I help clean up, and Connor looks absurdly happy about it. I can almost see a thought bubble above his head that says, “Damn, I’m good at choosing roommates.”
I can’t stand it.
Cracks from the day are beginning to show, and I know myself well enough to know what they’ll bring. I need to get away from him as soon as possible and be on my own. I plead exhaustion, ignoring the trace of disappointment I see in his eyes. I take a long shower, hoping the steam and hot water will relax me,but they don’t. If anything, they work me up more. Everything in the bathroom feels other. It doesn’t feel like my place. Like somewhere I belong. Or somewhere I should be. Everything is neat and clean and smells like Connor. Not just like his shampoo or body wash. It smells like his skin. Like his hands and mouth. Like air that’s been in his lungs.
The more I think about it, the more I smell it.
My breathing quickens. Too fast in, too slow out.
Soon, I’m gasping. Doubled over and dizzy. There’s too much air in my lungs and not enough at the same time. My heart races and my conscious thoughts become thin and stretched out.
I need to get out of here, but I don’t want Connor to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.
I don’t want to be like this.
I stay where I am, breathing erratic, lungs burning, until I hear distorted voices in the living room. He must be watching TV. If I make a quick dash, I can probably get to my room without him seeing me.
I open the door as quietly as I can, and walk fast, but not so fast as to draw attention to myself.
“Night,” he calls.
I reply with a collection of consonants that pass for a greeting and close my bedroom door, leaning heavily against it.
I look around in a mix of disbelief and something stronger. My room is ridiculous. Too empty and too new. Too bland, too basic, and what the fuck was I thinking with that headboard? It looks nothing like me. Nothing like the person I used to be. Even the bedding I chose is wrong. Too black. Not faded or worn at all.
I keep my eyes down in an attempt to avoid the reality of my situation. I’m almost successful, but the haphazard lines of the parquet flooring draw my attention. I follow them until they lead me to the wall behind my bed. The wall with the stupid headboard.
The wall plastered with Havi’s photographs.
I fight it for as long as I possibly can, until my breathing has slowed to nothing. Until I’m lightheaded. Until I have no choice but to let my eyes travel upward.
They land on the photograph in the bottom row of the grid, the one on the far right. It’s a photo Havi took a few hours after he got his rose tattoo done. A close-up of the back of his hand. The ink is new and vibrant, shiny, and a little inflamed around the outline of the piece. In the image, he’s holding his hand up in front of his childhood bedroom window. In the background, though slightly out of focus, I can make out the back wheel of his old BMX. He used to chuck it on the grass when he was done riding in those days, instead of using the kickstand. It drove his mom crazy.
Before he got the tattoo, I told him it was a mistake. I said it was too big. Too noticeable. Impossible to hide. He said, “That’s why I want it.”
Seeing his hand on my wall makes me miss him so much that I message him even though I know full well he won’t reply.
Havi
How ’bout this? If you forgive me, I’ll tell you how badly I’m fucking up my life—in detail.
For real, H. This shit is next level. You’ll laugh your ass off.
16
Connor
Thedreamwakesme.The same dream as always, just a different version of it. I’m in the ICU, lying flat on my back. The mattress is a little too hard beneath me, the pillow a little too high under my head. Cardiac monitors and infusion pumps hum, hiss, and beep, but it’s quiet otherwise. Instead of being in a normal color or even black and white, everything I see is washed out. Faded like the cover of a vintage record or a print that’s been left in the sun for too long. Bright colors like reds and oranges are nonexistent. Shadows and dark things are bathed in shades of blue instead of black.
As always, I’m tired and in pain in the dream. Every breath is a struggle. Every beat of my heart is uncertain. Life hangs in the balance. A knife-edge dripping with the unknown.
Usually, the dream starts like this and follows iterations of what really happened. I dream of the people who came to see me when I couldn’t speak, and I see the faces of those who cried for me when I couldn’t open my eyes. I dream of the nurses whotook care of me, and the things doctors said to my parents when they didn’t think I could hear them.
“A few weeks at best.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I had better news.”
“A week, maybe more, maybe less.”
