[Quote Aesthetic of the Chapterish]
...
We're at my sliding door now.
Brooks pulls me inside the room. He walks over to the washtub in the middle of the room and turns the faucet. Warm steam starts to fill the air and there's rainbow bubbles floating toward us. He turns to me, undoing his own suspenders.
I swallow hard.
"Take off your dress," Brooks says.
I oblige.
I undo my dress and take off my heels and tights. My birdcage veil is on the floor. I flip my hair into a pile of curls on my head and climb into the tub. Brooks climbs in behind me and pulls me against his chest. I lean back, into the bubbles, into him.
Brooks circles my shoulder with his fingers, bringing clumps of foamy bubbles onto my skin.
It smells clean and sweet, like vanilla.
"Emmy," Brooks whispers quietly.
"Brooks," I mimic.
"Do you want to do this?" He asks.
"Do what? Take a bath?" I joke. I feel him shift beneath me in the water. Bubble displacement.
"This."
"We've tried this before. The distance thing." I pull my hand from his. Why? WHY do I insist on fueling my own masochism? Why can't I enjoy what we have?
Cause you're too smart you FOOL.
"We were kids." Brooks shrugs again. "We didn't try hard enough."
"Because we didn't want to," I remind him. "Because..." I stop myself.
"That was then, Em."
"And what? And this is now?" I can't help but laugh.
"This is," he says, tilting his head back, thinking. "A second chance?"
"Brooks, we can't go back to before. It can't be like last time," I say. No shit.
"Good, because last time didn't exactly work out for us," he smirks. He is maintaining the optimism, I'll give him that.
He rolls his eyes when I sigh. He squeezes my hand softly. "What do you want to be now?"
"Friends," I say, leaning into him slightly. "Who maybe... visit each other occasionally."
"Ok, friend who I visit occasionally," Brooks says, his lips close to mine. "It just so happens I'll be in Seattle next month."
His lips are so close to mine it's taking major restraint to not kiss him. We play this game to see which one of us can last longer –to see which of us will cave first like somehow this is symbolic of which one of us cares more.
Maybe it is. That's why I'll never lose. But I'm realizing something. Brooks already cares. I wonder how persistent he'll be –how many times he'll ask what we are or why we can't be what he wants us to be. What would I say?
I lean my chest into his and sigh heavily, wisps of breath escaping my mouth like tiny ghosts bleeding into the night.
"Well if you're going to be there anyway..."
Two Ghosts. Sir Harry Styles. That's what I'm thinking –that's what my brain has selected. Maybe we are –maybe that's all we are. Shadows of our old selves. Shadows that sort of seem to fit for now. Forever.
We don't sleep that night. We can't. We don't fuck either. We can't. It would mean the end.
Once again I think of the Labor Day carnival and of Thanksgiving and of ramen wrappers on my floor and of the Benefit from just one week ago.
Once again I think of our goodbyes.
They're always the hardest.
And they get worse every time.
So instead we don't say goodbye –we don't have goodbye sex. I know, adult of us. Will power is alive and well.
Instead we crawl into bed and hold each other. Instead we laugh about the night, already reminiscing about our time-capsule party. The silent shared memory of our time on the balcony passes between us.
The memory isn't as good as the real thing.
But it's enough.
My cable knit sweater shields my arms from the crackling fire. The duvet is fluffed around us like a hugging cloud. Our hands are warmed by mugs of cocoa, the overflowing marshmallows like little clouds themselves. Flames dance over the logs, each one counting down to when we need to leave –to when this will all be a pile of ash. We play footsies through our wool socks. We are 12. But it's OK.
Twelve year-olds appreciate how to enjoy the intimacy of playing footsies under the covers.
I finally drift to sleep, my first slumber of 2020, and I wonder what sleep will bring me. What dreams will greet me? What visions will I see? Maybe my life as I want it to be. Maybe I'll find answers. But the truth is I know my answer. I know what I want. Since I've been 15, whenever I've thought of the future I've thought of him.
Whenever I see my future, he's always in it.