Namid

Namid

I have no idea why I'm doing this. I'm shopping for his groceries. Really, Namid, this is the choice you've made?

I'd noticed him as soon as I entered the store. His emotions are so intense that it's hard for me to ignore them anytime he's near. I'd recognize the intensity of his despair anywhere. Not noticing him was never an option. My gaze had been drawn to him each time I left an aisle and walked the few steps along the main walkway before turning down the next. He didn't move. I made it through half of my shopping, and he'd still been staring at the cheese. He hadn't been wearing a coat even though it was thirty degrees outside, and his hair, which was longer than it had been when I last saw him nearly a month ago, looked like he'd just rolled out of bed. He'd looked so…alone. He felt so…alone. Somehow, that had been enough to convince me to prolong the agony that is the grocery store.

There are less than a half-dozen things on his list: milk and bread and cheese and lunch meat. I don't really think that eating nothing but pre-sliced deli sandwiches for weeks on end is going to do much to help his mental state, so I add a few more things: pastries and a rotisserie chicken, apples and broccoli. I don't know whether he'll bother eating them, but somehow, I feel a bit better knowing that he has the option.

I have his groceries loaded into paper bags since I didn't think to ask if he has canvas ones in his truck and there were none in his cart when I took it from him. Somehow, I doubt he brought them, or even if he knows whether he did or not. I settle his bags in the cart next to mine and head back to the coffee nook.

When I return, he hasn't moved, and I find myself studying him as I order a second round of drinks and park the cart to the side in a way that places it out of the way of other customers but also encourages them not to sit at the table nearest ours. Even with his shoulders hunched like he carries the weight of the world, his back is straight and broad, and I wonder what it must have been like to have known him laughing and loving and enjoying life.

He jumps slightly as I set a second cup down in front of him and slide back into the cold metal seat on the opposite side of the scuffed-up table.

I sip slowly as I wait for him to calm down and readjust to my presence.

"I was supposed to buy your second one."

I shrug. "You can buy me one some other time."

He nods almost imperceptibly and picks up his new tea, warming his hands on the cup and swirling it gently as he watches the pattern in the foam shift around.

"Thank you. For everything. "

"My pleasure."

When he looks up and his eyes find mine, they're red and swollen; he's been crying again. They're jade green, and in the bright sunlight that streams through the windows and bathes him with its warmth, they're almost transparent. They're beautiful.

"I just realized I don't actually know your name."

I'm so lost in his eyes that his softly spoken words surprise me.

I offer a kind smile. "Namid."

"I've never heard that name before."

I have to suppress my laughter. That's the politest version of "What the hell kind of name is that?" I've ever heard - which is, of course, the first thing everyone I ever meet says when I introduce myself.

"I'm not surprised. It's Chippewa. It means star dancer."

His left eyebrow lifts in silent question, and I can't help but chuckle. He wants to know why. When I've had this conversation with others in the past, their expressions - and the confusion that radiates from them - always seem to come with wariness, as if my name alone somehow makes me seem even odder to them than I already do. I feel none of that from him. No judgment or confusion or fear. Under his pain, there is only a spark of curiosity.

"I know the Chippewa aren't from around here, but Ken - Mr. Johnson's - grandfather is Chippewa, and he speaks the language. When we realized that I likely wasn't going remember who I was, I needed a name. "

Jayce's eyebrow has fallen back to its normal resting place, and he carefully sips his hot tea.

"I told him that I was fine sticking with John Doe, which is what the sheriff's office and hospital called me. Ken was…less than thrilled with that suggestion." I can't help but chuckle at the memory of how offended he felt on my behalf.

Jayce smiles. It's a rough, broken thing, but for one single instant, as his lips twitch upward, I feel something other than despair from him. Something that in another time and place might be akin to amusement.

"He found me in December, on a night when the sky was clear and the Aurora was so bright he was able to see me lying on the side of the road, even though it was nearly midnight. It's the only reason he was able to see me. When we got to the hospital, I was, astonishingly, unharmed. There's no way to know how long I was lying in the snow on a two-degree night, but I didn't have frostbite, and I didn't have hypothermia. I was cold but otherwise unharmed. Ken thinks it was a miracle. He says that I must have fallen from the stars, and they kept me safe until he found me."

Jayce's face is soft. It's the softest I've seen it; the small lines that have lived next to his eyes and across his forehead each time I've seen him are barely visible. The guilt and pain and desperation that have threatened to swallow me right along with him whenever I've been in his presence have faded as I've spoken. Behind the black and hurt and emptiness that I struggle to hold at arm's distance when I'm near him, I feel a hint of something else. It's subtle and soft and gentle and so quiet that I'm not even sure it's real, but it feels like hope. Like maybe he's realizing that if I was able to survive, he might too.

I keep talking, hoping to nurse the small spark somehow.

"When I told Ken I'd keep John, he told me he'd think about it and come up with something perfect, and then three days later, he lays this on me."

I laugh quietly. "He didn't do me any favors with a name like this in such a small town. John might have helped me seem slightly less like an outsider, but when he suggested it and explained his reasoning, I couldn't say no. He offered me his surname as well, so at least that half is easier for people to pronounce."

I shift in my seat, growing uncomfortable under Jayce's intense gaze and wishing I had more espresso to sip as a distraction, but it's long gone.

"I love it now. I'm…different. I know that. Fewer people expect me to fit in here with a name like this."

He smiles at me. It doesn't last long, but it's the first time I've seen an actual smile rather than a twitch of his lips as they try to shift into the ghost of an expression simply because he feels it's a social obligation to do so.

"It suits you."

Warmth rushes through me. Aside from Ken, I don't interact with many people outside of work, and I certainly don't sit through two cups of coffee with them, especially when their emotions are as strong as Jayce's are. It's hard for me to keep pushing them aside and telling myself that they're his, not mine .

The warmth that's slowing growing in my chest is my own. It's because of him, yes, but this feeling is mine.

"Ken says you own the mechanic shop?"

The smile is gone. "Me and Jordyn. It's always been the two of us."

The wave of guilt and loss threatens to engulf me once again. I don't know how he's managed to stay standing feeling like this. No wonder he'd been staring at cheese.

I sigh and hesitate for a moment. I don't want to impose, but he clearly has no one else.

"I can't pretend to know what it's like for you. I don't have any family that I remember."

His gaze shifts back down to the liquid that still fills his cup as I continue.

"But as strange as it might sound since I'm not very social, I'm pretty good at knowing how someone feels, and I just…" I trail off for a moment as I try to figure out how to continue. "I took over Ken's bookkeeping a few years ago. I enjoy it, and I'm good at it. Ken told me that was your brother's department at the shop, so if you ever feel like you need some help with it…"

He hasn't moved, so I trail off, afraid that I've overstepped some invisible line.

I watch him closely, wondering if he'll offer me thanks once more and then stand and walk away. He'll probably tell me to go, that he doesn't need my help, that he doesn't want it. I don't want to go, and I tell myself that it's simply because I'm trying to help someone in need, that it has nothing to do with strong arms and jade eyes and the bright magenta surge of love for his brother that I felt roll off him when we first met.

And then the world is blue. It's the vibrant blue of the sky and the sea where they come together on the horizon on mid-summer days as relief washes over him. His shoulders move with his breath, slow and smooth, and his fingers reach toward his cheeks. His head is bowed, his gaze averted, but I watch as relief settles into his bones. It's dimmed and covered by a shroud of hurt and emptiness, but it's there as I watch his knuckles brush away the tears that have found their way down his cheeks and gotten caught in the scruff on his jaw.

"Thank you," he whispers to the table. "I can't…"

His breath stutters.

"Thank you."