Idiopathy

imposed on her kindness, hoping all the while that it would buckle and fail and prove him right about God alone knew what.
    He stood slowly from the bed, suddenly very unwilling to go downstairs and face Nathan, whose suffering he had now mortgaged to offset his own triangulations and mistakes; the thought of sitting next to whom now filled him with exactly the same self-loathing he’d once felt when wriggling out of Katherine’s hi-there grip in order to step into the shower and wash away the hour-old guilt of fucking Angelica.
    He did not, he thought, deserve kindness.

    ‘T hat’s it,’ snapped Katherine. ‘Go ahead and stare.’
    Nathan felt a sharp lurch somewhere between his heart and his throat. He hadn’t been aware of staring, but now that Katherine was staring back he realised his eyes had settled into an idle state pointed directly at her face.
    ‘I … Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was miles away.’
    ‘Were you now?’ said Katherine.
    ‘Yeah, just, you know.’ He twirled a finger against the side of his head. ‘Thoughts.’
    Katherine sucked on the joint and studied Nathan through the blue-tinged smoke, narrowing her eyes either because she was affecting some form of expression or because the smoke was irritating them, Nathan couldn’t tell.
    ‘I hate them,’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Thoughts. Better just not to have them, really, isn’t it?’
    ‘They’re unavoidable,’ said Nathan. ‘But you don’t have to let them linger.’
    She curled her lip. ‘Teach you that in therapy, did they?’
    He nodded, then looked at the tabletop.
    ‘Did that hurt?’ said Katherine, using the exact tone of voice Nathan remembered being used by the doctor who’d first examined him that night, tapping bits of his legs and arms, checking for sensation.
Does that hurt? Can you feel that?
In that situation pain was good, the doctor had explained. It meant there was no nerve damage. His therapist would have said the pain in this situation was a good sign too, but Nathan was unconvinced.
    ‘I’ll live,’ said Nathan.
    ‘He hates me, doesn’t he?’ said Katherine, no longer sneering.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Daniel.’
    ‘No,’ said Nathan. ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Katherine.
    ‘What am I thinking?’ said Nathan.
    ‘You’re thinking, What does it matter? What does it matter if he hates me or not?’
    Nathan shrugged.
    ‘But it does,’ said Katherine. ‘It matters.’
    ‘OK,’ said Nathan.
    There was a catch in her voice, and Nathan felt it reflected in his own face. A little hiccup on the ‘a’ of
matters
; a little leap in the top of his cheek in response, and then the tiniest of smiles tugging at one corner of Katherine’s mouth in response to that. He realised again that she had not called him. She’d listened to his message, and she’d called Daniel. How stupid, he thought, to have come here, making a fool of himself, just so they could interpose him between them like they always had.
    ‘Do you think that was wrong of me?’ said Katherine.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Picking up his phone. Do you think that was bad?’
    ‘I honestly don’t know,’ said Nathan. ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine.’
    ‘You’re sure, are you? You’re absolutely sure it will be fine?’
    ‘No.’
    She rolled her eyes.
Put your fucking mask back on
, Nathan heard her saying in his head. He felt as if someone had just edged his chair off a cliff.
    ‘I don’t know why I’m asking you, anyway,’ said Katherine, looking away, apparently addressing herself.
    Nathan rolled a cigarette, keeping his eyes on his fingers. Katherine’s attention, which as recently as five minutes ago he’d been going out of his way to attract and maintain, now felt like a thick woollen sweater in dense summer heat. He decided not to answer for fear of, if not exactly revealing his discomfort, which must have been obvious, then at least exacerbating its effects. He concentrated on making a perfect cigarette: free from creases and excess spit. He wanted another beer but didn’t entirely want the effects of another beer. He bounced his heel gently on the floor, easing the urge to stand up and walk away. When what seemed like several minutes had passed and Katherine hadn’t said anything further he decided to risk a glance in her direction. When he raised his head he found his gaze returned, not merely in the sense that Katherine was looking at him at the same moment as he chose to