People reveal themselves when they think nobody is watching, but I watch and I notice. The restaurant is doing everything right. Low light, good music and a wine list that isn’t trying too hard. I've picked the table facing the door, like always, though I've stopped pretending that's a coincidence. From here I can see the host stand, the kitchen doors, and both exits. It's not a habit I remember starting.

Marisol is sitting across the table talking about her sister's wedding. My mind isn’t on what she;s saying, it's on her pulse. It's fast for someone this relaxed, her voice stays even and her hands stay still. That mismatch means part of what she's saying isn't true. I don't know which part, I don't really care. I just know there's a seam in it somewhere, the way you know a shirt is inside out before you can say how. I don't point it out, and I never do, that’s the first rule. You don't tell people what you know about them.

"and my mother just stood there," Marisol says, "completely speechless." Her pulse drops as she says it. Whatever this part is, it's real. Something about her mother that actually cost her something to say out loud. I nod like I've been listening the whole time. I just haven't been listening to the words, I've been listening to the things underneath them, which is a different skill and, as far as I can tell, not one most people have.

The waiter comes by to refill water we haven't touched. He asks if everything's all right with the food, and Marisol says it's wonderful, and it's a true statement delivered like one. I file that away without meaning to. I file everything away without meaning to.

Three tables over, a man in a gray suit laughs, and I can see the artery in his neck jump with it, once, twice, three times, before I make myself look somewhere else. I already know how long I stared. I always know, just four seconds, because five would have been a problem. It wasn't fast enough.

"You okay?" Marisol asks. "You've got that look again."

"What look?"

"The staring one. Like you're doing math." I smile, because smiling is the second rule, and I tell her work's been a lot, I haven't been sleeping well. It isn't a lie, I haven't slept through a night since Tuesday. Tuesday is the part I don't look at directly. I know I left the apartment and I know I came back. In between there's nothing…not fuzzy, not dreamlike, just gone, cut clean, the way film gets cut, two ends spliced together so well you'd never notice unless you already knew where to look. I know where to look but I still can't find it.

There's a version of tonight where I tell Marisol about the gap. I've run it a few times, the way you run a hand along a wall looking for a switch. In that version she asks reasonable questions like when did you notice? Has this happened before? have you talked to anyone?, and I answer them, and something gets better. I don't run that version past the first line. It doesn't feel like something that ends anywhere good.

My phone lights up against the tablecloth. I turn it face-down without checking the screen. Marisol notices and says nothing, which is one thing about Marisol. She notices everything and asks about none of it. I've never decided if that makes her safe or the opposite. Probably neither. It just makes her someone who has learned, the same as me, which rules are worth the trouble of enforcing. It buzzes again twenty seconds later. "You should get that," she says. "It's nothing." "It's the third one." I pick it up mostly to end the conversation. No name on the screen, just a number, and something about the number feels less unfamiliar than it should, the way a stranger's face can feel like it belongs to someone you used to know, before you've placed why.

I answer. "Hello?" There's nothing for a second, then breathing, very steady, deliberate, like whoever it is picked their next words before they picked up the phone. Not scared, I know what scared sounds like and this isn't that.

A woman's voice says, "You said you'd never do it again." I remain quiet. Somewhere behind me Marisol is still talking, but it's gone distant, the way a room sounds when you've stopped being in it. My own pulse, if I bothered to check it, would probably tell me something I don't want to know. "Do what?" I ask. The line goes dead.