JENNIE
The day of ...
Around three o'clock the air turns cool again, and we drive to her house to shower and get warm. Her house is empty because everyone comes and goes as they please. She grabs waters from the fridge, and a bag of pretzels, and I follow her upstairs, still damp and shivering.
Her bedroom is blue now—walls, ceiling, oor—and all the furniture has been moved to one corner so that the room is divided in two. There's less clutter, no more wall of notes and words. All that blue makes me feel like I'm inside a swimming pool, like I'm back at the Blue Hole.
I shower first, standing under the hot water, trying to get warm.
When I come out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, Manoban has music playing on the old turntable.
Unlike her swim in the Blue Hole, her shower lasts no more than a minute. Before I'm dressed, she reappears, towel around her, and says, "You never asked me what I was doing up on that ledge."
She stands, open and ready to tell me anything, but for some reason I'm not sure I want to know.
"What were you doing up on that ledge?" It comes out a whisper.
"The same thing you were. I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted to imagine jumping off it. I wanted to leave all the shit behind. But when I did start to imagine it, I didn't like what it looked like. And then I saw you."
She takes my hand and spins me out and then in so I'm tucked against her, and we sway, and rock a little, but mostly stand still, pressed together, my heart pounding because if I tilt my head back, just like this, she will kiss me like she's doing now. I can feel her lips curving up at the corners, smiling. I open my eyes at the moment she opens hers, and her dark brown eyes are shining so fierce and bright that they're nearly black. The damp hair is falling across her forehead, and she rests her head against mine. And then I realize her towel is lying on the floor and she's naked.
I lay my fingers against her neck, long enough to feel her pulse, which feels just like my own—racing and feverish.
"We don't have to."
"I know."
And then I close my eyes as my own towel drops and the song comes to an end. I still hear it after we are in the bed and under the sheets and other songs are playing.