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

but soon you have trailed off, tearing into the chicken, dashing the bones away into the gutter. Something heavy here, in the absence of your words.

You feel her turn beside you. You wonder how long this moment could stretch for, and how much it could contain: you, her, the soft rush of cars speeding in the darkness, the gaze, seeing each other here, her heartbeat near audible, before she says, ‘I love you, you know?’

She has swum out into open water, and it is not long before you join her.

You take but a moment before saying, ‘I love you too.’

16

She makes you sleep on the sofa, and you’re glad because, in the taxi home, as she was leaning out of the window, you realized it was alcohol you were swimming in, not water.

It’s better it happens this way.

Sunday evening. She asked if you wanted to go to the cinema in the afternoon, Peckhamplex, ­five-­pound tickets and the promise of audience participation, but at the last moment had broken your date to see her family. Instead, an evening where she pants with the heat, on her sofa, watching reality TV.

‘I’m so full and hot,’ she says.

And here, another problem: despite advocating for desire to bloom in the summer, the rays of the sun falling on faces, skin darker and full of life, gentle smiles for no reason but the sunshine, despite all this, one often finds oneself reduced to sludge when you haven’t eaten enough or eaten too much, dehydrated or had one too many, dropping off for unplanned naps or sleep deprived in the thick nights. None of which is conducive to being in the presence of others, yet you soldier on, you are determined to enjoy these months, leaving the house not knowing what the day might bring you, where possibilities seem infinite, where beauty and joy, too, can be endless.

You while away the evening together, doing nothing really, which is something, is an intimacy in itself. To not fill your time with someone is to trust, and to trust is to love. And so you should say you spent the evening loving each other, on her sofa, eating, drinking, listening to music. She plays Kendrick, and you talk about that for a moment. But even this trails away, content in the absence of distractions, content in the presence of one another.

It’s better it happens this way: that you have no intention of it happening. The time approaches for you to leave, but it’s Sunday and the buses have stopped running. You have work in six hours. You should’ve left long ago. But you’re here, in the dim darkness of her room, the night not quite black, some light seeping under the curtains. She welcomes you into her room, and asks you to close the door. Asks you to turn around so she can change her ­T-­shirt. To trust is to love and she trusts you. Asks how you’re gonna get home. An Uber, you guess. You check how long it will take. Ten minutes. You had no intention of this happening. But you don’t decline when she asks if you’d like to lie beside her and wait. You don’t edge away when she pulls closer. Your breathing weighs more here. She swims out into the open water and you join her. You’re here, tucked together, her back against your chest. It’s familiar, even when you reach under her shirt, and take a nipple, tender, between forefinger and thumb, the rest of your hand splayed against her warm skin. Your breathing weighs more here. Your Uber comes, your Uber goes. You hear your phone vibrating, the driver trying to find you, but you don’t pick up. Your lips are grazing her neck, and one arm is pinned between you and her, but the other, the other wanders, wanders down, down, down, a finger grazing her stomach, grazing the delicate curves of her hips and waist, grazing the black material which separates you from her, before you become surer, a little more firm. You don’t know if what you feel is a result of the heat or the heat breaking between you. What is a break? What is a fracture? What is a joint? To love is to trust, and she trusts your hand to break the thin wall, sliding your hand under the material. Your lips meet and it’s urgent. Your lips meet and you know you have needed to kiss her. You turn her on her back, your mouth now finding her stomach, working upwards to where your hand previously was, to what started this all, but no, she started this all, when she suggested you get an Uber to her house, but no, you don’t know; you don’t know where her roots lie but you can certainly trace yours to the dingy pub in which you met this woman with braids coming down her head, a ­kind-­eyed stranger, and you knew before you knew. Is this OK? you ask, hooking the black material separating you from her with your thumbs. She nods, you slide it down, down, down. Away. There is no wall to break now but there is more to explore and you know, you know what you’re doing, but only because it is her, only because you can feel her body tighten as you touch her, only because you had no intention of this happening, and so you’re not thinking, but feeling, and you’re not talking but your bodies are confessing their truths out loud. You run your tongue down her middle, from the hard bone of her chest, down her stomach, down, down, down. She stops you. Are you sure? she asks. You nod in the darkness and continue, your tongue meeting soft flesh, slow and steady, her body writhing in your presence, in the pleasure. She asks you to come back to her, so you lie beside her. Your lips meet, urgent. Lie on your back, she says. And she kisses you, working from