He doesn't say anything else in response to that word. He doesn't leave her, either. He lies there beside her, breathing in the smell of her shampoo and sweat and the smell of medicine he knows is all in his head, is under her skin. He closes his eyes and let the rest of his headache play out like a battle between nerve and blood.

He lets that word hang in the air like a glob of sound, one he can't take in, one he doesn't want to engage with because he might get sucked into it or it might fly away from him or any manner of disasters could occur. He hopes that when she sleeps she takes the word with her.

He doesn't know if he loves her. People have told him he loves his family but he doesn't believe it. He doesn't know what he's supposed to feel with love, if something like that can come with the feelings he had today: helplessness so deep he could drown in it, anger so strong it could strike him blind.

He eventually falls asleep, several hours after her, when his arms have gone numb and his leg's cramped and his headache has resurged and then faded again. He wakes up a few minutes before her and props himself on his elbow, blinking in the still-dim light of her room, stroking her hair.

"Swann."