#sunless ground

SO CUTEEEE

...he thinks of buying hot fudge sundaes and walking along Pier 17, he thinks of mutually booing the screen during Psycho II, he thinks of hands scouring his knuckles and how that is a kiss, he thinks of spatting dish soap at each other during a wine drunk water fight, he thinks of sun speckling shoulder blades in a fine patina, he thinks of touching a heartbeat in the dark until it’s unclear if it’s his or yours.

Cal raises his eyebrows, the type of masculine amusement that makes Harrison nauseous and mildly homicidal.

She could lie to herself. Say she’s gotten used to waking every morning at yolky dawn in the bedroom she occupies alone. She’s gotten used to the scalding silence at midnight and gotten used to lighting the candlestick on the nightstand even in the middle of the day. The same instant peach oatmeal Darren keeps buying every time he treks out to the city because she said she liked it once. She can’t bring herself to tell him she can’t handle the flavour anymore, the way she’s gotten used to it and the way she’s gotten used to her hair getting longer, nearly touching her shoulders, the way she’s gotten used to her waxen face in the bathroom’s uncovered mirror. She could lie. But nothing changes the truth even when she stays up all night, rocking back and forth, hoping something will. She made it out—no more running, no more hiding. It’s a good thing, and yet the prospect is so lonely, so frightening, that she sometimes considers walking into the woods until she makes it out the other side a woman who did not survive alone.

“Well I’d say he has fine taste,” Jeremiah says, pushing a set of brochures across the counter—coupons, actually, several yellow ones for egg rolls. He winks. “Maybe in another life.”

She and Darren have been at the cabin for eight months. It belongs to a college friend of his—an arcing property flanked by evergreens and nothing more. She could lie to herself. Say she’s gotten used to waking every morning at yolky dawn in the bedroom she occupies alone. She’s gotten used to the scalding silence at midnight and gotten used to lighting the candlestick on the nightstand even in the middle of the day. The same instant peach oatmeal Darren keeps buying every time he treks out to the city because she said she liked it once. She can’t bring herself to tell him she can’t handle the flavour anymore, the way she’s gotten used to it and the way she’s gotten used to her hair getting longer, nearly touching her shoulders, the way she’s gotten used to her waxen face in the bathroom's uncovered mirror. She could lie. But nothing changes the truth even when she stays up all night, rocking back and forth, hoping something will. She made it out—no more running, no more hiding. It’s a good thing, and yet the prospect is so lonely, so frightening, that she sometimes considers walking into the woods until she makes it out the other side a woman who did not survive alone.

He spritzes himself with cologne, a gift from Anna during his first month here—just think of me as a friend, she’d said, which almost made him gag—then checks on the elasticated bracelet at his wrist. He’d found it underneath Reeve’s bed. All the beads are mismatched, no discernible pattern, mostly purples which he’d expect because it's her favourite colour. In the centre is a gold star bead and next to it, the letter R, the elastic loop slotted underneath it so from a distance, you can’t tell where it is. She must’ve made it when she was a kid, and he wears it now not only as a reminder of her but as a reminder of who she’s always been—creative, sure of herself, a little disorganized in a way that allures people.

They laughed about it for weeks later, though not right after. He’d slept at her and Lonan’s apartment that night and woke up groaning and hungover, Lonan home from work then and ready with a tall glass of water to lecture him. “You’re no fun, man,” Harrison said and reached up to kiss him, which Lonan certainly found gross considering all the vomiting, but that he allowed—his cheeks pinkish—anyway.