People With Life

13.

The house was quiet when I woke up the next morning. Gracie lay fast asleep still in Katie's bed, her face soft and peaceful in slumber. As far as I could remember, Katie hadn't come in during the night and I still had no idea what the fight at the party was all about.

Out in the hall, John and Mike's door was locked and I guessed they were still sleeping. The living room couch had pillows and sheets still on it, perhaps where Connie had crashed for the night. I knocked lightly on Marley's door and cracked it open. He was awake, on his phone and smiled when I lay beside him. His crumpled sheets were cool with the morning air blowing in through the open balcony. We didn't talk. We didn't need to. But just lay listening to the sounds of the sea and the birds in the trees. His phone rang suddenly, a call from a guy he had met while taking an early summer course at his future university. I gave him some privacy. I walked back to Mike and John's room. I slowly cracked the white shutter door to find only John asleep, propped up against the back board of the bed, a book resting on his chest and his glasses on his face.

He looked innocent and vulnerable and I thought how there was something sweet about a person giving into exhaustion right then and there, in the middle of whatever it was they were doing. An unintentional, natural reaction to life. Our guard down, the unconscious face revealing all the emotions the conscious one didn't in an act of betrayal by our most human side.

The room was strewn with clothes and sheets and sand at the foot of the bed. A messy room. With things left scattered all around. And though I was a person inclined to neatness, there was something natural and comforting about the scene. It showed a place where someone had very much been. It told a story of what the person had been doing. It showed a placed lived in, still filled with the warmth and smell of that person. It made neatness feel dull and boring and lifeless in comparison.

Light was shining in through the windows and shutters on the other side of the room with the vivid green palms just outside the window providing adequate shade. Books patiently waited on the side tables to be read later that night.

As if he felt me watching him, John opened his eyes slowly.

"Hey there old man," I greeted him.

For a moment he looked disoriented and confused, as if he forgot where he was. I walked over to him, feeling the urge to comfort him.

He smiled, placing his book on the bedside table and moving his legs over the side of the bed so he was sitting looking up at me as he held my waist. "Old man?" he asked, looking confused but amused. "Aren't I only a few years older than you?" he teased.

I smiled and pointed to his face. "The glasses," I clarified.

"Oh," he said, taking them off quickly, embarrassed as if he had forgotten they were there.

"No, I like them," I said, stopping him. "But come to think about it, you were lying down like an old man. Don't you ever notice how old people always sit up perfectly in their little spot on the bed? Kids and teenagers literally just lounge anywhere, flop down any way. A leg here, a leg there, only half their body on, an arm hanging off, propped up by one elbow, on their stomach, their head at the bottom, their feet on their pillow, sideways." He chuckled.

"Alright. Well come and show me how to lie like a teenager," he said jokingly seductive.

And then he suddenly pulled me down on the bed with him.

I struggled and laughed, tangled in his embrace.

"I have to warn you though. I'm not so still when I sleep. I'm all over the place," he said.

"Oh no. Well I'm sorry to tell you but I'm not so sure this will work out."

"Of course it will! I'll take up all of the space in the bed that you won't. Compromise baby!"