Tao was happy to talk about the present, but whenever I asked him about the past, his eyes went cold. He’d always look away and change the subject, or get out of bed and tells me it’s time to change my bandages. My teachers always told me I was a stupid, and with Tao I only proved them right. I knew I should’ve left it alone, but I pressed him anyway, until one day he broke.

He said nothing, but I looked up at him and saw it, as plain as day. His eyes, hard and brittle as they always were when I ask him such things, suddenly shatter like frozen glass and anger spilled across his expression like dye from a broken bottle.

He turned his face away from me, lips pressed into a thin line, and I wished I could take back the words. I knelt beside him and grabbed his arm, trying to apologize, but he won’t let me speak. “Get some rest,” he said without looking at me, before he got to his feet and left.

I kept wondering if he no longer worries that I might hurt myself, or if he no longer cares. Then I wonder why that thought bothered me so. I was asleep when he returned late that night, and even though he made no noise, I awoke. It was nearly dawn, I noticed, so he’s been out all night. I felt said for chasing him away.

 I sat up and watched him through the faint light. “Hey—” I started, but he cut me off with a wave of his hand. “You’re well enough now.” He still won’t look at me, and his voice was as hard as stone. “If you won’t respect my privacy, you may leave.”

“That’s not what I want.” It was stupid, so damn stupid, but it was only the truth, and I couldn’t lie to him. “Tao, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” I said and he kept staring at me like that was the stupidest thing I could have said. Behind the scorn, though, there was resignation.

After a moment, he glanced away and sighed. When he looked back, his gaze was kind again.

“I brought you some food,” he said, and I knew that things will be all right between us again. “I thought you might be hungry.”  My stomach rumbled at the thought, and a small smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. He pulled a loaf of bread and small wheel of cheese from his bag, then joined me in bed. I broke the loaf in two and offered him one of the halves, but he shook his head. “It’s yours. I ate earlier.”

I looked at his thin form and hesitated for a moment, but Tao wouldn’y lie to me, and  my stomach convinced me the loaf was only enough for one, and it wasn’t too long before I started eating until there was nothing left of either the bread or cheese but a few crumbs over the sheets. Tao was smiling at me when I finished. “Do you feel better now?”

“Yes.”

He shifted from his place and sat down next to me on the bed. My exhaustion had returned now that things have been repaired between us; I leaned into him and my head drooped onto his shoulder. The last thing I remember is the warm comfort of Tao’s arm sliding around my shoulders.

I don’t know how he affords it, but he took very good care of me, and I healed quickly, though I was left with a scar.

I never did end up moving back to my room. I didn’t bring it up, and Tao did either. At some point, he stopped sleeping in the armchair and joined me in the bed, but we used to sleep with our backs to each other and he only touched me to wake me from my nightmares.

We don’t talk about my nightmares. He assumes they’re about the knifing that brought my scar, and I let him believe so, until one night I woke up screaming, and I could see in his eyes that he was going to ask me about it. I turned away before he was able to speak, and crossed the room to the washstand in the corner. The water was cold as I splashed it on my face, hoping it would steady me, but it did not. Not enough.

I leaned my hands against the stand and kept my back towar