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

friends, setting off at pace, through Soho towards Piccadilly Circus. Brown line to Oxford Circus, red line to Bethnal Green. You’re drawing a line towards her. No, the line was there, is always there, will always be there, but you’re trying to reinforce, to strengthen.

Your phone lets out a loud ping as you emerge from the Underground station.

Where are you?

Be there soon.

‘I’m drunk,’ she says when you slide alongside her at the restaurant. The sheen on her eyes is a giveaway, silver like mirrored glass. She takes your hand in hers, and rests it in your lap. In this way, she is drawing a line towards you; she has done so since this fever dream started. Or no, you drew the line towards her when you asked for an introduction. She drew the line back when she asked you to get an Uber to her house. The line was there, is always there, will always be there, but you’re both trying to strengthen it.

It’s happy hour at the bar, and she introduces you to her friends, Nicole and Jacob. An assortment of cocktail glasses clink and clunk and bump against one another, the tinkle of laughter a chaser. You’re settling in, curling into each other, her head lolled on your shoulder, when Jacob points at you, then at her.

‘So you two are a thing, right?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You two are . . .’ He winks, obtusely.

If only he knew. This crude white man who has spent most of the time you have been at the table explaining his ­self-­importance – he’s in advertising, he tells ­you – is he to be your witness? Were you to lean over and explain that you and she were not a thing in the way that he thought, but in a way in which neither of you could comprehend? To tell him that the seed you pushed deep into the ground has blossomed in the wrong season, the flourish of the flower a surprise for you and her both?

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It’s obvious.’

‘What’s obvious?’ she says.

‘You two are fucking.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘You are.’

‘We are not.’

‘We’re all friends here,’ he gestures to the table. ‘Two ­good-­looking people, I don’t see what’s to hide.’

Perhaps this is not the witness but the man sent for you to confront yourselves.

‘We’re not having sex,’ you say.

‘Hmm,’ the man says, taking a sip from his beer. ‘Well, you’d make a good couple.’ He smiles to himself. Her grip tightens around your hand. You hadn’t noticed that you had been facing this man together until that moment.

‘Wait, how did you two meet?’ Jacob asks.

‘A friend introduced us.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ Nicole asks, unhelpfully.

‘Your boyfriend introduced you two?’ Jacob is in danger of making his way to your side of the table.

‘We’re not together any more.’

‘Oh dear,’ he says, taking real pleasure.

In the fresh night air, walking hand in hand, she pulls you short. She takes a moment to steady herself, her eyes silver like mirrored glass, the reflection of yourself warped and warbled. You’re standing here, on Brick Lane, on a Monday evening. She arrived on Saturday night, and you didn’t think when you drew a line towards her. Did not think about continuing to return each day. Did not think as you reach a hand to her face and she nudges against your palm, a brief pleasure crossing her features. She stops and takes both your hands in hers.

‘You have to promise nothing will change,’ she says.

‘I can’t promise that.’

‘You have to. I love you too much for this to change. You’re like my best friend,’ she slurs. ‘You’re so much more.’

‘OK, OK,’ you say, trying to steady yourself. ‘I promise.’

Dim darkness of her room, blind pulled, curtains drawn. A bottle of water atop her chest of drawers to ward off a hangover. Rarely enough, but no harm in trying. Anyway, she announces that she has to change into her pyjamas, and you turn away from her, because right now, the thing you crave to be lost in is not her flesh. She taps your shoulder and slips a hand onto your waist to turn you back to face her. She stands on your feet and lays her head against your chest, listening to your heart thud like a bassline.

‘Slow. It’s really slow. It must be peaceful in there.’

She climbs into the bed and leaves the duvet open like a door. Like the night before and the time before that, she waits and watches as you strip off any inhibitions at this midnight hour. You go to clamber in beside her and she shakes her head.

‘Light. Please.’

Before you flick off the lamp, your eyes meet in the silence. The gaze requires no words at all. It is an honest meeting.

‘Goodnight,’ she says.

‘Goodnight.’ And for a moment, you surface from the fever dream, only to plunge once more.

Tonight is different, but the same. She slides a leg in between yours and pulls herself close and her deep breaths soften and round. You feel your body begin to slacken and sink towards sleep when she slips her leg out, turns away from you. You lie on your back facing the unmoving blackness of her ceiling when you feel her hand tapping against you.

‘You OK?’

‘Arm,’ she says.

‘Huh.’

‘Arm.’

The arm which isn’t trapped between her body and yours stretches towards her, and she pulls it across her body like a blanket, curling in tight. With her foot, she traces lines across your own, finally settling her lower limb between your calves. She slides down her bed a little, so she can tuck herself in the space between your chest and your chin, the mane of soft curls ticklish against your neck. You fit together, like this is an everyday. The hand holding your arm reaches for your own, spreading your digits between hers. Locking in. Tonight is different, but the same. Under what conditions does the uncontainable stay contained? Things unsaid don’t often remain so. They take shape and form in ways one doesn’t expect, manifesting in touches, glances, gazes, sighs. All you have wanted to