me feel better or if he just didn't trust what I might do with them next.

"Honey, it's okay," Cam said.  He'd put his hand down, and he didn't look bad.  He looked at me, not angry.  "I'm fine."

I'm sorry.

"I know." He smiled at me.  "I'm the one who should be sorry.  I shouldn't have outed you like that."

I didn't know what to say to that, but Dog did.  For someone who doesn't talk much, it's weird how he's never at a loss for words, either.  "We don't know that you did," Dog said to Cam.  "Your word for it is all very well and good, but she's right to be skeptical.  That's the kind of thing that's easy to say and hard to prove.  Look how long it took the Randi Institute to come around."

"That's because most of the people who tried to take the prize were either lying, stupid, or crazy," Lacy said.  "All of the above, sometimes."

"Knowing Echo's none of the above doesn't make her a telepath," Dog said.  He looked at me for much longer than I could be comfortable with.  "But this gives us something to work with.  There are some things we can try that are pretty easy. No weird equipment or wires or anything."

My hands felt very cold, and Dog noticed, I guess.  "Hey," he said.  "Don't be like that.  We don't do anything you don't want."

They were all looking at me.  I really hate being looked at.  I don't even know what you're talking about, I managed finally.  I don't know what all this means.

"We start simple," Dog said.  "I'm thinking of a number between one and a million.  Stuff like that."

"Excuse me," Lacy said.  She still looked like she was about to take this DVD back to the rental place.  "I'm only bringing this up because it might maybe have something to do with what you guys are talking about."

We all looked at her.  She was looking just at me.

"Has anybody noticed that she doesn't move her lips when she talks?" she asked.

I haven't liked meat for a while, not the taste of it or the idea, but now sometimes I really need the cheeseburgers I had when I was a kid.  Cam runs and gets some if I so much as blink in a burgery way.

He's so sweet, and I know I wouldn't even be alive without him, but sometimes it's too much pressure.  Being cared about so much.

Nag, nag, nag. When it's not about my writing here, it's about what I'm eating or not eating.  

I wish he'd leave me alone.  

Food comes and goes for me just now, but at least it's good sometimes.  To Cam, it looks like me just not eating as often as he'd like, but I'm tired of forcing myself when it isn't really there for me.  I'd rather wait.

I read somewhere that food isn't as good for you if you're not in the mood for it anyway.

Have to see if I can find anything about that on the computer and show it to His Camness.

"Yeah, and you can't just pretend you don't have power just because you're not sure you'd like it to be true," Cam said.  And made me write here.  

Because apparently this isn't my place any more; it's the composition book for whatever He Who Is The Boss Of Me decides I ought to be writing about on any given day.

Cam's mad at me again.

He's not being very reasonable, frankly, and I don't care if he hears it here.

All I said was that just because there are people who have -- who can do things, that doesn't automatically make me one of them.

To say that someone's able to do something other people can't do is a big deal.  You can't just run around claiming that kind of thing.

Cam had a couple of people come over last night.

Dog, and a friend of his named Lacy.  

Lacy is one of those girls who's so pretty she can look as weird as she wants.  She does want.  Her hair is really random -- she took a snip off it while she was sitting with us, just talking and not even about hair or anything.  She wasn't even looking in a mirror.  Just pulled this pretty pair of gold scissors out of her sleeve and snap.  It looked great.

Her hair is black and very straight.

She wears gloves that don't match, a skirt that looks like knotted strings, a blouse of some fabric I'm pretty sure used to be a couch.

She has a lot of metal, too, most of it poking into or out of her at angles you wouldn't expect.

Once you start looking at her, there's plenty to do.

She and Dog are really good friends, but that seems to be it.  They don't touch or anything, or look at each other much.  

Cam brought them over after he read the last thing I wrote.  Sometimes I forget that he reads this.  It feels so alone.

I wasn't doing anything when they came in.  I'd been reading before, one of those Bronte books Cam brought me and teases me about.  I get tired out reading much these days.  My eyes, and my hands.

I was resting when they came in.  Just sitting and thinking about Jane Eyre living alone in that little cottage.  

I've never been as far away from the world as she is.

I know she's lonely, but still it must be nice to have your own little house just for you.  And a warm fire and some books and nobody around.

The door opened and I was surprised.  It was early for Cam to be home, and he hadn't said he wouldn't be alone.

"Hey," he said, sitting down next to me.  "This is a friend of Dog's.  Lacy."

"Hey," she said, and her voice was very sweet.  I wondered if she was a singer.  Maybe that was how Dog knew her.

I just looked at Cam, feeling stupid.  I felt like the play had started and I was sitting right there in the middle of the stage with no idea what to say.  I didn't even know what my name is.

"Echo needs something I can't give her," Cam said, talking to everyone but me. "Some people she should have been able to trust told her she was crazy, and she keeps believing them instead of me.  I need help changing her mind."

Dog and Lacy looked at me.  Dog with his usual expressionless expression, Lacy with lively interest.  I was almost too embarrassed under their gaze to be angry with Cam, but part of me remembered to be pissed that he'd brought total strangers in and was now talking about me with them as if I were just an attractive corpse propped up in the corner or something.

Lacy at least had the manners to talk to me.  "You don't look crazy to me," she said.  "Of course, I'm not an expert or anything."

Thanks.

"I'm just saying."

"Why would you think you were crazy?" Dog asked, his voice sounding deeper than usual after Lacy's.

Everybody sat there waiting for me to answer.  I felt like a Ouija board.

Finally Cam said, "She can do amazing things, but she doesn't want to believe it."

"Huh."

Dog seemed satisfied by this.  He's not one to push. Lacy brightened up, though. "What kind of stuff?"

Cam, I swear to God I'm leaving.  Now.

I even managed to stand up.  Partway, anyway.

Why not?  It was almost night.  It couldn't be any worse out there than it was in here.

They all looked a little startled, even Dog.  "Don't," Cam said.  He doesn't usually touch me, but he put his hand on one of mine and kind of pulled me down.  Just lightly. "Please.  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to gang up on you.  I just don't know what else to do.  I'm running out of ideas here.  I feel like you're slipping away.  I wish I could tell you how that makes me feel, but I don't know how I'd make you believe me."

I was still embarrassed, still feeling stared at, but you can't stay mad at Cam.  I just didn't like the pressure, that was all. He let me stay with him, and then it was like I had to be a certain way for it to be okay for me to be here. When the whole point was supposed to be that I could just be here and be safe.

I'd had time to feel all these things and not really think them in so many words when Lacy stood up suddenly.  I thought she was embarrassed too, maybe, and leaving, but she just stood there.  "Hey, you want to see something you really can't believe?" she asked nobody in particular, but especially me.

"Bring it on," Dog said with a faint smile.

I looked at Cam, kind of nervous.  I felt like I'd walked into the wrong party or something.  He looked at me and pressed my hand.  

"It's okay.  This is what I wanted you to see.  I hope it helps."

"Watch me," Lacy said.  "Just watch."

I looked at her. She was so many different colors and textures.  And then it was like she started to fade.  Like someone pushed a dimmer switch on her.  

And then she wasn't there at all.  Not at all.

She hadn't left, she hadn't opened the door.  She just disappeared.


We all sat there, and she was gone.

"I said watch me," she said, and then she was back again, following her voice, grinning.

I stared at her. Dog was smiling like it was a magic trick he'd seen before but always enjoyed.  Cam was looking at me.

"You're not the only one who can do things," he said.

Lacy turned to Dog. "Your turn," she said. "I can't be the only clown in this circus."

"I'm not a clown."  He didn't sound mad, just like he was correcting an error.

"Be a good dog, then."

He looked around doubtfully.  "This place isn't very big," he said.  "I like to have more room."

"Coward."

"I'm not. I just don't want to tear the place up."

"Dog's not housetrained," Lacy explained.

I was starting to feel a little faint.  I wasn't sure I could stay with this much longer.  "Shut up, Lacy," Cam said quietly, still holding my hand. "It's okay, Dog.  Do whatever you need to.  Just show her."

Dog looked at me and made me look at him.  "Don't be scared," he said.  

Nobody ever says that when things are going fine.

He stood up, found the place in the room where he was as much in the middle of the furniture and books as he could be, and seemed to look inside himself.  I don't know what I was expecting, but he looked the same and he looked just like himself, and then there was a wolf in the room where he had been, and the growl of his voice was a real growl, a wild one.

I looked at him. I knew I should be scared, but he was beautiful.  His eyes were yellow against his rough fur.  His energy was contained, but I knew that if he let it go, he could tear the place apart and everyone in it.  Not by trying, just by letting go.

I wanted him to. I wanted to see it happen.  

I wouldn't have minded going down under those teeth and claws if it meant I got to see what happened when he followed them instead of holding back the way he always did.

He'd been staring at me the whole time, and when I thought that he bared his teeth almost silently.

I was really seeing him for the first time.  

Now I knew how much he was holding back just being with us in the ordinary world.  

They say that humans are the only ones who kill for sport, but that's not true.  Wolves hunt for the sake of the hunt.  

Dog looked desperate for a hunt.

"Hey," Cam said.  "That's enough," and just like that Dog was back.

"Honey, I'm home," he said, climbing over the couch to sit down.  "Anybody call while I was out?"

Cam was looking at me again, very serious.  "Do you get it?" he said.  "You're not the only one."

"You're not even the weirdest one," Lacy said helpfully.

I had to try for a second, but I was able to talk.  What about you? I said to Cam.

"Me?"

What do you do?

He smiled. "I just know the cool people to hang with," he said.

I know I didn't finish that last thing, but sometimes it just gets too hard to write.  It's like I just can't talk about it any more.

I'm so tired.

All the way down.

Something in me is just worn out, worn thin.  Almost gone, really.

I'm ready to go.

Cam asked me what I see when I look at the future.  

I've been thinking about that all the time now.

People have things to do.  To look forward to. They're moving toward things. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes just because they are.

There's nothing ahead of me.

I'm so tired.

I woke up to music.

Cam was at a careful distance from me, and the latest Muse album was pouring out of the computer.

"Are you awake, honey?" he asked quietly.

I turned to look at him, then noticed I was holding something.  A CD.  I was standing in front of his CD player, which has about a trillion slots and which I've never been able to figure out how to make play exactly the disc I want to hear.  

I thought we went to bed, I said stupidly.

"Okay, here's my idiot question of the day," he said.  "You were asleep, right? Just a minute ago?"

Well, yeah.

"It's just that your eyes were open," he said.  

Oh.

"I could tell you weren't exactly there, though," he said.

Not even a little.

The music was holding me up, and when the song ended I couldn't stay standing up.

"Hey," Cam said, rushing over.

The floor was soft enough.  I'm okay.

"The hell you are."  He helped me up and over to a chair.

I'm fine, I insisted, and realized I was crying.  It all just felt so distant.  Like a bad accident -- you're interested, but afraid to get too close, in case you see something you really didn't want to.

I don't have to stay here, I said.  Not if it's too much.  But Cam, even if I'm crazy, please don't make me go back there.  I know it's supposed to be a place that helps people, but it isn't, it really isn't.

"Are you through?" he said.  "You're not going anywhere, so cut it out."

But I'm doing things I don't even remember.  I looked at the box I'd been holding. I don't even like this album.

He laughed a bit. "You were sleepwalking," he said.  "That's perfectly normal.  They have a word for it and everything."

But my eyes were open.

"Look, I don't know anything about it," he said.  "Maybe that's what people do.  Maybe that's how they keep from falling over."

I sat for a minute, just soaking in the comfort of being near him.

Why did you turn on the music?  I asked at last.

"Well, it looked like you wanted to listen to something.  And I thought it might wake you up better than I could."

You woke me up that time.

"Yeah, and I got punched in the eye for it."

I hit you?

"Only on the inside.  It's okay.  I was more surprised than anything."

I sat quiet again, but this time it was defeat.

I am crazy, Cam. They were right.  I'm insane.

"Stop that right now," Cam said.  "I'm not hearing that.  You are not crazy.  You're having a perfectly sane reaction to a horrible experience.  It'd be pretty damned weird if you were just skipping around picking daisies after what they did to you."

Food is strange again. Even when I feel hungry, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with me.  I can feel an emptiness, but it doesn't seem connected with me or anything I can do.  I eat because I know that's what I'm supposed to do, but if I had to figure it out for myself I wouldn't know what to do about it.

It doesn't even feel like eating.  It's more like taking medicine.  It's a prescription.

There's no sense left in it.  No sensual.  No wanting.

Cam's been staying at home more, skipping classes sometimes and even missing work.  I'm worried about him.

"I'm worried about you, dummy," he said.  

I'm fine.

"I just don't think you should be alone so much right now," he said.  

I'm used to it.

"You shouldn't have to be."

I think I slept better that night, having Cam right there.  Even though he slept so far away from me that he was halfway to the floor, it seemed like.  Poor guy.

I knew he wasn't going to try anything.  He didn't have to worry so hard.

I thought I slept fine that night, with some human warmth concerned about me right there and the door closed (not locked) and the world safely shut away, but I don't think he slept an inch.

Poor Cam.

Why does he live like this?

If he really wants a roommate, why doesn't he find someone who pays some rent and lets him get a decent night's sleep now and then?

I woke up standing. Cam was near me, rubbing his temple.

"Well, now I know why they say not to wake up sleepwalkers," he said.

I'd been sleepwalking? It didn't feel like it.  It didn't feel like anything.  Just that one minute I was lying there staring into the dark, and the next minute I was wondering why Cam had brought me into the living room without even turning on any lights.

What time is it? I asked.

"Almost two," he said.  "Come on."

Where?

"My room. You're taking the bed.  No arguing."

I don't want to. You have to work tomorrow, and I'm not even tired.

"You're taking the bed and I'm staying with you.  The longer we argue about this, the less sleep I get, so let's just go, okay?"

He was edgier than I'd seen or heard him before.  I went with him.  It wasn't like I thought he'd try anything.  It was just different.  

I liked the idea of not being alone, though.

He sleeps in shorts usually.  Tonight he pulled on a shirt, like he was modest now.  I usually sleep in his biggest shirts, but he bought me some pajamas so I wear those when they're clean.  They're soft.

I sat down on his bed, feeling a little shy.  I felt like once when I slept over at a friend's house and we'd been playing and giggling until her mom came in and said it was TIME TO SLEEP.  All of a sudden we felt very formal and embarrassed.

He shut the door and did something to the knob I couldn't quite see.

What is it?

"I'm locking the door," he said.

The room had been big enough a minute ago, but now it was pressing in against me until I barely had room to move, let alone breathe.

Open it.

"I'm worried you might -- "

OPEN IT.

He looked at me a minute, then undid whatever he'd just done.  "It's unlocked," he said.  "But I want to leave it shut.  Okay?  That way if you do get up, you'll have to open it to go anywhere, and I'll hear you.  I hope."

I felt all right again.  I'm not going anywhere.

"I'm not sure you're the one making all your plans any more."

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that.

He sat down on the other side of the bed but didn't quite lie down.  He's always kind of serious, kind of quiet, but now he seemed especially so.  I looked a little closer and realized that he wasn't just worried; he felt guilty.

Don't be mad.

"I'm not."

I mean at you.

He smiled a little. "I'm doing a bang-up job of taking care of you, aren't I?"

You're the best.

He just shook his head.