The second Edinburgh event happens at eleven-forty on a Thursday night. Saoirse and I are at my flat. Not for any interesting reason. The Council sent data from the Lagos test and somehow reading celestial charts over takeaway became a normal way to spend an evening. My phone lights up first. Then hers. A cluster of reports from the city centre. People with designations describing sudden cross-sensations. All of them inside buildings my firm has worked on. I stand. Saoirse grabs her coat. We are halfway to the door when she stops.
“Wait.”
“What?”
She looks around my flat.
“Do you feel anything?”
“No.”
She closes her eyes. I know that expression now.
“Nothing here.”
“Meaning?”
“Your home isn’t doing it.”
I look around. I did not design this flat. The thought arrives at the same time for both of us.
“It’s the spaces,” I say.
“The spaces you create.”
The event ends before we reach the first location. Nobody is injured. The Council calls it encouraging. I use a different word. By one-thirty, Saoirse is still at my dining table while rain lashes the windows.
“You’re not driving in that.”
“I’ve driven in worse.”
“You can barely see the street.”
“I’m Irish.”
“That is not a qualification.”
“It should be.”
She stays. I give her the spare room. At two, I am still awake when I hear her moving in the kitchen. I find her drinking water.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
She looks embarrassed.
“The events leave an echo sometimes.”
“What kind?”
“Other people’s emotions.”
I lean against the counter.
“Tonight?”
“Fear. Mostly.”
I don’t know what to do with that. So I make tea. We sit in silence while the kettle clicks itself cool behind us. After a while, Saoirse says, “You don’t have to fix everything.”
“I’m making tea.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do.
“I’m an architect.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
She smiles into her cup. When she goes back to bed, she pauses at the hallway.
“Emre?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for staying up.”
I almost tell her she is the one staying in my flat. Instead I say, “Goodnight, Saoirse.” The next morning, I wake to the smell of coffee and find her at my window wearing my T-shirt because her blouse got soaked the night before. Nothing happens. No kiss. No dramatic confession. She hands me a mug. I take it. And somehow that is worse.