You made the tea the way he takes it, two sugars and too much milk, because that is the kind of thing you know about a person after eighteen years. The living room is blue with the television, the radiator is ticking, and you come through the doorway carrying three mugs.
Cecily is on the couch with her rings on the coffee table and one hand flat on his chest, her mouth on his. Ferris has his head tipped back against the cushion with his eyes closed and his shirt open to the sternum, and her phone is lighting up the arm of the couch the whole time.
Nobody hears you come in. You stand there long enough to learn something you will not be able to unlearn.
"Tea,"
you say, and both of them come apart like a bell rang.
Cecily laughs and takes two of the mugs out of your hands.
"Thank you, babe,"
she says, and pads off toward the kitchen in her socks.
Ferris stays where he is, shirt open, one arm along the back of the couch. He does not reach for the third mug. He watches your face the way he watches a fresh piercing, checking the angle.
"Two sugars,"
he says.
Then, quieter, under the noise of the television:
"Put it down. Come and sit next to me. I want to see whether you can stand it."