"Always."
"That day, when he told me to stay down, part of me almost did. Not because I believed him. Because I was tired. Because it seemed easier to let the room be his. And then I heard you." He swallowed. "You sounded like you were speaking from the middle of the earth."
Naomi's hands tightened on the wheel and then loosened. "I was speaking from the middle of you," she said. "That's where the earth was."
They did not talk for a while. The city rearranged itself around them—storefronts, buses, a bridge strung with amber lamps. When they reached the apartment—larger now, two bedrooms that did not share a wall with strangers' arguments—Isaiah went to his room and came back with the old clarinet, the school rental long returned, the camp instrument in its case, and the mustard cardigan over his arm like a relic and a joke.
"I'm not going to wear this onstage," he said. "But I don't want to throw it away."