Open Water, Caleb Nelson [best summer books txt] 📗

wake her mother. You hear her telling off the delivery man, fighting a battle she has already lost at the door.

She joins you on the sofa, setting the pizza box between you, tearing a slice away, holding out her hand to protect from the strings of cheese. You do the same, folding your slice in half so it becomes food and plate; she mimics you and lets out a sigh of hunger being sated. As she does so, reclining into the sofa, she reaches for your hand, and you take it, fitting together like this is an everyday. She’s wearing rings on her fore and ring fingers, the bands cool between your own. Neither of you dare look at one another as you hold this heavy moment in your hands. You’re ­light-­headed, and warm. You’re both silent. You’re both wondering what it could mean that desire could manifest in this way, so loud for such a tender touch. It’s she who breaks the moment.

‘We can’t eat holding hands like this.’

‘My bad.’

‘No one’s bad.’

She switches on the TV, flooding the room with noise. It’s a Spike Lee joint, so it’s audacious and provocative and brash. A remake of his nineties film She’s Gotta Have It. The couple on screen are having sex, loudly, but in a way that’s too clean to reflect the intense mess of being intimate with another.

‘You still having that dry patch?’

‘Yessir,’ she says. ‘You?’

‘Dry as an uncreamed elbow.’ She bites her bottom lip but her eyes are grinning. ‘Go on,’ you say. ‘You can laugh. But ­wait – you and Samuel only broke up a month ago.’

‘Long enough,’ she replies.

‘Agreed.’

‘I might give up soon.’

‘I feel like celibacy is looking more appealing than trying at this point.’

‘How long has it been?’

‘Eight months.’

‘Huh?’

‘You heard me.’

‘That’s not a dry patch, that’s a drought.’

You wonder what Samuel would think of this conversation. But then he doesn’t mention anything to you, not any more. Since this friendship has blossomed, Samuel has withdrawn, growing more distant as the pair of you here grew closer. When they split, you checked in on him, but the calls did not go through, the messages went undelivered. Samuel had severed the connection. You wonder how he is feeling and what he would say if this was a picture he were privy to. You push the thoughts and any guilt away, laughing off the suggestion, reaching for another slice of pizza.

It’s easier to do this, to open a box and close it quick, seal it with sharp quips. It’s easier to let your bodies do the same, taunting and teasing, short grazes, soft sighs. Working yourselves into a feverish frenzy, your laughter knocking across the room, the noise protecting your truths, or so you both think. You do this until you’re both tired, and she stretches her long body across the sofa, her head resting in your lap. Heavy like the moment in your hands. You rest one hand on her scalp, reaching through the dense curls, the other settled between her waist and hip.

‘Don’t let me fall asleep,’ she mumbles. Shortly after, you close your eyes too.

You wake in the early hours of the morning and it’s like you’re in the memory of the present. Something quiet from the speaker. Her head hot and heavy in your hands. Mouth dry, hazy vision. Your stirring lifts her from her sleep, and you can tell it’s the same for her, trying to find lucidity in the mist.

‘I need to get into bed,’ she manages. ‘You should stay.’

‘OK,’ you say. She rises and you stretch your limbs to replace the presence of hers. She shakes her head, and beckons.

You don’t talk here, in her bedroom, where it’s dark and hot and heavy, yet welcoming, like being clasped in an embrace by something much larger than you. She pulls down the blinds and draws the curtain, and now it’s blackness, faint light of dusk spilling from the hallway. She waits for you to undo your belt, take down the buttons of your shirt, makeshift pyjamas of a vest and underwear, before she closes the door and thrusts you further into the dark. She climbs into bed by memory and you feel your way towards her. There’s a little room to manoeuvre but she pulls you close. Your face rests on the pillow and she tucks her face into the curve of your neck. Your legs are tangled in order, hers, yours, hers, yours, and your arms curl around each other’s backs. You fit, as if this has been your everyday. You don’t talk here, in her bedroom, where it’s dark and hot and heavy, making quick light steps towards sleep. You don’t talk here, but even if you did, the words would fail you, language insufficient to reflect the intense mess of being this intimate with another.

You have to leave when light starts to sneak under the blinds. You wake and the fever has broken and left havoc in its place. Thoughts skip around your mind. Dry mouth, hazy vision. Your stirring doesn’t wake her this time, but as you reach for her door handle, she lets out a small sound of protest. Takes your hand, reaching as she did, locking in, kissing the skin. There’s nothing more to say here. You lean down and kiss the top of her head.

The next day, you’re in the lift once more, rising to the sixth floor. You knock on her door. An open smile. You’re shooting today for the project which started this all, and you feel a nervous shake as you embrace, but you don’t know if it is because of the project or what happened last night. You’re wondering how you would explain the latter to the witness you requested. But nothing happened, you would say. The witness would shake their head, as if to say, Don’t you know what that means? Lying together, sober, with only the vague shape of her as a guide for existing, feeling safe. Is that what love is? The