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makeshift toothbrush and tried to be quiet as he washed up so he wouldn’t wake Emily. Then after slipping his clothes back on and slicking back his hair, he left the bathroom. Emily was still asleep and had curled up onto her side so that she faced him, her skin pale in the early morning light, her hair fallen haphazardly across her face. He stood watching her, feeling a lump in his throat as he did so.
    The other night after they had finished their second round of lovemaking, Emily lay on her side next to him and told him more about her father, about how terrified she had been of him, especially when he’d get drunk. Her mother would have her hide in her bedroom closet when that happened, and she would listen to him rampaging through the apartment, yelling threats and smashing things, sometimes hearing her mother’s cries as he beat her. Emily was dried eyed as she told him this, but she choked up later when she told him about the day her father robbed that gas station. It turned out there was much more to the story than that. Afterwards he had come home bloodied and waving his gun around and threatening to kill them before surrendering to the police. Bill was mostly choked up himself as he told her how sorry he was about what had happened to her. They lay silently for a long time after that, then Emily edged closer to him and kissed him on the cheek. Shortly after that she drifted asleep. It was a long time later before Bill was able to get the image of a terrified eight year-old Emily out of his mind, and was able to fall asleep also.
    Bill closed his eyes and tried to remember the way her body had felt against his when she had told him all this, then later the rhythmic shallowness of her breathing and the way her head nestled against his chest after she had fallen asleep against him. It touched him deeply that she was able to share with him what she did. He knew it couldn’t have been easy for her. He also knew that this was one of the reasons why they felt so strongly connected, that they both experienced things that most people wouldn’t be able to understand. He wished he had been able to tell her his own situation, but as bad as what happened to her was, what happened to him was at a whole different level.
    When he opened his eyes he saw that Emily had woken up and was smiling contentedly at him.
    “Hi,” she said.
    “Hi. I’m going out to get us some breakfast. Any requests?”
    “You don’t have to. I have food here.”
    “That’s okay. I’d like to. So what would you like me to get?”
    “Something sweet. Surprise me.”
    Bill nodded. He kissed her softly on the lips, then grabbed his jacket, made his way out of Emily’s apartment, down the partially dilapidated four flights of stairs and over two blocks to Hanover Street where he stopped at a bakery and bought two chocolate éclairs and two large black coffees, adding milk to one of them so it would be the way Emily liked it. When he returned back, he found that Emily had put on a robe and was sitting up in bed studying one of her art history books. She put the book down to take an éclair and coffee from him, and he sat on the edge of the bed next to her. While they ate their éclairs, Bill suggested that he could call his boss and try to take the day off. Emily smiled sweetly at him, and told him that while she would like that, she had classes and commitments for some freelance work that she had taken on, and that he should go to work. “How about this evening?” she asked.
    “Of course,” he said, somewhat relieved knowing Jack would’ve fought him tooth and nail if he had tried taking the day off, or worse, assigned the story to another reporter. “And tonight I’ll be leaving work at a normal time no matter what my boss says.”
    Bill reached down to kiss Emily goodbye, and she put down her coffee so that she could take hold of his face and make sure the kiss lingered. It took a tremendous amount of willpower on his part to finally