the ghosts lay in the next room (when they are awake they ask for me by name)
.
'we should talk about what you want to wear... i can't finish the sentence. i don't want to think about it, about going through the closet, through all the clothes i told i told you you didn't need. no. i'm sorry. how can i possibly choose the last thing i'll see you in.'
—brian russell, 'preface'
...
1.
.
"Here's an idea, why don't you stop being such an asshole and leave me alone."
Spencer texts this to you.
You walk to her dorm and sit outside for an hour and forty-two minutes. Your hands shake.
She sees you outside of her door and she straightens to her full height. Her eyes are big and brown and right now they aren't full of any kindness. She doesn't ask what you're doing here, she doesn't say anything while she steps over you and unlocks her door.
She leaves it open long enough for you to follow.
Your lips are failed drafts of poems. Thick. Pink and cracked. She touches them with her thumb before she kisses you. You can tell that most of her doesn't want to, that she really very much wants to rip your heart out of your chest physically and fall asleep in that warm dark cave there, some funeral pyre that you are for the both of you.
I'm sorry, you want to say; Yes I do, you want to tell her; I saw the night and coughed shards of stars, you want to whisper—you don't know why but they make sense.
At this moment you hate her too, hate the poster of Grace Kelly on her wall, hate her fingernails. It's not in any charming matter that you feel these things for her. They prickle at the base of your skull, sharp and hot.
Spencer looks you directly in the eyes before she lifts your shirt over your head and then pushes you down onto her bed.
"Fuck," she says. "Fuck you." She tugs off your leggings and your underwear at once, then settles down over you harshly, unclasping your bra with one hand while the other snakes its way to palm between your legs, thumb on your clit.
You writhe and gasp and sigh like you're supposed to, all at once, with purpose. You know by now that you are sexy, young and wispy.
Spencer doesn't take any of her clothes off. She touches you like you are some burning thing, like you will need stitches to take away the feel of her hands, like you're drowning in the blood pumping through both of your mouths. "Stop trying to die," she tells you.
Maybe you are. Because she pushes two fingers inside of you and curls and pumps and there is something about her that makes you always on edge of many, many cliffs. It's a metonym, this thing, you know. Because she's tired of rooftops and you still want to stay up there. Or jump. "Spencer," you say. It's the only thing you can bring yourself to verbalize: "Spencer."
She's looking for a different place to die than what you are, but when she shoves a third finger into you and bites down hard on your collarbone, you come anyway.
She leaves after a few minutes of complete stillness on top of you. You know this is so that she doesn't have to remember what she last saw you in. You realize she'd like to remember you naked. Bare. Beneath her, eyes closed. You could be dead for all she'd know.
...
2.
.
Rachel gets jittery after you get released from the hospital. You don't know why and you're drugged and tired and sore so you don't ask, not now.
She has shows each night, and you fall asleep before eight for a few days. Your apartment in New York together is lovely and sort of cramped compared to your place in Providence, but it means you never have to Skype with Rachel, and the light reminds you of 1960s Mexico City in the airy, yellow way.
It's a week after you're home that Rachel comes home from an early Sunday performance and, without saying anything, walks up to where you're sitting on the couch and kisses you roughly. It's not like you'd protest but it's out of the ordinary—Rachel is usually slow and sweet and reverent.
But today she doesn't bother to even take her clothes off before she tugs the sweatshirt over your head harshly. She stretches her fingers across the web of scars and tattoos that is the left side of your ribcage, presses down hard, enough to make you lose your breath while she shoves your shoulder back with her other hand so that you're flat on the couch beneath her.
Her eyes are shiny in this scared way in the waning evening light, this haunting purple of faded dried blood. She tugs at the waistband of your boxers and you lift your hips in compliance.
Rachel begins at your collarbone, biting there, sucking hard enough to leave a purple bruise later. She squeezes your breasts—one in each small hand—pinches a nipple while she runs her other hand down your stomach.
"You can't leave me," she says, and you don't really understand because you have no plans of going anywhere—two weeks ago you'd bought an engagement ring and hidden it in the linen closet—but you sort of manage to nod while Rachel tugs your legs up and wide, sucks your clit into her mouth, bites softly. You're close immediately, and her tongue drifts, hot and wet. She adds a finger and brings her other arm up to hold down your hips, and you close your eyes and try to breathe evenly, twist your fingers in her hair. It's long and soft and curly, and you can't help but tug as she runs her tongue along your folds, pumping with two fingers. Her fingers are rough, stroking harder than you can remember she has before. Her tongue is still soft, but she adds teeth and then you're gone, eyes closed, in pain and Mallarmé's naked ecstasy, and you very much do understand jouissance at this moment because you cannot cough or moan or say her name or I love you or Yes or Thank you or I'm so sorry: There is not nearly enough life in your lungs.
Rachel strokes you down from your orgasm, more gently. She crawls up and rests her head against your chest after a bit, drawing little swirls around your contracting ribs. Your newest incision isn't anywhere near being a scar yet, still red and surrounding by the ghosts of staples that they'd removed yesterday.
You tug softly at the base of Rachel's t-shirt, and she complies, sitting up to gently lift it over head head and take her bra off, laying back down afterward. You rest your hand against the dimples above her hips, on either side of her spine. This is not normal Rachel behavior, so you wait: You do not understand, and it matters that you learn.
"You can't die," she says into your skin, hot and sticky breath. Her fingers walk up and down your scars like tightropes.
"I didn't die," you say. It's the best you really have to offer, because you are much too invested in corporeal existence to lie.
She props herself up on an elbow and tucks some hair behind your ear, resting her hand on the marked base of your jaw. "You got sick."
"Yeah." You swallow—you had, the worst lung infection you'd dealt with, which ended up requiring major surgery and a ventilator, none of which you actually remember. "But they fixed it."
Rachel shakes her head. "You don't—you can't—"
You tip your head up to kiss her gently. Achingly.
"I had to—I'm your next of kin on forms and I had to sign these things that said I wouldn't sue if you died and then I just—your hands were cold and you couldn't breathe and then I just. We've never talked about a funeral."
You've been careless, you realize, at this moment, because you don't have words for this. Despite the languages you know and the things you write and all of the terms you're aware of, you have nothing to suture this. "Rachel," you say.
"No," she says. "You can't—fix that."
"I'm in love with you," you say.
"I feel so mad at you." She runs a hand through your hair gently. "I was sitting in the ICU with Santana and she'd brought sunflowers and I—how could I get your favorite flowers for that? Or buy them to put at a grave?"
Your entire left side stings acutely.
"You can't leave because I'd never be able to get you back and I hate you for scaring me and I hate you so much because I think I'd be very ruined if you—"
You can't let her finish that sentence, so you kiss her instead. You exhale against her teeth, inhale sharply. Give me your mouth, you think, I'm just looking for a quiet place that I could die inside of. I am yours. But you cannot say this aloud—this apology and reassurance, some magic breath of stars, sacred life. The quietness and sacred touch of lips is the only thing you have to offer.
"I love you," Rachel says. Into your mouth. You breathe it into your lungs: All soft, the gentle wildness, a shimmering ghost, more days than you can count after tomorrow.