I lay next to her side-by-side. My feet tap against the wall, my back against the bed. I am restless.
She sits upright to my left. I look up at her and I feel complete. She is me wearing different skin.
“I think that if you died I would too.”
“We’d be like those Pompeii victims, y’know? They’d find us tangled up around each other eventually. If you died, I would wrap myself around you and cradle your skull until we both became dust.”
There is silence before she speaks again.
“I’d do the same for you.”
We cackle at the same time.
Our fingers tangle together.
My hair splays out beneath me. It gets stuck under my shoulders but I am unable to move.
There is peeling paint on the wall.
I stretch out my fingers to scratch at the edges.
I look at the slowly revealing drywall while my mouth starts to form words.
“I think our parents are getting a divorce.”
“It’s different for me, I think.”
“How so?”
“Well, my mom didn’t really raise you. I’ve known your dad since I was seven. I know my mom was around for you but it wasn’t the same. Your dad raised me. Like actually took care of me. I don’t know, it just feels weird that it might be over.”
“It’s been over for a long time.”
Our fingers tangle more deeply. You cannot tell where I begin and she ends.
I open my eyes. The corners are covered in shadows. The sun has set.
She is slumped against the wall. I can hear her breath. It would take a miracle to wake her.
My feet are still propped against the wall. I roll over and look at her. Her curls are a lighter version of mine. Our fingers are still tangled.
I move closer to her. I grip her forearm with both of my hands. She is my home now. I would crawl inside her if I could.
She opens her eyes. She feels my finger nails digging into her arm. She cannot find it in her to care.
She moves from the wall. She lays face-to-face with me. She traces my eyes with her own. She sees my eyelashes resting against my cheeks and remembers the first time she saw it.
She disentangles our limbs so that she can further reach towards me. She takes my glasses off of my face and puts them next to her.
Her hair is tangled with mine. She is closer than before.
Our arms are twisted together. You could not separate us with a knife. You could not separate us with words.
I lean forward and rest my forehead against hers. Her heart pulls towards mine and I cannot resist.
I try to capture the details of her face.
Eventually, I will forget her but not today.
I memorize the placement of her moles and the distance of her eyebrows. I look at her lips slightly parted and the gap between her front teeth that is a memory from our childhood.
I will not fall asleep. I will stay with her as long as I am able.
I resist the lure of sleep.
We move our heads in tandem.
There are doubled spots of peeling paint on the wall.
The shadowed corners are numerous.
We slink out of bed and look out the windows.
Tomorrow when our parents find us,
a freak of nature, they will wrap our body
in newspaper and carry us to a museum.
But tonight, we are alive and in our bedroom and
with each other. It is a perfect
summer evening; the moon shining
in the sky, the wind against the trees.
And as we stare into the sky, there
are twice as many stars as usual.
