LIKE A DRY GIN'S TWIST OF LIME!

You’ve been too scared to touch it before. Afraid that the feeling would taint your memory. You still are.

Only doing so now because Royd had encouraged it, demanded it even. It sounded so unnatural coming from him. Adding please after every statement that included should and keeping a hand on your shoulder as he forced you in front of the towering hunk of metal. He patted it roughly, the thing creaking before slightly folding in on itself. Dust rising from it before dispersing across the lab. Royd sheepishly coughed and smiled, gesturing for you to do the same before clocking out.

It’s been an hour since then, your feet ache. You are trying to grapple with the fact that you are trying to fix what had only existed in your dreams. A hand hesitantly reaches out, finding purchase against the chest panel.

The suit is cold against the pads of your fingers. It’s not sleek, not advanced, not anything like the photos. Something had convinced you that this was crafted by a team of aerospace engineers who were at the threshold of working for NASA. The stone blue paint has been scraped to reveal jagged sheet metal, skimming the edge of a corroded hole within the shell. A slight divot makes itself known once the bottom of your palm dips near the shoulder. The Mecha Man suit has been sculpted to be automaton perfection and all you can think about is how this piece of shit lasted for so long.

A low voice cuts through your inspection, “Didn’t know fondling my suit was needed for repairs.”

You freeze and spin towards the voice. Arms locked and hands continuously clutching at nothing, “Fuuu—ah! Robert, nice to see you down here.”

A slim man leans a shoulder against the frame to the workshop. The rim of a coffee cup resting on his bottom lip, steam curling along his face. His eyes crinkle for a second, too amused at what he’s seen. He takes a long sip before pushing himself off the wall, strolling towards the workbench. The speckled cup finds a home on a lone corner.

Talking to Robert feels like divine punishment. Obsessing over the suit for so long that you nearly forgot the man within it. A pang of jealousy settles in your stomach when he claims ownership over it with innocently posed questions about the nature of the repairs. He once returned a notebook of yours and asked if you were a fan of Gundam but scurried off without a reply, tucking a myriad of mock-ups against your chest. You wonder if he can glean the reverence within the crease of every pursed smile you return him with. If he knows that you had a poster of Mecha Man Blue in your bedroom for years and that it now sits somewhere in your closet.

If he does, he gives you the dignity to never mention it.

His face relaxes into that same stoic judgement, letting you off easy like all the other times. Never teases or presses further because he’s seemingly satiated by the initial embarrassment. It unsettles you, the idea that he could be hungry for more. Even as he nods his head towards the suit, the thought lingers.

“Blazer was telling me you and Royd were looking for somebody else to come on and help. How come two physicists can’t figure out how to use duct tape?”

He grasps the edge of the table, fingertips rubbing at the surface in an uneven rhythm. He’s tense, you can feel it engulf the room—a wire that’s been wound too tight and is awaiting relief. You know the question he wants to ask but never does. Robert’s never been brave enough to ask the important questions.

You divert, “Not a physicist.”

He knows that and a corner of his mouth lifts upward. You don’t brag about your degree but Blazer does. She thought in some part that it would assuage Robert, give him some peace that at least one other person knew what they were doing. He still stops by everyday, checking every sketch like he could compete with your expertise. It’s another way that he can keep his peace and so you let him.

He tries to shrug off the uncertainty, “Care to tell me the difference?” It doesn’t look good on his lithe frame. The awkward movement makes it seem he’s trying to relieve some soreness. Maybe it’s both.

“I think a physicist would have the hindsight to know you inherited a broken pile of shit.”

Your lips purse and he stills. Then nods, a crooked smile follows after a barely there chuckle. Rarely is there a moment where you’ve caught someone off guard and if so, it has you basking in the surprise as well. You haven’t ever expressed your displeasure at seeing the machine so worn and unkempt. Scoffing into frayed wires and observing inadequate welding be smoothed out as you stood by Royd’s side. It doesn’t look like the pictures. You think you need more than just feeling the suit to release that thought.

Robert looks behind him, his pinky toying with the edge of a blueprint. One with so much gibberish scrawled on it that it’s practically worthless. Both of you know that’s not true. “The Astral Pulse too?”

You pause, but relent with a soft nod. “Without any schematics for it? Yeah, that too.”

He hisses through his teeth, eyes trained on the floor. You can tell he wants to look for the design. Certain that if he could, he would scour every inch of this Earth to find any trace of what the small canister contained. Instead, he goes to take a sip of his coffee again. The bitter brown liquid catches on the corner of his mouth as he speaks into his cup. “Sorry the old man couldn’t be of any help.”

You can visualize the outline of Mecha Man Astral. Cobalt blue spandex suit with white metal plating, his emblem emblazoned along the plateau of his chest plate. Everything else is an estimate–brown eyes, a mustache, large build. The pieces are there but you cannot force them together to gather a clearer picture. It’s been ages since anyone has mentioned the previous generation and guilt sears itself within your chest. What has always been a concept to you was someone real to Robert.

“Y’know, I saw him once. He gave a seminar at my uni and talked for like forever.” You don’t know why you say it. You can’t tell if you are trying to comfort Robert or yourself for thoughts you have never expressed openly. For wanting this opportunity so badly that it created the decline of his family’s legacy. The concept sounds absurd but Robert perks up slightly. “Wanted to be a doctor when I was a freshman but he said something that stuck with me.”

The memory of being pre-med, shuffling into early biology classes, dissecting a variety of creatures makes you nauseous now. Everything back then fell into a linear process. You would go to college, get into med school, go through residency and end up as some version of a doctor. Becoming one only because it was suggested to you as a career of the wealthy and you valued that more than anything you considered yourself to be passionate about.

You didn’t even want to see Mecha Man talk, but your roommate had been such a fanboy and feared he would faint if he didn’t have someone to ground himself. Even then you were only convinced when it was revealed to you that they would have pizza at the event. You sat in a cramped lecture hall, slumped in the wooden backrest of the desk and waiting for the man of honor to stop chirping at the faculty.

He’s moved closer now, standing to your left with his hands stuffed within his pocket. You don’t even remember seeing him drift your way, just overhearing the scuff of shoes against the linoleum floor. “What was it?”

“You’ll think it’s dumb.” You’re surprised to find that he’s already looking at you. Brows furrowed, lips slightly parted like he already has a reply before you even do. Your eyes flicker back towards the suit, skin growing warm, “Everyone tells me it’s dumb.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Your fingers trail along the shoulder of the suit, soothing yourself with the simple motion. It’s been so long since you said it aloud that maybe you’re starting to think it’s dumb too. “The suit meant nothing if there wasn’t someone willing to die with it.”

There’s a silence that roots itself within the sterile white walls. You know that the guilt that’s been stewing should be flaring against your skin and that a series of apologies would follow in the feeling. Yet, all that floods your senses is relief. It’s been so long that someone hasn’t heard that and immediately responded with some deadpan quip or a resigned expression. The dip in the conversation holds you within its grasp, offers you comfort over all the other times you’ve been doubted.

For all the times it feels like Robert is overly opinionated, this moment is free of that.

“Still think you would’ve done some good in scrubs.”

“Yeah, but I get significantly less blood on me so…”

He laughs at that, not anything full-bodied. It’s one where he looks away as he huffs, a smile that is struggling to grow wider because he shouldn’t have found that as witty as he does right now. You didn’t think Robert was the type to be so easily impressed but maybe he didn’t expect for you to relax. There’s an ease that passes between the two of you, a subtle breeze that assures you that even if he did know about you–he’s grown less weary.

“It’s ridiculous, coming from me. But sometimes you gotta ask yourself, if you’re not willing to die with it then what does it mean to you?”

It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous, it’s dumb. Any pejorative against your intelligence would be apt at describing the statement you delivered like a sage. You would never die through the line of work you’re in but the ceiling could cave down at any minute and you have some odd inkling that you could leave this Earth satisfied. There’s not many who would say the same.

Robert hums and it’s a sound that trips over itself a bit, caught in his throat. Trying to vocalize his thinking, allow some space for what you’re saying. It’s something he’s still working on. “Hm, you thinking about becoming a life coach?”

You swivel your head towards him, narrowing your eyes. “I’m trying to be sincere here.”

He’s not focused on you anymore. His hand outstretched, a finger trailing up from the waist to the shoulder. Maybe he wants to desperately feel the same zeal that thrummed through your body only a few minutes ago. A long sigh leaves through his nose and his shoulders slump, adjusting to the absence. Despite this small moment of understanding, you are both still strangers to one another. A little too willing to keep secrets to yourself.

“You think I should’ve died being that?”

As Mecha Man? As a hero? As something that he inherited from birth?

When you’re gone, you will be remembered in smaller ways. Through schematics, an engraved level you keep near your bedside, scientific papers you’ve peer reviewed. Things more meaningful for you than they would be for anyone else. You forget it’s not the same for Robert. He will be mourned twice and one persona will always be more important.

You shrug and it feels stiff. A quick rise of your shoulders that quickly plummets. “It wouldn’t have changed anything if you did.”

“You’re contradicting yourself.”

“Maybe but I don’t know. I’m not a hero but it’s like comforting to think about someone so willing to put their life on the line for something.”

For as much as you thought he was obsessed with pivoting a conversation, Robert absorbs what you’ve said. Rocks back onto his heels and stuffs his hands into his front pockets again. There’s no sarcastic remark, no exasperation, no playful glare.

It is just you and him, basking in the hypocrisy.

He looks down at you from the bridge of his nose, weary coffee irises paired with sunken bags. “Would you do the same to fix this?” He’s not asking what he really means.

To fix him. In some way, Robert and suit are one in the same. He hinges his pride and strength on the state of it. If he cannot make the decision to become Mecha Man then he is resigned to a normality he’s struggled with. If you cannot repair the one thing he is so desperate for then what do you have left to your name? The thing you have foolishly dedicated your life to is mere inches away and you are trying to grapple with the fact that you are trying to fix something that is slowly becoming human to you.

You take the hand of the mech suit, slowly rotating it to test the joints. “A thousand percent.”

There are moments where he cannot help himself from pressing a peck on your lips. It’s a quick thing—one that breaks through your thoughts and makes you forget what was even being said. All you can feel is the trace of his lips and a warm tingling whenever you are reminded of it. You watch the way he grows smug in the aftermath of affection, like he always wants you wide-eyed and enamored with his small bouts of spontaneity. You lean forward again as does he, connecting and smiling against one another.

Worries at times that he is not good enough for you. He should be by nature, it is written in his core that he should be the one who effortlessly slots into your life like he could replicate the beat of your heart if you gave him the chance. There’s times where he struggles after a conflict where discomfort brews within his chest or purposefully adjusting his routine around yours even when it does not suit him. He is supposed to be your last love, the one who is woven with you as the sun sinks low and you don’t thank him but he can feel your appreciation humming from your skin. It doesn’t happen and one night on the couch, you whisper about give and take—scratching your nails across his skin and becoming more attuned with the belief that you want satisfaction and not sacrifice.

Searches for you first within a crowd, it first happened unintentionally during the Trivialetics competition. He saw you planted firm against all the others and gazed at him as if you had always known that the two of you would’ve locked eyes even if it would’ve taken hours. You anchor him, the slight crease of your eyes and your resistance to the sway of other bodies make him feel steady. Makes him feel like there is less pressure for something to be won if he knows that you will still seek him out when it is all over.

The feeling of your nails dragging along his skin always soothes him. At times you two will still be up in the early hours, tossing and turning sheets so that they grow along your limbs like vines. His back will be turned to you, a peek of tanned skin gifted to you from his shirt rising along his torso. A finger runs along the low ridges of his spine until your hand sneaks under the cloth and he shudders. Your nails, nearly ghosts but he can feel his shirt contort along your hand, skim across the expanse of skin. Up and down, he counts the loops until he can't anymore and you both lay limp with your hand near the small of his back.

He slips in mentions of you during his frequent gossip sessions. Lux and Scandalabra loathe him for it and are currently conspiring a way to make a ban of mentioning you a concrete statute of these meetings. It just comes very natural to him, your name slipping from his tongue whenever some piece of gossip sparks a reminder of you. He thinks about how you would love to hear about Dirk and Harper’s newest split or how Beverly seems to get oddly close to Jean Loo whenever she’s slightly drunk. He imagines your lips trapping amusement within the corners of a smirk and indulges himself with inserting you in a conversation every now and then.

Asks for you to watch either two things: reality shows or sports games. Both things are inherently competitive, there are small tiffs to be won and championships that hang from belts like small trinkets. Dating shows, Wimbledon, surviving on an island for as long as possible, Cricket World Cup, drunken people spitting out vitriol on a hot sticky street that is lit by neon lights. You are splayed out on your couch, lit by the grainy screen of your television, and he is curled up beside you. Head resting on your thigh as you weave a hand through his hair and sometimes catches glimpses of you shaded in technicolor, intent on understanding him even through something so abstract.

The ball rises into a high arc before an arm slings forward and slams it across the court. It goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Until the tiny neon sphere is caught against the net and bounces along the boundary. Someone comes to collect the ball and the players reset, sharp and narrow focus on what rhythm is yet to come. He can feel the plush of his cheek meld with the fabric that covers your thigh, a hand toying with the small hairs at the back of his neck and twirling whatever has grown around their fingers. Your head doesn’t move but, in his periphery, he can see your pupils darting across the screen and knows that you too have become enraptured in this rhythm.

He is tactless when he shifts within your lap. Writhes within the tight space so that he is able to lay flat on his back, his eyes trailing towards the expanse of your collar. The tension held within the skin when a serve is deemed out. The clench of your jaw when a backhand is an inch short. How a smile is etched inch by inch through each return in a rally. He reaches out a hand to trace a finger against the curve of your chin. He wants to do this for a long time to come.

You flick his forehead, “You’re really not paying attention for someone who begged me to watch with you.” 

He knows you were off doing some task with some other object. Middling in the relationship of Harper and Dirk or attempting to solve some tangled mystery with Maggie—it didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. You agreed to sprawling along the couch and letting him do the same to you in kind, intertwined limbs and letting the glow of the television replaced the bleeding horizon.

He runs the pads of his fingers along your side, watching how you marginally squirm from the sensation. “C’mon, snookums, you know begging isn’t my sort of thing.” He watches your face sour, lips pursed into a flat line and eyes nearly shut. Yet, they never leave the screen. You are intent on doing what he has asked of you.

“You pouted and basically dragged me here.”

“Well,” He stretches the syllables and his tongue lightly sticks out, resting against his teeth. “aren’t you happy I did it?”

— ZOEY

When Zoey realizes that her feelings have run deeper than some flighty crush, it utterly consumes her—it is something simmering just under skin and makes her ripe. She blurts it out, it has been burrowing and festering within her chest for so long she practically shouts it at you. An immense relief overtakes her before growing flustered, avoiding your eyes as she chews on the inside of her cheek. She’s not sure that the feeling goes away, just melds with her so that this elation ebbs and flows.

She thinks that if she commits you to memory, she will have you on a level that supersedes the physical. The width of your nose bridge, every crooked tooth, that signature scent that seeps from you like sweat pearling against your skin. But it’s useless, she thinks she’s got you’ve all figured out until a new birthmark appears or your skin shines differently when the dim light catches it. She frets over it, the possibility that forgetting even a silver of these things will mean that she will not have you as hers fully. Something washes over her one late afternoon, you are coated in the pink haze of a sunset and turn to smile at her. It was silly from the start, she can never forget your face.

Tells you of things that remind you of her even if she’s not sure how the connection was formed. There is children’s laughter that runs along the street, seeping through the cracks of the house’s foundation. An ice cream truck that belts out the most annoying jingle for five minutes straight as people line up for soft serve. A storm that comes in suddenly and small balls of hail patter against the window pane. She wants to let you know that all the joy in the world has been divulged to her by your doing.

She loves learning how to love you, it delves deep into her and emotions bloom a heavy haze against her misty frame. You fight, you laugh, you kiss her and grasp at where you think the curve of her jaw is. At times, your hand scrapes past the thin boundary and tickles her. Sometimes she convinces herself that she is not cautious enough, that she is letting someone become so entangled with her, that one day it may all shift and turn sour. She tells you of these fears and you hold them close to your chest, taking them as your own. Everything feels a bit lighter and she falls a little more in love.

It’s a Tuesday. It’s a Tuesday and it’s raining outside so you’ve cracked a window open a bit. It makes the attic hot and sticky and smell like warm asphalt mixed with mildew. Still, it’s a Tuesday and it’s raining and you have decided to spend the afternoon with her. There’s a glass of juice cradled within your hands, golden in color and smells like wind blowing through an orchard. She couldn’t put the rim to her bottom lip but you raised it to her nose, let her inhale and sigh. You take a sip like she has been infused with the liquid by that simple action.

You’ve been doing this for the past few days. Bringing her new things so that she doesn’t just remember the small things but actually experiences them. On a Sunday, it rained and she stared out the foggy glass to observe how the rain splattered against the pavement in thick droplets. She felt your eyes trace over the outline of her before taking a seat beside her. Now, you opened the latch and lifted it from the sill to hear the drumming of a humid storm and the rush of a stream that deposits onto a street drain. A few weeks ago, she said she missed the crunch of a gala apple trapped between her teeth and she saw you come home with a jug of juice that was nearly two liters only days before.

“Does it smell as good as you remember?” There’s a trace of liquid covering the corners of your mouth. Tongue peeking out and wiping away the excess, the tender muscle being taken by your teeth afterwards.

No, not at all. She is missing about three sensations from the experience altogether, it is a muted replacement but she lets the sentiment flicker at the edge of her spirit. She pauses, “It’s definitely a smell.”

Your nose wrinkles, peering at the glass and bringing it up. Taking a quick sniff before looking up in thought, “Huh, that’s definitely feedback. Should I get a different brand?”

“No!” She cries and your face flattens out in surprise. Some part of her can’t help but compare you to a past you were never aligned with. Zoey worries she will upset you if she cannot meet expectations you have not expressed, that no matter how many times you assuage her—she is always searching for some piece of him within you. She never finds it. “It’s not what I meant, just something I need to get familiar with.”

You nod, a movement bordering imperceptible, and place the glass on the sill. A free hand reaches past the gap of the window, palm up and letting beads of rain coalesce within the center. You don’t seem to mind that your hand is soaked as it retracts, “Whatever you need.”

She watches as you offer your hand to her, slick with rain water and fingers limp. You are not expecting her to hold your hand, instead offering the feeling of how the water clings to your skin. Her hazy hand grazes past your skin and you shiver.

— STEPFORD

It’s surprisingly casual when you get together with him, as if you two had been like this from the beginning. There’s no fanfare or grand declaration, it is just the two of you orbiting around each other and deciding that you don’t need to make a spectacle over what this needs to be called. He takes your hand once as the sun sinks low and lightly squeezes it, you think it all started somewhere around there.

Really takes to calling you corny nicknames like babe or beautiful. Doesn’t matter if you keel over and pretend to gag at them, he takes your reaction in stride. Making sure to sneak one worse than the last just to see your face contort as the conversation continues. He decides his current favorite within his awful rotation is “snookums”.

Not that I think he wouldn’t love a compliment directed towards his appearance but he absolutely beams when it’s about something non-superficial. You notice his effort in trying to understand things you’re interested in, his passionate disposition in everything, his innate desire to make everything a game he can play. You appreciate him, let him know that he is yours and that love is not a competition. Despite that, he still thinks he’s won.

Makes you promise to show up to any sort of event he’s participating in, even if it’s not inherently competitive. Open mic at the Breaker Box, game nights around the house, working out with the others in the gym. If there isn’t a first place trophy, they better start making one by the time he shows. He always manages to find you in any room and you feel like if he could, he would be saying that everything is dedicated to you. You’re glad he doesn’t because sometimes he flops horribly.

Takes evenings to be his downtime so when he’s not tanning for an absurd amount of time, he centers his attention on you. Learning your nightly routine, creating a shape in your bed, entangling himself within duvets and limbs. Sometimes he even wears your clothes, yearning to be enveloped by things that contain some essence of you.

Thick cloth wraps around his bare skin, moonlight glimmers against him and all he can feel is a weighted warmth that blankets him. His eyes drift open slightly, narrowed lids focusing their attention on you. Your head pressed into his chest, shoulders hunched, curled into yourself but his arms drape themselves over your body. This desire is different, melts the feeling into a pool where he is floating with only his head above the water. Treads everyday and has to remember to breathe when he has caught himself within tender displays.

“Your feet are cold,” the words are muffled, trapped within the gap where your head meets the pillow. He feels the frigid flesh against his skin, and keeps it there.

You huff instead of laugh. The sudden amused exhale fanning across a worn t-shirt he’s borrowed from you. It’s from a band you like but his frame fills the fabric better than yours does. “Is that why they’re being held hostage by your thighs?”

“Thought you really liked my gorgeous toned thighs?”

“Lots of adjectives,” He knows you’ve seen him thumbing through a thesaurus. Picking out five dollar words that he could string together to bring attention to his good looks. In the moment, you chose to compliment him on improving his vocabulary. “but yeah, I like ‘em.”

He presses a kiss to the top of your head , inhaling and a smile wriggles itself upon his visage. “Is there anything else my sweet darling babe wants to say about my awesome bod?”

You sigh, “Goodnight,”

The night settles on your bodies, another memory woven into your dreams.

— CABRIZZIO

When he decides that he wants something more serious with you, Cabrizzio has some ideal outline for how everything will go. He will walk up to you, snake his arm around the small of your back, kiss you deeply while dipping you, and whisper his adoration. Instead, he finds it happens on a morning where you look a little messy and bleary eyed. Hugs you from behind and sways, breathes a small confession within the crook of your neck. Everything has been leading to this exact moment, he knows this as you turn and kiss him.

Enjoys always having some part of him touching you. His shoulder glued to your own, his pinky linked with yours, tips of shoes bumping together. He finds it romantic, a magnetic pull that will always ground him back to you. Doesn’t even think kissing you is his favorite thing anymore, just nudges you with his knee and watches as you acknowledge him with a nudge in kind.

Loves sitting with you in the kitchen on slow mornings. The sunlight filters in through an open window and bathes the both of you in a glowing daze. Steam rises in long wisps from espresso that Kopi made, the mist swirling around your features. He grabs your hand and presses a kiss to each knuckle, some sickly saccharine phrase leaving his lips after each one.

Movie nights where he refuses to watch anything other than romance movies but will make an exception if it’s in Italian. You don’t have the heart to mention that he’s not actually from Italy and was only crafted there and shipped to your home. More so focusing on how you slot so well into his body, an arm slung around you and your legs layered on top of his own. The subtitles blur together but he picks up the slack, murmuring translations within the shell of your ear.

The espresso sits daintily in a small dish that was purchased with Daisuke’s consultation. He remembers you agonizing over it, insisting that this small piece was integral to your mornings togethers. How it would set the mood for all mornings to come where you would sit and idly stroll through different topics while taking sips from the small rim of the cup. He thinks you’re wrong but keeps it tucked within his chest, letting it stay within the corners of his smile as he gazes at you.

He believes that you are the thing that all mornings gravitate around. Your presence tethered to every object, every movement, every thought. You could’ve chosen the most gaudy furniture and the wrong mug but he’s assured that this moment would’ve been the same in any other place. He knows that he would’ve been sitting across from you, blanketed within the late morning and store-bought baked goods you swear taste better than the real thing.

“You’re staring. What’s up?” There’s flakes of pastry that you wipe with the back of your hand. The butter leaves a trail that glistens underneath the canary colored light.

“The steam caressing your beauty,” He answers concisely. If you would let him—he would speak about the bend of your knee as you perch a foot on a secondhand chair, your lashes clinging together as they keep traces of sleep, your fingers leaving indents within soggy bread. Cabrizzio restrains himself and decides there will be mornings to come where you are just as beautiful as you are now. “I’m almost jealous, cara mia, I would think I’m not doing enough to take care of you.”

Your tongue clicks against the roof of your mouth, “Dropping the ball, man. Not even sure I’m being loved any more or whatever.”

It’s not serious, he knows this. You love to tease but he adores buying into it, being hooked on bait that is glinting within the waves. He fixes himself to stare at how your chest expands, rising and falling a little quicker than before. He hooks your fingers underneath his palm and kisses the back of your hand. “Tu sei il centro di tutti i miei desideri.” He parts his lips, teeths at the skin but his lips skim as he speaks. “Ho visioni di ogni mattina come questa in cui mi guardi e mi ritieni degno di amore.

Your lips purse but he can see how you strain, letting the giddy feeling bubble over your skin. He can feel it too.

— RIVER

It hits River all of a sudden, not some crazy collapse but something that just unravels in her chest all at once. She’s not sure how she should say it, what perfect combination of words that will evoke the same feeling from you. She asks for advice from those she thinks know romance like they know freckles on their skin or the way hair tickles their neck. It’s useless and there’s a moment where she’s tear ridden and hiccupping before you and admits between your concern. I like you and I don’t know what to do with it. You wrap your arms around her waist and embrace her, telling her that you’ll figure it out together.

Nervous to introduce you to her interests, she’s become used to downplaying their importance to her as protection against the possible opinions of others. She’s a surprisingly crafty and artistic person—watercolor painting, small ice sculptures she can conjure within her palm, studying pages of a flower arrangement book that Lyric exhibits to her. These are fragments of her, ones she pretends that don’t matter until your curiosity grows with every question she answers. She stammers and flushes under the attention but you wait and ask her another.

Loves being around you, not even in a possessive way but just likes knowing you’re near. You could be doing anything else and she will sit nearby, admiring you, and even appreciates it in the reverse. She used to think that being watched would be a detriment to her work, the burn of someone’s stare flaring over her skin, but became accustomed to the thought that you view her in the same vein she does you.

She to be jealous of how you came into your own, feeling a little more comfortable inch by inch after you had received the glasses. Moving through the home like you’ve known your place within it since birth. She covets that sort of composure, would’ve envied it at any other point in time, but you always look back at her. Nodding your head, beckoning her forward, letting the anxiety eat her alive. She finds it’s not so bad learning her place beside you.

River’s skin skims over your arm as she holds your hand, directs the brush to skim over the canvas to let cerulean bleed behind it. You wanted her to teach you how to paint and had settled on something cliche—a wave breaking against the sand. She didn’t mind it, her eyes focused on how your body buzzed with excitement over the idea and let something solitary become full of things that stop your bodies from becoming one. Dust, air, her skin plush against your warm flesh, it’s all she can think about at this moment and it makes her dizzy.

She knows you can hold the brush on your own but you insisted. She knows that you could’ve sketched the simple spirals and jagged edges but you requested to see what she thought it would look like. She knows that you would’ve hummed anyway but can’t resist indulging in how the sound sticks to her skin, ripples within her body. She can only think about how she is collecting these things, that all of them will create her greatest work as of yet. This simple painting and how everything she feels is bottled between the gap where her fingers swathe yours.

You suddenly pull your hand back from the canvas, “We went over the line,”

“Huh?” She tenses, her hand removing itself from your own. Her chest twists and wrings her ribs so tight that she finds she is unable to breathe. River stutters, “Thought you wanted this?”

Your brow furrows at her words. Pointing at where the brush was mere moments ago, “No, I mean we accidentally painted into the rocks.”

“Oh.”

There’s a small bit of deep blue that crosses the edge of a rock she sketched out. It’s something like a blot, one that must be smaller than the tip of her finger. She would’ve obsessed over it even when it was finished and stored in some dusty corner, coated with cobwebs and damp with damage. It would’ve sat in the back of her mind and weighed heavy until she pulled out a new canvas to replicate it from memory. It would never be the same and she would carry that. She looks to you and it suddenly feels like she’s unafraid of plunging into the deep end.

She wraps a hand around your shoulder and nods, “We can paint over it,”

What you and River do is practice, it’s the small lie you assure yourselves with before every meeting. Drumming the pads of your fingertips against the dining table and playing pretend for another night. Sitting opposite of another with tight lipped smiles and dressed too fancy for the mundane decor that dulls your kitchen. She always changes her look—hair up and tight dress this time—but you barely mention it. The compliment, swollen and resting within your throat, struggles to free itself.

It almost never does.

She asked for your help, wanted to rehearse all the lines she would say until it felt natural. It felt odd at first, being the one to be chosen amongst all the others but you found no use in unraveling its meaning. Convenience, fate, karma, whatever you wanted to call it—you were there and that was reason enough.

Still, the question festers. You’ve never considered yourself to be particularly charismatic. There’s malaise tinging every interaction you have. Wondering if you move your limbs at a normal pace, if your face contorts into an expression where every feature feels isolated, if you are projecting your neuroticism. A thin, knit tablecover blankets the worn tawny table and the excess spills over the edge into your lab. You take the edge within your thumb and pointer finger, picking at the fabric and believing it will still be intact once this is done. Whether River takes notice of it, she does not comment on it.

She slips into the arched oak chair, spine stiff against the structure. Tugging down the edge of her dress to combat it riding up the length of her thigh. The legs of the chair screech as it scrapes along beaten hardwood floors. She winces but both of you are inclined to let the moment pass. It’s a habit you’ve fallen back on too many times to count and you rely on her to do the same.

River treats every date like it’s your first. Two strangers destined to meet at your dining room table, veiled in flickering candlelight that casts your towering shadows on quilted curtains. Some pasta dish is plated to an unusual degree of class and set on a secondhand place mat that disrupts an amorous nature she is desperately attempting to bottle within this corner of your home. She doesn’t care that Cabrizzio may have undercooked the food or that she cannot feel anything from the multiple sips of wine she forced Beverly to serve—this is idyllic. A fantasy she’s seen come to fruition a thousand times over and yet, you feel that hasn’t come any closer to bridging the gap that makes whatever you’re doing tangible.

Her chin is perched upon her fist. Some stray strand of hair falls along the corner of her eye, she blows at it only for it to barely nudge. The physics surrounding her are enigmatic. “So, honey, you come here often?”

The words are a crutch, something she once picked up from someone she admired so greatly that it almost consumed her. She usually keeps it tucked away but you can tell something else is infecting her thoughts. “Thought we agreed you would give up on that line.”

She murmurs something, lets her fingers unfurl and splay across her cheek. Caressing her worn expression and some vacant huff signalling her surrender. This dinner is already begging to be put out of its misery, drenched in some tomato basil sauce and looking stale even in the dim candlelight. God, Cabrizzio really can’t cook.

“Also, this is my house.” It also didn’t make any sense the first time she said it.

“Easy opener,” She says as if she believes even a fraction of it. A brittle smirk tugging at her but she refuses to see it become full. Her finger circles the rim of her wine glass, “feels weird when I know you already.”

You know each other as well as you do your own ceiling, blank and unassuming. Projecting whatever persona the two of you want to take on for the night because this is a performance above all else. Dialogue is cut and revised until you have both become something near perfect—the inability to harness this skill naturally makes you both inferior by default. The thing you find funny is that River doesn’t expect much from you. She wants for you to just sit across from her, picking at the edge of a tablecover and engaging in pointless conversations that take the most leisurely path possible to reach their conclusion.

You roll your shoulders, masking it as a shrug rather than a way to relieve the tension pinched tight between the blades. “Just need to get better at acting then.”

This is when it starts. Hesitantly grasping at your forks and scraping the bottom of your plate with it. Neither of you take a bite, content with this meeting not leaving stains on the corners of your mouth. Gulping rather than swilling the wine within your mouth, letting the bitter taste find a home in the back of your throat. Avoiding River’s prodding to start a conversation by angling your neck, searching for something within the shadows of your home.

River lets her fork clatter against the plate, targeting her line of sight on you. “What do they say?” 

Oftentimes, you find her to be reliant on others. Reflecting back what they want to see rather than what they are. You’re not even sure that if River saw herself in a mirror she would find clarity, only a muddle distorted thing that flickers a thousand versions of herself. Each piece taken from somebody else and struggling to grasp at what is truly hers.

“What does who say?”

“You know,” She twists her hand, fingers drawn tight and extended to you in offering. The gesture is hollow. If she could, River would start off every conversation like a tender interrogation that unravels before her. “Ugh, I’m not stupid. I saw you with Winnie and Shelley earlier.”

You’re not quick to deny her claim. In fact, you don’t say anything at first. Choosing instead to spear one of the pasta shells on your fork and bringing it to your lips, a crunch echoing within your skull.

“I’m not out on a date with them, am I?”

She shakes her head, “A pretend date.”

It’s pure semantics. The thin line that makes this real has become a bare thread, threatening to snap under the weight of what remains unsaid. The both of you being particularly good at treading around meaning and making a game of it. Taking bits and pieces of sentences and extracting new phrases from them. Mashing into syllables and swallowing sounds until you can chew on anything except for what you actually want to say.

“You’re not stupid but you’re acting dense then.” Your hand briefly leaves the table cover and a half smile appears. One strung up through pure exasperation. Pointer and middle fingers extending to form a loose peace sign, “Two for one.”

River pouts and turns away. Tugs at the top of her strapless dress that falls a few inches lower than she would like for it to rest. It’s not something she would usually pick. The shimmer of candlelight refracts off her frame, one of her hands teases the skin of her collarbone, a finger toying with the stone of a necklace. There is a certain precision that shrouds all her actions, every move planned before materializing.

You pinch the bridge of your nose, “Look, you said that we should see other objects in the house.”

“I did,” She whispers. It’s the most honest thing she’s ever said amidst quiet nights blanketed by contrived unfamiliarity. Once she’s running, River doesn’t have the courage to stop. “I thought I would be okay with seeing you and somebody else. That I could just laugh it off, we would see each other later, and I could last in the feeling that this is somehow real.”

River doesn’t want a love she deems as fragmented. What she covets, she keeps whole. You realize that as she watches you. More strands shedding from her once intricate bun. Heavy breath expelling clouds of steam past her lips. Have they always looked so plump? There’s a brief moment where you tear your gaze from her pouting but it’s useless. You return to her.

Her mouth opens then shuts a few times, looking upward and trying to find the right thing to say. Something that would make this near perfect. “Things just got … leaky?”

It’s cheesy. Some goofy thing she would’ve groaned over a few nights ago. Yet now, she’s gaping, splitting open the cavern between her ribs to present her want to you. Hammering within her chest and rattling to her no end. She levels you with the stare of a wide-eyed deer. You’ve dreamed of her like this a thousand times and the reality of it consumes you.

“So what do you want?”

River allows a tight frown to overtake her features, leans back with arms raised in defeat. “Didn’t exactly think of a plan. Actually, never thought I would even get here.”

It would’ve always ended this way though. You can feel it, know that you and River would be sitting close enough to take each other in but never touch. It could’ve been this table, the laundry room, or even the bathroom and one of you would’ve decided to tear through a boundary that was already whittling down to be the width of a single hair.

You let your hand leave your lap, sliding it across the expanse of the table. It’s not enough to reach her but it’s a start. River looks at it for a few seconds but then decides to do the same. Her fingers catch on the holes of the cloth as she snakes her hand along the surface. There is still a gap, a few centimeters between your fingertips.

“Whatever it is, I’m here.”

She splutters, looking off to the side again. Her hand remains still, so close to yours and it excites you. “I’m not asking you to wait.”

“I know.” You nod but it’s solid, sure of itself. As if you’ve known this since before it spiraled into something too tender to be named. “I’ll still be here, waiting.”