What were you thinking about so hard?

“What were you thinking about so hard?” she asked. “Nothing,” he said. “Just looking at the water.” “With your eyes closed?”

SMOOTH BY MEAGAN BERNABÉ 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 07

The interior of his car was black leather. The front seats had built-in warmers, and when he picked her up, her side was always already warm.

“Cold outside?” he would ask her, his Korean accent faintly audible as he pronounced the word cold.

“I forget,” she would say.

He’d smile with the corners of his eyes. She could never tell whether he understood what she meant. Part of her believed that he was smart enough to understand anything, while another part wondered if certain differences might be impossible to overcome.

They’d met two months before on the street where Delilah took the bus home from work. Behind the bus stop was an office building 35 storeys high, the bottom floor of which was occupied by an organic café. While she waited, she would lean up against a post and watch people go in and out. Most of them …