Michael hadn’t thought of ‘both’ as being an option, though it would make a sort of sense since Lee is, in a way, both. Her question brings him up short, though, because it expands the issue beyond just her. Looking at other people is something he wishes never happened; it would be easier if Lee were the only person in the world he found attractive, the one exception, all he had to think about. He’s been pretending that’s the way things are for a long time. What Lee’s asking is going to end that, because he has to tell her the truth, and when he tells her, he’s going to be telling himself.
With a healthy dose of trepidation, he mentally sifts through acquaintances and near-strangers that have lingered in his memory, men and women in equal numbers. The details he recalls most clearly about them are small, specific things: their handwriting or teeth or gait, something clever they said, a mark on their skin. That stuff seems normal to him, common observations. Right?
He’s about to second guess that assumption when his mind starts volunteering some new images. Brief impressions of moments, feelings, people—different people than the others—come back to him from the lonely place he’d shoved them into. There are a couple women, some folks who might be like Lee, and a surprising number of men. All of them are beautiful, funny, talented. The attraction he feels toward them is faint compared to what Lee inspires in him, but it’s there, and he’s been trying hard to forget about it. Maybe he has forgotten people. Maybe he’s forgotten a lot.
He holds Lee more tightly, pulls one of his knees up by her side. His fingers have paused in her hair. “No one in particular,” he hedges after the long silence. It’s not a complete lie, but the evasion is obvious.