This isn't weird.

This Is Weird

In the following days they were inseparable. Millie had a full week of leave before she would have to return to work and face the people who had witnessed her very public breakdown, and Ben had informed his employer that he would be out another week with little concern for any consequences. Their time together wasn't discussed; it simply was. For the first two days Millie was too tired to leave the apartment. They passed the time on the couch, her head on his shoulder, hate-watching the worst content Netflix had to offer and laughing at the expense of the C-list actors that had the misfortune of being involved. When she had the energy they would play a round or two of Mario Kart, but her reflexes were a little slower than usual and as always, Ben smashed her in every game. She appreciated him for not letting her win.

Sometimes they just sat in front of the living room window, elbows resting closely on the sill, making up stories about the pedestrians passing below. The young so-called mother pushing an expensive stroller was secretly smuggling black market unpasteurized cheeses. A gaggle of uniformed schoolgirls were on their way to an underground fight club. An elderly dog walker with an impressive set of mutton chops had won a Nobel prize for his contributions to the field of astrophysics, but only because he had disposed of his more talented rival in a woodchipper. A red-faced young man sprinting through the crosswalk in a tuxedo—

"That bowtie is obviously a camera," Ben declared, and Millie smiled at him in a way that he was oddly certain she had never smiled at anyone else.

Both nights they slept next to one another in her bed. The empty space that separated their bodies when they fell asleep was gone by the time they woke up.

On the third morning, she had her first therapy session. He sat with her in the waiting room as she fidgeted anxiously in her chair until the therapist called her in. He spent the hour aimlessly wandering the block before returning to meet her. She emerged with red eyes that brightened when he smiled and handed her a donut and a cup of coffee.

He took her back to his apartment, and he showed her the card trick Dustin had been teaching him. Sober Millie was honestly just as perplexed as Drunk Millie had been, insisting that he repeat it a dozen times while she tried to figure out how he was doing it, but she expressed herself with significantly less shrieking.

"Do you want me to teach you how it's done?" Ben offered.

"Nah," Millie replied, shaking her head. "It's more fun to believe that you're just magic."

"Oh, I'm totally magic."

"I know."

She taught him how to play Slap Jack instead. Ben smashed her in every game, and she expressed herself with significantly more shrieking.

That night they slept next to one another in his bed. The empty space that separated their bodies when they fell asleep was gone by the time they woke up.

On the fourth evening she had enough energy for an excursion to the grocery store. They strolled through the aisles unhurriedly, relishing the mundane intimacy of debating one brand of cereal versus another, then ultimately buying both. As Ben loaded the groceries into his car, Millie wandered the parking lot, retrieving abandoned shopping carts and pushing them back to the cart return. They spent the evening back at Millie's apartment, where she picked through her crowded bookshelves to show him some of her more interesting finds.

"This one's from 1936," she said proudly, pulling out a worn, leatherbound book with a title embossed in gold. She sat down next to Ben and handed it to him.

"The Influence of Women," he read outloud, then snorted. "...and its Cure. Oh my god, this is the book I've been waiting for my whole life." He opened the cover and turned to the dedication page. "'To the men of America... those who remain.' Fuck, this amazing."