Free The Medicine Burns by Adam Klein

Reinforced. Lawrence calls my face scary. He says there is something intimidating about it, and he loves to recall the way I looked on the night with the professor. “It was almost like a jealous lover had walked in,” he says.
    â€œIt’s been a week since you’ve heard from him,” I say, “so I guess it worked.”
    â€œIt worked beautifully,” he says. “I wasn’t complaining.” But he looks at me sharply, and it seems for a moment that instead of me, he’s looking at a small flaw on the couch.
    â€œRay’s wife is leaving town for the next month,” he says, “and Ray’s asked me to stay at his place to help him work on the nursery. Rosemary’s pregnant and Ray’s already acting like a proud father.”
    â€œWhat’s he grooming you for? A nanny position?” I sound like that scary person Lawrence finds amusing. “Why is he moving you in?” I ask, grasping.
    He talks to me with his back turned, going into the kitchen. “He has a big, beautiful house. While she’s gone, we’re going to use it.” His words sound so simple; it is like he is explaining it to a child.
    â€œI wonder what it’s like to have someone take care of you.”
    Lawrence calls out casually from the kitchen, “I didn’t think you were the romantic type.”
    Why, then, do I feel excluded from him? Why do I feel left out of the happy family—Lawrence, Ray, and his pregnant wife?
    But he emerges from the kitchen with a bottle of sherry and two glasses. Either to calm the panic he hears rising in me, or in genuine appreciation, he toasts to our friendship. I look into his eyes. Strangely, the closer he gets to me, the more remote I find him. I wonder if that is how it works with Ray.
    It’s gotten so that I can’t think of Lawrence without Ray somewhere in the background. It’s like when someone you know has cancer, how it’s always there. It’s not like Lawrence talks about him, about what they do, or how they feel about each other. It’s just his name with a time and place written next to it under a magnet on the refrigerator, or his voice coming from the phone machine in Lawrence’s bedroom. Whenever the phone rings, I always ask “who’s that?” as though I’m waiting for his call.
    Lawrence explains that I can leave messages for him and he’ll call me from Ray’s house. “I’ll just be a few blocks away,” he says, comforting me. But I can’t seem to rid myself of the chill of that ravine, knowing this time I’ll be locked out without a plan.
    It is by chance that I’ve spotted him and Ray tonight coming out of The Mill. I would walk up to them and shake Ray’s hand if they weren’t so engaged in talk. Lawrence just keeps looking over to him, as though he is never going to see him again, as though he is trying to memorize his face.
    I follow at a great distance. They walk together without touching until they start over the railroad bridge. Then Ray takes Lawrence’s gloved hand and guides him across, and it seems as natural as a father and child.
    I am terrified of heights, and the bridge is no easy feat for me. It is not a footpath, merely an old railroad track that runs over some reinforcing beams. There is nothing to hold onto, except the track itself. I cross it on all fours. Far below, the water is frozen, certain death if I slip.
    It takes me so long to cross the bridge, I feel certain I’ve lost them. Then, cutting across College Green Park, I see them again entering a sky blue, wooden house on the corner. The snow is lightly falling, and the perfect little house looks like a Christmas card.
    I wonder what it is like to be pursued by an admirer, to be watched, investigated, loved.
    Did Lawrence have to pursue anyone? Lawrence doesn’t I need to do anything, I tell myself, but I need to do everything.
    Suddenly, the front door