Coffee?

1.

The car was parked, convenience store neon stretching across the lot and sputtering out 2 parking spots away. We were staring at each other instead of ahead, and for the first time I realized that our collages of one another were imperfect. He did not know me. 

“No,” I said. My breath was coming fast, I could feel it oxidizing through my arms or my legs, not quite reaching my wrists. “Don’t tell me what you think. We were- are- so much better implicitly.”

“What are you?” He laughed a bit, more of a sigh. The light was low, a lone street lamp sharpening his features. I could see the outline of my cheekbones and jaw shadowed on his own skin. I shifted just enough so that we weren’t close like that. It felt too personal.

“Speaking is better small, specific. I… I can’t.”

His face softened, just a bit. “I know. It was easier when I couldn’t look you in the eyes.” 

I could hear his foot push the brake pedal, see the whites of his eyes turn red under the glare of the console. The car shook to life. His wrists were sitting on the steering wheel, hands splayed open as his palms pressed hard. I could see the blood in his fingers slowly drain, could imagine his thoughts. I liked imagining. Liked thinking of what his skin felt like, liked the idea of his pulse points, his sleep, how dark his room needed to be and what kind of toothpaste he used. 

2.

I remember once a drive like this, with a cookie and remnants of coleslaw on his breath when we spoke of brushing our teeth.

“It’s my least favorite part of the night, I always forget my tongue and when I wake up the throat…” I’d said. I gestured to my throat, grabbed it and pulled at the smooth flesh.

“I get it,” he’d said. “I always thought that how someone uses their toothpaste is the ultimate sign of wealth. When they squeeze it out, when they blow air back into it to make it look full, when they wash the top off so it’s clean, when they roll the bottom up.”

I remember here I was turned in my seat, the belt abrasively scratching my shoulder. His eyes were on the road, but they flicked over to me, and I felt suddenly exposed. “I always press the tube completely flat. Sometimes I’m just too tired for it. That’s where mouthwash can help.”

“Help,” he muttered. “Help. An example of adversity. Favors. Weakness. Vulnerability. An admission of guilt, of necessity, of damage.”

This was where things always got messy. The ambiguity, the challenge. This is where we both got competitive. It was a sort of game we played, a collection of words we each used to bait the other, like rusted fish hooks we chose to run through our vocal chords. 

“No,” I said, catching on a hook. I knew that my dissent would be both a victory for him and a loss. There was a way to impassion me, to bring me up to the surface, but it left both of us feeling dissatisfied and unheard. I knew he thought I was the ultimate conundrum. The most interesting piece of his life, aside from stores that closed at 8 and potholes in suburban streets. I knew he saw this as an intellectual battle, something that we could both pretend to be unscathed by but think of in early hours of morning. 

3.

While I spoke I imagined him staring himself in the mirror of his bathroom. His bathroom was warm, the walls painted orange, a little bumblebee night-light plugged in beside the sink. When I used his bathroom I always turned off the lights, just let the bee illuminate crystal sinks. I thought of his full face in the mirror, his shallow skin, his elegant fingers wrapped around a toothbrush. I thought of him staring into his own eyes, disassociating each of his features until he wasn’t human. His jerky movements as he turned off the light, a necessity, darkness spreading like a pale bruise over his skin. 

“No,” I said again. “You’ll never catch it. Even collapsed, even with glass in my heels, blood stained jeans or sweaty breaths. It’s always more, and there’s no limit. Greasy hair. Agony. It’s a focus, not an ask.”

He sucked in a breath. Sometimes I think he doesn’t realize how different our human experiences are. He often talks about falling asleep right as his head hits the pillow. He often shows up for these drives freshly showered, smelling of clove. That day I had on a hoodie. My hair was lank, thrown about, angled. I was wearing fishnets but not socks, knees bony and scarred, so I could feel my toes peek out into my shoes, and the shorts had curry stains on them. When he picked me up he said I was glowing. He said my lips were pretty, plump, and I knew my eyes were swollen. 

“So it’s a barrage. An assembly line, dark factory, piece after piece of twisted metal or…” He trailed off. There was nothing else he could think to explain agony as. What I was describing was foreign to him. Taking in more and more pain, over and over again, and coping. At first I knew he was angry at me, at how separate I felt from his existence and how my pieces didn’t make sense. Now I knew he was trying to mush our lives together and still remain fully complex. We both knew I wouldn’t speak plaintively. He doesn’t win. 

“More like waves,” I said. “But no low tide. They just creep higher and higher until green cliffs grow algae and I’m floating slowing in space. Circles, spirals, dark matter so full that we can’t see the end or the beginning.”

He pursed his lips, wanted to say something. That was when the turn signal blinked on, too loud, and he took a turn that shoved me into his arm. That was when he pulled into a spot, turned to me, and spoke.

4. 

I used to laugh at intimacy. In movies, in books, whenever characters spoke in depth to one another I felt a tightness in my chest and choked out a giggle, closer to a whine. I thought of when characters first kiss, how sometimes they’re so happy that they bare their teeth into it. In the car with him, I imagined baring my teeth. I imagined running my hand on the inside of his arm and leaving little smiles with my finger nails. 

“We were good,” I said. “We were coping.”

He turned up the AC, hands shaky, almost preformative. I pulled my legs up and wrapped my hoodie around them, even the shoes. His eyes were bright.

“It feels like a breech, I know,” he said. “You’re so used to me looking ahead and driving.” 

“You don’t know what it feels like. I don’t need pleasantries. I don’t even need most of myself. This is just new, but I was almost expecting it.”

He frowned at that. I think he wanted to save me, in a way. Wanted to break apart little pieces of my shell to get to the filling. The thing was, I was comfortable inside of myself. I imagined who I was as a little black spot in my brain, viewing the scenery through huge vaulted windows. He just had his own eyes.

“You know,” I started, and then masked a giggle. I didn’t know if I could get through it without laughing. “If you don’t want to do the games anymore it’s okay. If you want something more substantial, more clear, I can adjust. It’s just another way to cope.”

“Another burden?” He held eye contact. His lips were set in a tight line, slowly eased a smooth smile. 

I stared into his eyes instead of answering, lifted up my arms. My whole body felt slow, warm, like I could stop moving forever and dry out in the car, anesthetize. I felt my hands cup his face, shifted into a kneeling position. My legs slowly lost circulation.

“Everything is a burden in some respects. Nothing is truly like another. Even now, if you know every single part of me, every moment of my day, every dream. Even now, there will be perception. We will be separate. Sometimes I know I’m separate from myself. You just have to learn what information feels like. Whether sharing will be clean or grimy. What change will be like in your hands and in mine.”

We nodded together. I don’t know if I moved his head up and down or if he did it of his own volition. The convenience store switched its sign from open to closed, and the blue light castrated his eyes until they were only iris. He blinked, slow and steady. The AC was loud, reached down my shirt and chilled my shoulder blades. 

“There are some of your systems I will never be a part of. That’s okay. Complex is still good. Sometimes I know I don’t notice what you notice. I don’t think how you think. It’s like my attention is selective, and you’re just taking in everything, all at once. I think jokes are good. I think us being benign, light, is good. But sometimes I’d like to look you right in the eyes. Not the freeway. You.”

“Me,” I said, about to start another game. I would’ve said acid, the slow creep of a headache, tight grips which feel like massage. Something about me is uncaring, something bought, borrowed, stolen. Something about me is made of glass. It’s real, and it’s not.

I didn’t. Another game would feel too personal, and too shallow. We needed silence for a while, and then an easy segway into calm. I knew he didn’t think as far as I did. I knew he didn’t overcorrect, or saturate, or absolve. That was my job. 

“Coffee?” That’s what I said instead, and that’s what he smiled at, and that’s what we burnt our tongues on in large styrofoam cups. Something about him was care, and something about me was understanding.