Kat is lying propped up against the couch pillows playing on his Gameboy in a state of absolute zombification when I open the front door. 

It takes a second for his eyes to unglue themselves from the screen, his gaze seeming to move through water as he glances up at me. Then his eyebrows knit together, his expression a canvas of mingled horror and disgust in mild shades of disbelief.

“Nu-uh…”

I can’t help but start laughing.

“Is that a plaid tee-shirt dress? Where do you even find this stuff? Why did you change out of the black dress?”

“Just wanted to,” I say teasingly, pushing my hair back. “Why? Why are you so stuck on the black one anyway?”

He manages to keep his expression impassive and disinterested, as he says flatly, “When you only have two tolerable dresses in your entire wardrobe, I think it’s only natural for me to try to mitigate the suffering you inflict on my eyes.”

Hmm.

Not even the faintest vestige of embarrassment, color, or discomfiture shows on his face, and for some strange reason that bugs me - like an insistent light drizzle drumming on my psyche at 100 bpm.

What is with you, you little creep?

Taking the scrunchie off my wrist, I pile my hair up onto the top of my head and adjust the sleeve of the dress.

“That’s better.” I smirk, “My hair got in the way of the embroidery. Check it out, there are these little flowers around the sleeves.”

His mouth opens with an expression that reminds me of a muppet, if a muppet could be gorgeous, looking up at the ceiling like he’s searching for divine intervention.

“I know you’re doing this on purpose,” he raises his eyebrows, pressing against his temples with both fingers, “I know you’re doing this just because you KNOW it’ll make me angry.”

“Why on earth would it make you angry?” I laugh, shoving his shoulder as I plop down on the couch beside him. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head simultaneously.

“Okay, the dress itself doesn’t make me angry. You IN that dress sends me into a blind rage.”

But even as he says those words it happens - a fraction of a flash in his eyes so suppressed it seems far away, but I recognize it - latch onto it ever so delicately - like I’m catching a firefly- afraid to destroy it, pretending I don’t see…

“Well if it’s a blind rage then you’re fine cuz you don’t have to see it.”

“I enjoy being able to see, thank you,” he says flatly, annoyingly pushing against my forehead with one finger like I remember doing to Andrew ten thousand and one times. “It’s less of a ‘blind rage’ and more of a blinded-by-the-nightmare-that-is-that-dress rage. I would almost literally pay money to have you wear anything but that…”

He grows silent suddenly as I watch the realization dawn on him.

“Wait a minute! We’re going on a date! Eres loca?!!! You meant to go out in public in that abomination?”

“What a drama king!” I scoff,  “You act like I grew a beard or turned into a werewolf or something. Of all the crimes that could be committed, wearing a plaid dress is not one.”

“Okay, but inciting a panic is one,” he scolds, holding his hands out like he’s praying. “I can’t let you go outside like that and give some innocent old person a seizure.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake! You’re impossible,” I roll my eyes, crossing my arms over my tartan heart.

“I’m impossible?” He laughs, “I’m not the one walking around like an advertisement for “What Not to Wear.”

I jut my lip out at him, trying with everything in me not to laugh. “Bien, Hermoso. If you’re so completely terrified of plaid, let me borrow something of yours.”

At that, his smile evaporates into sullen stone-faced suspicion.

“Aish, so this was all just an elaborate ploy to steal more of my sweaters?”

Leaning his cheek on his left hand, elbow on the sofa arm, he sighs, shading his eyes as if the ugliness is giving him a headache. 

“Fine, fine. Anything to get you out of that monstrosity. You can borrow anything you like.”

“Anything?”

“Anything within reason,” he says dryly. “I have a few garments I prefer to keep personal.”

“You’re always adding extra rules,” I pout as the idea creeps up on me slowly.

Just one flush…

“How about that sweater you’re wearing right now?” I tease.

“More power to you.” No reaction, “I have five of them. They’re on the left side of my closet.”

Boo.

Shuffling to his walk-in closet, I free one of his big cable knit sweaters from the hanger and try it on. Considering that most of his tops are oversized for him, it’s not surprising that the thick cotton reaches all the way down to my knees, but something about it makes me feel so dwarfed and tiny that I can’t help but hug my arms around myself, like I’m draped in a giant blanket.

I’m immediately wrapped in the scent of his cologne and flush red up to my ears.

Nope nope nope.

Hanging the sweater back where I found it, I slip on an equally oversized gray turtleneck and return to the living room.

“Tada,” I say playfully, standing in front of Kat for inspection. “And you thought there could be nothing worse than the plaid dress.”

He looks at me languidly. Unaffected.

Oh, for heaven’s sake.

“If you added a belt it would look nicer - more like a dress.”

I just frown. 

“There’s a black one in the top drawer of my dresser.”

He seems exhausted actually.

“Give me a second…” He rises slowly from the couch amidst a sigh, leaning heavily on the armrest.

I don’t know if I should offer to help him or pretend - I don’t see.

I stare at the floor. But that doesn’t keep me from noticing the old-mannish way he moves himself into his chair, never once standing up upright, barely even lifting his feet from the floor.

Once he’s settled, I follow him to his room where he opens one dresser, fully loaded with belts of different sizes and colors.

“You know you’re insane right?” I laugh, trying to lighten the heaviness in my chest. “Nobody needs more than one belt.”

He glares at me from beneath his dark eyebrows, “You are an absolute heathen. Belts are supposed to match your outfit.”

Rolling my eyes, I watch him sort through the drawer - but even as I watch his movements, there’s something - off.

Even for his never-ending stoicism.

“This one,” he hands me a black belt with a pattern that reminds me of reptile skin.

With a sigh, I fasten the belt as he wheels his chair a little closer, inspecting me with his head tilted owlishly to one side.

“Don’t tuck the sweater so tight under it. You should pull it out a little more so that it drapes a bit,” he motions with one hand for me to make the adjustment with that familiar, lackadaisical, prince-like energy I remember from the day decorating the Christmas tree. 

I try to shake off that memory, reddening as I try my best to follow what I think the instructions mean.

Loosen this part a little more. Move the belt a little higher. 

He gives a thousand finicky instructions without moving from how he’s sitting in the chair. One elbow resting on the armrest, the other arm motioning sluggishly, like he’s swimming through outer space.

The whole time my eyes track his expression searching for some sign of…interest?

Of anything. 

The look in those windows to his soul is almost vacant. Like his emotions are making a long-distance move, and only a scant few parcels of anything like ‘care’ remain. The sign on the lawn says ‘apathy’ and his face is acutely ghost-like acedia - an almost gray shade of indifference.

For some reason, I suddenly want to cry.

Something painfully familiar that I can’t- don’t want to place churns in my stomach and hangs from my heartstrings like a gallows as he stares at the palm of his hand absentmindedly - I just can’t-

“Kattar, look at me.”

He raises his head but he barely seems to see me at all, slowly smiling a little uncomfortably at 0.5 speed.

“What exactly am I looking at?” He laughs a little awkwardly.

“The love of your life,” I say out loud before the words even register in my brain. The sentence sounds watery, overlaid with tears, as my voice begs, “Is she pretty?”

And for one second I see his expression glow blackly with a wariness - dread cocktail - in the dark and stormy abyss-

He flushes just slightly and then turns deathly pale, and as suddenly as the look appeared, it’s gone again. 

“Yes, she’s…”

In its place, a dull, impossibly exhausted aura saturates him to the bone. And he’s so much older than he should be. Decades older than me.

“...pretty.”

As soon as the words leave his whitened lips, “pretty” isn’t good enough. 

I know I’m not an easy woman…

There’s a line like this, in a poem….

To deal with, to want.

But flowers and animals and birds are ‘pretty.’ You call your mother, your sister, your daughters ‘pretty.’

I’d never realized that word could mean so little until it rolled so dispassionately off his tongue, but now…

I don’t think I want to be ‘pretty.’

Maybe I’m just ridiculous.

Woman is. The most beautiful of natural disasters. A parasite. Never ever satisfied.

And I want to say something else - but there’s something in his expression that stops me.

Or rather, something in the lack thereof.

I don’t think he’s hiding his feelings…

He doesn’t have them.