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Mason
Then...
There was glitter on my pillow.
I blinked awake, unsure of where I was. What time it was. Even what day it was. I was unsure of everything except that there was glitter on my pillow, sunrise (or was it sunset?) peeked through the crack in the heavy drapes, and that an arm, warm and tanned and covered in bar stamps, was draped over my side. I was unsure of everything except the glitter, its colour, and the fact that I loved that arm.
I loved the delicate hairs that ran up, soft as down. I loved the delicate wrist bone at the end of it. I loved the sticky mess on the ring finger left from what must have been a candy ring. The kind you get out of gumball machines. Or win at fairs. Or buy in packets at convenience stores.
I couldn’t remember when we’d gotten candy rings. I couldn’t say whether she’d sucked it off her finger or whether it had been me. But I wished that the little sticky smear of colours, bright as the glitter on the pillow, could stay there forever. Perhaps I could tattoo it on her finger. Just like that. Matching the colour. Using the sticky stain as the stencil. The best stencil. The only stencil.
A hangover was on the horizon. That much I knew for certain as well. There was no avoiding it given how much we’d had to drink, half of which I was sure I wasn’t even aware of consuming. It was coming. And it was going to be brutal.
But for that moment, half awake, half asleep in that unfamiliar hotel room, I felt fine. Just fine. Okay, maybe I was still a little locked. Or maybe it was the remanent of the candy colour ring and my daydreams of making it permanent that had me lightheaded.
The arm stirred. The steady breathing that had warmed my bare back changed. A long exhale. Then a stilling. I didn’t know why, but it seemed like she was holding her breath. Slowly I turned over.
And she was there.
The reason for the glitter. The owner of the hand with the faded ring. Rachel.
Her wild hair was even more wild. From the hot wind on the strip. From dancing on a table at Denny’s. From snagging on the bricks that I’d pressed her up against in the back alleys of a seedy dive bar. From the couch in her dressing room. From God knows where else. From life. From love. From me.
A wing of blue eyeliner was smeared at the corner of her eyes. It made her look like a rockstar. Like a warrior. Like a little girl who got into her mother’s makeup. I loved all of them. All of her. Every facet. Every bright, shining spot. Every shadow.
Rachel smiled at me, skin aglow in the golden light of morning, but there was a hesitation. I got that sense again that she was holding her breath.
“Rachel.”
“Mason.”
We’d said each other’s names at the exact same moment. Speaking over one another. Speaking in time with one another. How could one tell? We laughed that nervous laugh. That nervous laugh you exchange with a fellow office worker when you run into each other in the hallway and you both move in the same direction. Then both adjust in the same direction. Awkward. Embarrassed. Not the laughter of people who knew each other. Who knew each other’s bodies. Who had spent a lifetime together in twenty-four hours. Or was it forty-eight?
“Rachel.”
“Mason.”
It happened again. We laughed nervously again.
“You go,” I said.
Rachel’s eyes were wide and earnest as she looked at me. I could see straight into her. Into her soul. Her gaze darted away and she licked her lips. When she looked at me again there was that hesitation once more. That holding of breath.
“Mason,” she finally said, her voice serious, “what we did last night…”
My stomach dropped under a surge of panic. I couldn’t remember the whole night. Or was it nights? What had we done that made Rachel hold her breath? Oh God. I dug through my darkened memories for something, something I didn’t even know what. What had I done? What had we done? Was there something I wasn’t remembering? Something I should have remembered?
Suddenly I wasn’t breathing either.
“Was that, us, together, I mean, was that just a drunken thing?”
I exhaled because I hadn’t forgotten anything. She meant us fucking. Us making love. Us joining ourselves together over panted breaths and sweat-slick skin. I hadn’t forgotten that. There was no way. No human way possible. I exhaled, but Rachel didn’t. Because I’d gotten my answer. But she hadn’t. She was still waiting. Eyes wide. Earnest again. They looked so innocent, so childlike. It was as if Rachel expected to be hurt. As if she’d been hurt all her life and she was ready for it once more. Not shielding herself. Not protecting herself. But opening her arms. Baring her heart. And ready for my dagger.
I opened my mouth to speak and words failed me. Because this was the part when I would say, “Remember what I told you last night.”
When I would say, “This has been fun. And that’s what I promised, right? All I promised.”
When I would say, “I can’t give you what you want. But I told you that. I told you that.”
