bedroom windows, part three

It's been too long since that night. Too long since I opened my eyes to her sleeping right next to me, not remembering where I was and very suddenly realizing that I didn't care.

Partly because I can't remember every detail, I won't chronicle it all. In a way, I just need to finish this story before it slips away irrevocably.

I remember the struggle to leave the bed. I remember not wanting to fight her, wanting to surrender and stay there forever. But my dad was picking me up and I had a window to sneak out of. A window that I did not particularly want to climb through again.

I was crossing my fingers that she would tell me to leave through the front door. It wasn't a school night, we hadn't done anything wrong and I had a feeling my presence in her room that morning was anything but a secret from her mom. But Niki insisted with her eyes and then climbed out the window ahead of me.

Passing her my bag as I stepped onto the desk chair, I glanced back at her bedroom door, now ajar. Someone had pushed it open that morning and we were hoping it was one of her dogs. Halfway out the window, I heard the smashing sound and my body tensed. I wasn't sure what I had knocked off the windowsill and broken but I was positive that footsteps were rapidly coming down the hall and that her mom's voice was cheerily calling out good morning.

As Niki's face turned bright red, it occurred to me  that it's sometimes easier to sneak in than out. Doing things by the light of the moon feels stealthy and badass but once the sun had come up, all the rebellion guilt and clumsiness splattered across my body like a thick layer of paint.

Niki was so embarrassed but I didn't want to melt into a muddle of invisibility. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of my life. Her mom was giving us the benefit of the doubt and seemed genuinely pleased to see me there, awkwardly loitering outside of her daughter's bedroom window, a window I had obviously just failed to escape through. I stood there, leaning against the side of the house as I was offered breakfast, coffee, fruit or maybe pancakes and declined it all as Niki muttered, "You couldn't just let me have this one teenagery thing, Mom."

I pleaded my departure and eventually fled, smiling at the vindication of getting caught. There's something so pure and satisfying about the suspense ending, the worst thing happening, having it not be that terrible. There's something to be said about a mother who is endlessly hospitable to a teenager who just climbed out a window rather than exit through the front door.

It was the end of my summer, officially. The best night and the most eventful morning, one of those momentous occasions that reaffirms my "no regrets" philosophy. If the opportunity presented itself again, I would seize it. Next time, though--given the choice--I'd take breakfast.

bedroom windows, part two

If I had taken the time to imagine the first time I would sneak into a girl's window, I doubt it would have looked like this.

I doubt I would have imagined myself standing at a locked window, waiting for Niki to break into her own house through another entrance because she forgot her key. Yet I did stand outside that locked window. And I did wait, smiling to myself about what I was about to do. Even after the light turned on in her bedroom, I stood outside her window, watching the shadows dance across the shades as Niki moved around her room, throwing her possessions around in a last ditch attempt at tidying.

Finally, she opened the window and smiled a mischievous grin at me, her coconspirator. But there was a tentative edge to that smile that made my stomach tense momentarily. I stepped onto the plastic deck chair that we had positioned underneath her window. Holding my breath and thinking stealthy thoughts, I pulled myself off the moonlit chair and onto the window sill. Then came the awkwardness of my legs but Niki was right there on the other side so I slid into her arms and she maneuvered me into the bedroom.

I kind of cleaned up, in case this happened, she said, sheepish and I wanted to take that sheepishness in my hands and hold it close. I wanted to hold every part of her close but I collapsed onto her bed and settled for squeezing the stuffies I'd left in her care months previously.

The events that followed displayed all of the splendid awkwardnesses that one can expect from teenagers illicitly occupying each others bedrooms. There was the moment when her brother stood outside the door and I shoved a pillow in my face to muffle the giggles I couldn't contain. There was the familiar feeI of the pajamas I wore, ones I'd seen Niki wear at sleepover after sleepover, none of which had taken place in her bedroom. There was the fact that I flossed my teeth but didn't brush, as Niki's brother remained in the kitchen making eggs. We set an alarm for my departure the next morning and then fell into bed, exhausted with our supposed rebellion.

I can't describe accurately enough the feeling of lying in Niki's dark bedroom, our limbs a tangled mess of each other and even if I could, I can't say I'd want to. I remember the moonlight and my eyes refusing to stay open and our bodies so close and molded to the other's that we were like Lego, slowly becoming one whole. There was warmth, sometimes too much, and I kept throwing the covers off and then dragging them back on. As I said, I can't describe it perfectly but I can say that if I could chose one moment from my summer to go back to and live in forever, it would be that one and I would spend the rest of eternity wrapped in her pale arms. I wish I could have stayed awake longer to appreciate it but my body refused to cooperate and sleep washed over me like a drug.

bedroom windows, part one

It wasn't as if I planned it like this. If I had planed to be sneaking out of Niki's bedroom window at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, I would have stuck a toothbrush in my pocket when I left home. Like the best deranged plans, this one was spur of the moment.
I hesitate by the window, looking back and forth from the chair waiting for me against the wall and my pajama clad friend. She looks at me expectantly and then sighs a little and hops onto the chair herself. Niki is out the window before I can calculate the improbability of my circumstances. Glancing back at the slightly open door, hoping no one wanders in, I step onto the desk chair and propel myself onto the window sill.
***
The night previously, I had expected to be home by 10:30. I had a ride and everything. My friend dropped me off in town and I left most of my stuff stashed in her car. I thought I was coming back for it. I set off to meet Niki, throwing on my red cape as I walked. I can't say what made me want to wear it. It was one of those random things.
When I imagine myself walking up to her, I'm sure it's way more badass in my mind. I pulled my hood up so that from behind you could only see the bottom half of my black skinny jeans, the red hooded cloak covering the rest of my frame. The cloak blew slightly open in the wind as I half skipped up to Niki. She smiled at me and then at my cape and I wanted her to stare at me for decades and also for her to never look at me again. It was like being frozen in a spotlight and I only moved when she decided to release me.
We started to walk in the only real direction worth walking and our hands found each other magnetically. Her touch made my palm tingle gently. Moving through the quiet streets with Niki at my side--our fingers intertwined, both reaching and relaxed, like ivy on an English country home--I had a surreal feeling of being  completely present, like I was in the exact right place at the exact right time. My happiness at being alive with her at that precise second must have radiated from my body in waves.
If it were a dream, we would have glided through town for an endless amount of time, provoking smiles and pausing traffic, as every person tried to figure out what was so right about us and how they could copy it. Our glow was inimitable and imperfect.
But in reality, there was deep fried sushi to eat and texts to be sent. There were friends to console and dark train tracks to walk down. There were iPods to give away and goodbyes to be whispered. There were hugs to be hugged and benches to be loitered on. It was a different sort of gliding around town that took place that Friday evening.
At what I thought was near the end of our night together, Niki sat on a bus bench and I sat on her. We appeared to wait for a bus that had stopped running hours ago as we both put off our inevitable separation. I kept troubleshooting the moment I would have to leave her and delaying it and waiting for her to tell me to come over to her house and knowing that she wouldn't. But it hurt to keep drawing out the end when I knew I couldn't put it off indefinitely so I texted my dad for a ride and when he said sure and asked where I was, I looked into her eyes and said what I promised myself I wouldn't: "Could I sneak in your bedroom window tonight?"

nanowrimo excerpt

Chapter 8

“Evie?” His voice is warm but unsure, travelling up ahead of him to chart the territory—a brave scout. Under the covers of my bed, I cannot hear his footsteps, even a muffled version, but I imagine them. Tentatively bringing his big feet towards my closed door.

I bring my covers closer around me as a shell. I have no protection but this warm, dark cocoon. Tight fingers clutch my one reality to me, holding the blanket over my head. He knocks.

“Evie?” Rogue says again, “Can I come in?” I never imagined his voice that soft. I must have imagined every smirk I ever saw on his face because they could not have come from the same boy. Too many extremes.

“Please, Evie,” he says, quieter than before. I imagine him outside my bedroom, a hand against the door to measure any disturbance inside. There is none, only stillness and the evaporation of tears from my pillow. There’s almost no trace already. I smile at that, cheek muscles turning for no one’s benefit into to nearly suffocating blanket.

“Are you in there?” Why he asks, I don’t know. He knows I’m here. The girls saw me come up. After which time I closed the door quietly and slid down it, shaking the frame with my sobs. They told him. Unless I fashioned a rope out of my sheets and descended out the window, I am here. I’m not the rope tying type.

What does he want? I’m so tired I can’t think of an answer to this question. It seems too easy. There must be something he’s looking for. Something he will never find with me.

I draw the covers from my face to say, “Come in.” I don’t quite know why but I can’t stand the image of him standing outside the door. It would be better if he’d leave, down the stairs and out the door, taking all this sadness with him, but he won’t for now.  And if he won’t leave and I won’t have him waiting on the other end of my closed door, he must come in.

I sit up slowly, careful not to rush my head, as I can’t stand the idea of him sitting awkwardly on the edge of my bed as I am in my cocoon. My cocoon, however wonderful and warm, is not something he should see.

Blinking, I adjust my position and observe him in my room. He doesn’t fit here but he tries. My pale green walls are at odds with his dark clothing, eyes and hair. He smiles and I forget that he doesn’t belong. That smile belongs on toothpaste commercials and the sides of buses. It belongs pressed against me, infusing its magical drug into my body. My eyes open wider to accommodate it but you can’t take his smile in all at once. My toes curl in on themselves until I smile back. I can’t control it. His mouth has taken control of mine, forcing me to mirror his glee. I don’t know whether to feel elated or manipulated. I choose neither, letting the smile sink deeper into me.

“Are you okay?” His voice gently brushes the hair out of my eyes. He bothered to ask this question, despite my mimicking smile. He takes a seat on the chair by my window. Too far away, his smile loses hold on mine. It slips off my mouth like Jell-O thrown at a wall. I’m left with nothing but a sticky residue and an echo but my face remembers the motions.

He stares at me some more and I can’t excuse his rudeness until I realize he asked me a question.

“Yes,” I say, only louder than a whisper. “I’m alright.” It’s almost the truth.

“Good.” It would appear that he doesn’t know what to say next. Did he come into this room with a mission of ascertaining my ‘okay-ness’? If so, he can leave now. I’ve given him the answer he wanted. My obligation is fulfilled.

I'll be the first to admit that we don’t have a connection--verbally at least. It’s not enough for us to be in the same room and automatically have some banter going on, a simple exchange of words to ease ourselves into comfort. We have no cushiness, no clouds in the room to ease this silence. I wish I had it that easy.

All we have is physical. Strings binding us. It’s not enough to have us in this room, trapped in quiet, we also have to want each other. To want this to work too much. Too much for safety. I’m not even sure if I’m alone in this feeling. I want to like him, to be around him, for us to mesh and move, revolving around each other like it’s that simple. Like gravity is with us, not against us. I want to smile automatically on my own, not because he somehow charmed it out of me.

“How are you?” I say casually, taking a step towards cushy clouds. I’m opening the window and hoping they’ll be here in seconds, slipping us into the conversation that I crave. I’m waiting.

He pauses before responding, “I’m good.” I try not to be distracted by the grammar but a second is spent on puzzling.

“Good?”

“Good.”

I like you, my mind mumbles, my mouth following along but making no sound. I wonder for a second if maybe he can hear me, my thoughts zipping through this calm air into his. Would that make this situation easier or stranger? Probably the latter, despite my wishes. If you can hear me, give me a sign, I say to no one, waiting from him to look up and blink or keep staring around my room. I can’t decide what I want.

When his disposition doesn’t change, I take up his occupation, staring around my room like I am the outsider. I see my clothes in a pile on my desk. I notice that I never changed my calendar from September. I see the socks scattered around in different places, under his chair, in the corners. I see the jewellery on the windowsill—I haven’t worn any of it in weeks. The closet door is a crack open, stuck on one of my favourite shoes. My dresser drawers aren’t closed either which means Jac hasn’t been in here for a while. She tidies every so often and I only notice because I can’t find anything as quickly.

Since I can see no use in getting up to hide any of this from Rogue, I stay where I am, wrapping the flower patterned sheets around my cross legged frame. Eventually, his eyes have taken in all they can and he finds me again, trapping me in these blankets.

“I like your calendar,” he says, gesturing to the wall. He noticed that, too.

“Thanks.” My response to compliments is automatic. I no longer stop to wonder if that was actually a compliment to me but accept it and say thanks. “Ash gave it to me.”

He nods. “It seems like her.” How does he know what seems like her? How many hours has he spent knowing her? Listening to her quiet observations? Watching her careful kindness. I’m exhausted with thinking about it.

My jealousy absorbs me. I’m not conscious of the silence or my failure to respond to his latest comment. My cheeks are overwhelmed with the redness and my whole body is too warm for comfort. I pull the duvet tighter around me regardless.

He reaches for something on my desk and then freezes momentarily. Finger closing curiously around my picture frame, he takes it in. He doesn’t comment other than to tilt his head. It’s back on my desk in an instant.

He knows me too well. I would be touched but it’s not fair. It’s not fair that he has a window—my sisters—into this simple version of me that is out there. All I want is some reciprocation. A crack of light to be shed on the boy who I am so attracted to that I will let him sit in my room on my chair as I am wrapped in my blankets. Despite our lack of conversation, I sense a radiant comfort that I hadn’t realized. This isn’t normal.

“Tell me something about you,” I say frankly, asking, for once, what I actually want.

“I never know what to say when someone asks that. What do you want to know?”

I settle for the basic to start. “Favourite colour?”

I think he’s about to laugh but he doesn’t. Nothing but surprises from Rogue. He seems to seriously consider the question and then says, “Orange.”

“Orange,” I repeat, surprised at the answer.

“Anything else?” He seems amused but he didn’t laugh. I feel like he’s humouring me for a second, laughing with the crazy girl so she won’t stab you sort of thing, but I choose to believe he’s enjoying this.

“Where do you live?” Am I bordering on invasive? He isn’t bothered.

“A townhouse complex on 24^th Ave,” he says, pointing in the general direction, “It’s called insert cool, witty, pathetic, cheesy, lame townhouse complex name here.”

I try to picture the place but can’t bring it up in my mind. I can imagine it, though. Regulation houses, all either mimicking or mirroring each other. A garage under each house. Front doors that no one uses, instead favouring the automatic garage opener entrance with zero neighbour contact.

He seems to know my next question. He answers before my prompt. “I live with my mom and stepdad.”

“Do you—” I stop myself after two words. My next question is too invasive, I know it right away. I don’t want him to be uncomfortable around me and, after only two questions, I’m tired of being the interrogator.

“What?” he pounces, not letting my words slip under the carpet as I’d hoped. He won’t forget them. He’s leaning forward in his chair.

“Never mind,” I say, not because I want him to force the question out of me but because I want him to forget it. There are easier things than forgetting.

He sits back in the chair; I guess not wanting to freak me out with his intensity.

“You can ask me, if you want,” he says, less forceful than before. “You can ask me anything.”

I knew that. Of course I knew I could ask him anything. I have speech on my side, plenty of nouns and adjectives to convey what I’m curious about. The problem is not that I can’t ask, it’s that I don’t want to. I’m not one to step over that fragile line of what’s socially acceptable. I stop myself at the questions with answers I wouldn’t open up with.

“Okay,” I say but don’t start voicing my question again. Maybe someday but I’m not spending more breath on it today.

“Now it’s awkward,” he jokes. I can feel that easy banter. He brought the clouds of cushiness in with three words. I’m impressed and I want to fall back into them. I crack a smile. 

morning

part I
I shut my door to the light and crawl back to my soft single bed. My hand over my ear, I press my head into the pillow because if my head is lodged deep in my mattress, maybe I won't be able to hear anything except the blood pumping through the palm of my hand. If I can't hear them, they don't exist.

My mind struggles for darkness, a sleep that will not come because, once awake in the morning, I can never fall back to sleep. Stubborn, I try harder, counting backwards from one thousand in my head, as if the numbers could erase this indecent attempt at morning.

If I could fall asleep, I could wake up again. The sun could crack through my blinds like a hesitant child. My eyelashes could part, revealing the room, blurry and unformed with no glasses for aid. I could glance at my watch and smile because nothing worth crying over had happened yet today. I could reach for my glasses as my feet hit the floor and stumble to the window as I fit them onto my face. My fingers could part the crack between the blinds farther, my eye fitted to that opening like it belonged there. Like it belongs anywhere. I could smile at the rain and turn to reach for the door.
To reach for breakfast.
To reach for the day.
To reach for infinity.

But I don't get a do over. There's only one chance to wake up on the right side of the bed. It's gone.


part II
You walk in, a towel draped around your body. You're dripping with cleanliness and a sense of freshness. I ask if I should leave. You respond with indifference. I turn away to grant you the small amount of privacy that I can give.

I keep writing, my words scrawling out on the page like baby sea turtles dashing for the ocean, desperate and awkward. My hands is cramping. I ignore it. I'm good at that.

Light fades into the room, like it's the end of the movie. I can never escape that ever present light for long. I can imagine your fingers twisting and twirling the plastic wand to restore the sun's reign to this room.

What if I wanted to go back to sleep, I ask.
Close your eyes, you say softly.

I do. Slowly, savoring every moment of coming darkness, my windshield wiper eyelids close on my portal to this world. Loss of sight does not equate to loss of memory, however. I can still remember this morning. My eyelids cannot erase it. They try.

Then I realize. I don't need to erase it, to start over, start fresh. Escaping this morning would be wrong, a crime. It's tempting but impossible so I reach for that doorknob a second time today, hoping that take two will exceed the first. Not a do over but a glimmer of hope that second tries can work out, too. I grasp the doorknob, turn and pull because I still have ten minutes left of this morning.
Ten minutes that are mine to create.