Withering Hope by Layla Hagen

with his own thoughts.
    "Well, you're stuck here with me. Unless you want me to go berserk, which wouldn't be in your best interest, you'd better put some effort into talking to me. I promise you I'm not as boring as you think."
    "I don't think you're boring," he says, stunned.
    "Excellent. There's no impediment then."
    "Except for the fact that lengthy discussions can break your concentration and distract you."
    "I'll take my chances."
    Tristan shakes his head. "You must be a damn good lawyer."
    "What makes you say that?"
    "You just don't give up."
    "A spot-on assessment of my skills. I was dyslexic as a kid. My therapist told me I should get a job that didn't require much reading or writing, because I'd have a hard time keeping up." Tristan's eyes widen. "But I always wanted to be a lawyer, like my mom. So I worked hard and became one."
    "That's impressive."
    "Thanks. It helps that I only need about four hours sleep at night. Lots of time to practice the exercises my therapist gave me. Your turn."
    "My turn to what?" he asks a little too innocently.
    I scowl, elbowing him. "Where did you grow up?"
    "Washington." There it is, the predicted one-word answer.
    "Do you have brothers, sisters… did you have a dog growing up?"
    He throws his hands up; I've defeated him. I smile and so does he. I finally broke the ice wall—or whatever that was between us. I find out he doesn’t have brothers and sisters, and he had two dogs growing up. His parents moved to Florida after they retired, and he visits them a few times a year. From that moment on, whenever we're doing a task that doesn't leave us out of breath, I start a new round of questions. To my surprise, he answers every time, unless I ask about his private life or employment before he started working for Chris. I learn fast to steer clear of those topics and rejoice at every little piece of information he reveals about himself, no matter how unimportant.
    Discovering more becomes a sort of guilty pleasure. The process of gradually discovering things about someone is fascinating. I've known most of my friends forever. I went to college in L.A, where I grew up, so college wasn't much of a discovery experience either. Even my relationship with Chris… well, there wasn't much room for discovery. I felt like I'd known everything about him forever, too. There weren't many surprises or secrets between us. I'd secretly been jealous hearing my friends talk about a first date or the beginning of a relationship, as they learned more about their partner. Of course, when said partner turned out to have a second girlfriend, or was a drug dealer instead of a vet, I'd been grateful there was no unchartered territory between Chris and me. Still, I can't deny the thrill of discovery. Now I have the privilege of experiencing it in snippets the size of teardrops every day.

I wipe my forehead as I scrub one of my two T-shirts on one of the washboards Tristan made two weeks ago. Next to me, Tristan's doing the same with his shirt. We're sitting on one of the massive, fallen tree trunks we use as a bench, each with a washboard between our legs. We’ve been here a little over a month, and I swear washing clothes is one of the best workouts there is. I glance at my pile of clothing—underwear, two dresses, one pair of jeans and one T-shirt—waiting for me to wash them and curse. I've started wearing some of my dresses, impractical as they may be, because the thin fabric works well in this humid heat. Now I’m wearing a long, red dress with short, wavy sleeves. There’s still one dress, aside from my wedding dress, that I didn't touch. The white chiffon dress with navy lace. It's just too long and impractical to wear. It's at the bottom of my suitcase along with other useless things such as my makeup bag.
    Tristan pours a few drops of shower gel over my board and then over his. It's not enough to clean the clothes, but it makes them smell better. That's as high as we can hope given our