His Bedroom

The warmth of his bed is pleasant like a kiss of sunlight on my skin, it’s like dancing in a yellow sundress on the last day of summer, drunk on wine and barefoot in the grass. I probably should remember getting here, but there must’ve been too much alcohol last night, because I don’t. The sheets wrapped around my body smell like him, and all of his things are exactly the way I remember them being. The ‘I love NYC’ coffee cup is next to his notebook, the glasses he always forgets to wear are on his shut laptop, and this sense of familiarity washes over me. I could stay here forever; I think to myself.

The soft pink glow of the room reminds me of a California sunrise, where whispers of beige and burnt orange combine, hiding pale hues of blue. This room feels just like that, like it’s too perfect to be real. Like the quiet and stillness of this moment don’t really exist. And when I can hear my own breathing, that’s when the slow panic begins to build, when the overwhelming anxiety of the chaos about to commence settles in. Nothing that seems perfect ever is. There’s always some ugly lurking behind the illusion, like a predator about to kill its prey, the ugly storms through. And so, I wait for this scene to fall apart, for the sun to burn, the windows to shatter, the bed to crumble, the smell of him to disappear, but it just…doesn’t. 

The door opens and I gasp, my gaze fixed on it. I think my heart gasps, too, as I see him walk in. When he spots me, there’s a slow, boyish smirk on his lips paired with a small shake of his wet curls, and his blue eyes are filled with innocence and happiness again. 

“Good morning. I didn’t know you were awake.” I’m speechless, as he makes his way to me, leaning over to kiss me softly, a few water droplets falling on my face. 

This small little action is felt everywhere in my body and erases the fear I had of this not being real. Of course it’s real, I chastise myself, inhaling his clean scent. Maybe not everything good has to fall apart. 

“Want some breakfast?” I shake my head, and pull back from his hug, looking up at him. We’ve embraced over a million times, and this time just feels so different. His blonde hair still has the same loose curls hanging just by his ears. His eyes are the same shade of blue that I fell in love with, his lips are the same soft, pink lips I’m used to kiss, and his body is the same body that I call home. The same ‘Nirvana’ grey t-shirt hangs loose on his toned figure, paired with those old grey sweatpants he’s had since forever. Everything about him that felt like home, now feels different, despite nothing having changed at all. 

“Later. Come back to bed, now.” pushing those thoughts away, I lift the sheets and invite him in the bed. There’s a spark in his eyes, but there’s nothing like desire lingering there, just excitement. 

The mattress shifts as he lays down, crossing his feet as his arms go beneath his neck to support his head. A soft sigh escapes his lips and I listen to his breath. It’s so quiet and calm, like a sunny summer day, like a whispered promise, it sounds as if his heart is saying ‘I love you’ to mine. 

My head turns to watch him, his eyes are closed and the urge to touch him is incredibly strong, because for some reason, it feels like he’ll leave any second now. 

“Evelyn…” he whispers, and I lift my eyebrows, biting my lip. “You’re staring.” I can’t even help the smile that grows on my lips, and neither can he. 

I lay back down and face him, tracing his soft features with my eyes. God, he is so beautiful, he is so light, like everything he says makes me happy, makes me forget the cruel world outside these four walls. Anything he does is a work of art, and I am in love. I am in love with his heart, his laugh, his love for life. This man, whose palm lines I’ve memorized, whose endless warmth has injected itself into my veins, has my heart in his hand. I think he has all of me, every flicker of darkness, all the good and the bad, is right there for him to hold. When it comes to defining what we have, it’s difficult to label this kind of connection because I’ve never known a soul like his. I know it’s not just love, it’s friendship and goofiness and home. 

“Josh.” he hums in response, eyes still shut, waiting for me to go on. “How is it possible that you’re right here, and yet…I miss you?”

“It’s not.” he turns to face me, revealing the blue in his eyes once more. “You don’t miss a person, Evelyn. You miss memories, you miss the past, but not me.”

His tone is light, there’s no hint of amusement behind his words, and though I struggle to find another meaning other than the real one, I come up short. Josh isn’t sombre, he’s not dark or messed up, that’s me. 

“I don’t think that’s true, Josh. I know I can miss you. I know that if you died tomorrow, I’d miss you.”

“Really? How? How would you know the difference between missing me or the things you had with me?” he raises his eyebrows in question, willing me to go on, but something in his tone suggests he already thinks he’s right and I’m wrong regardless. 

“Well, memories can be recreated, Josh. You can trace your steps back as far as you want with a new person, and you’d feel different versions of the same feeling. I could have the same things I had with you with a new person, and it would still be different. Because it doesn’t matter what memory I’m making if what I miss is you. You’re the constant in this equation. You make the memory, not the other way around.”

For a second, I think I won, or maybe just impressed him so much with my philosophical thinking that he won’t throw an argument at me. 

“You would say anything but the truth, wouldn’t you, Evelyn?”

“What do mean?” my voice comes out like a whisper, unsure of where he’s taking us. 

“You love to tell yourself any pretty lie as long as you can take cover from the blow.”

“You’re not…making sense?” I shake my head, confusion coloring my features. 

“It’s like…so fucking annoying, Evelyn, how you just twist everything to the fucking limit just to keep your sanity.” I look away from him, hurt, bewildered, betrayed. “But how much of it do you really have left? Huh? How much longer can you really run from the truth, Evelyn?”

“Stop it, Josh, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re scared and yet you’re still here, next to me. That’s how twisted you are, Evelyn. You’d fall back asleep next to a monster only to not be alone. How sad is that?”

I rise from the bed, dropping the sheets. His words are like swords, cutting into me, undoing everything I thought I knew about him. Four years to fall in love, ten seconds to fall out of it. It was always too perfect, so we were bound to get to this point. The point where the façade shatters like a mirror, into a billion sharp pieces that cut right to the bone. But this bed was my oasis; the only thing that scared me was the thought of having to leave. 

“You want to know the truth, Evelyn?” God, even his voice is different, sharper, mocking. Not like my Josh. “The truth is, Ev, that you’re back here because you’re too scared to sit still and just face the impact.”

“What impact? What truth?” I’m surprised at the lack of tears on my face. If this were just any other day, where we’re in love and he’s not demolishing us, I would be a little more sentimental. 

“That we’re not really here. That I’m dead, Evelyn.”

I was wrong. The illusion hadn’t shattered until just now, in the silence that came after the truth. The dammned, ugly truth that tore down my chance to be in love forever. And it’s rage now, rage that I fell back into this trap, chased another high only to get the low, ran towards him only to be thrown to the ground. How many more times? How many more conversations with the same ending? How much do I have to endure until I can finally stop running away from…me?

I shut my eyes and turn to face Josh, who has decided to stand up, hovering next to me. 

My next breath is probably the most difficult one ever, because I’m using it to utter words that will break my heart. 

“You’re right. We were out on the road, it was my birthday, we were coming back from our picnic, and I wanted to drive your convertible as a birthday gift, even though you had already given me that book earlier, I’d always been so greedy when it came to you, though. I always wanted more, more time with you, more kisses from you, more laughs with you, more…you, always. You closed your eyes because you trusted me and threw your head back, turning the radio up. I remember because this Nirvana song you burned on your CD was playing, and I looked at you for one moment, and you rose up from your seat. I laughed. I was laughing and looking at you, and wishing you’d stay just like that, in love with me, forever. I didn’t even…it was so abrupt, the way everything happened. You just…disappeared, I didn’t even hear the other car, I just heard you. All I ever heard was you, even when you were out with your friends and I tagged along, holding onto your arm as you talked all night with them. I only saw you, even when the room was full. I only ever looked at you. You, picking lemons in your parents’ back garden. You, watching me dance in my sundress beneath a burning sun. You, stroking my hair while flipping the pages of your book. You, calling me at the most ungodly hours. You, hiding that ring in your drawer. You, flying out. You, dead.” 

He touches my cheek with his hand, and I lean into his touch for the last time. My eyes can’t open, I can’t watch him leave again.

“And now I know that you’re going to crumble in any second because you’re not really here. It was nice to hold on to you because I was my best me with you. And you’re right, I’ve been running away, from loneliness, because accepting that there’s a world without you in it, that my world doesn’t have you in it, feels like I’m a walking corpse. It feels like I’m dead, too, or maybe just in so much pain, I’ve simply stopped feeling. My heart looked just like yours, and now we’re both ashes to the ground. I loved you too much, so much that this is where it stops, this is where I stop because it hurts too much to accept that you’re not here anymore. There is an actual ache in my chest, and you gave it to me. I’m terrified of watching you crumble again, so if you go, this time I can’t watch, because it might just ruin me, Josh.”

There’s no tears, at least at first. There’s not even anger anymore. There’s not even warmth, his hand is gone and the courage to open my eyes seems to be missing, too. I think it’s because I’ve finally stopped. My oasis shatters, pieces of us flying everywhere in my mind, polaroids burning, his scent gone, and the most painful feeling yet, the monster I’ve been quietly running away from, hiding behind my twisted truths, is all that’s left. The stillness of just me. My little existence paradoxes the emptiness I’m in. 

And I open my eyes, then, to carved stories in grey stones, to decaying lovers and utter stillness. I thought he’d be in the wind, or in the leaves or in the flowers, but there’s no breeze, not one leaf in the empty trees, and no flower for any corpse. It’s just this version of me, one born with his death.