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

solid shaft of amber light breaks through the glass, grazing cheeks, lips, eyes, the eyes themselves like light diffracted through infinite glass; you see hazel, green, yellow; you see a trust you are grateful for. The mechanism in your camera snaps shut as your finger touches the trigger. Her face on celluloid, development pending.

You follow each other around the supermarket, searching for snacks you know won’t sate your hunger. Down an escalator, exchanging nothings as you avoid the impending split, she heading to north London, to a house party, you south, to meet friends. On the concourse, you press her cheek against yours, wrap arms around a lithe body you have grown to know, the small moans of reluctance slipping from your mouths not enough to convey what you are feeling. Not that words are ever enough.

You’re on the phone to her on the other ends of your Tube journeys. She stays on while you foolishly decide to walk through the forest in this furthermost corner of south London, the trees like gnarled arms stretching skyward on either side. As you emerge into a clearing, she says she wrote something about you on the train. Your chest tightens, like the hands of the forest are clutching your torso. You speak a little more as you walk her to her ­party – strange that your voices soundtrack so much of each other’s lives, but it feels right, you wouldn’t pick ­another – and, finding someone to let her in, her voice leaves you, but when she hangs up, it’s as if her hand is still in yours, long fingers interlocked, her thumb caressing the flesh below your wrist. Every few moments, you check your phone, only to be rewarded with a blank screen. You’re, as always, thinking of her. You wonder if she’s decided against sending it. You wonder if she’s taken back her words, only to leave you with what could be. You wonder as you wander, taking in a view from the clearing akin to that from her balcony, wide and sweeping, looking out across the city. Then, like when you are tangled on her sofa watching red lights flicker across London’s skyline, she gives your hand a little squeeze. You check your phone once more and see her name on the screen.

On the parched patch of grass, you stand still, stunned. Read her words once, twice, hearing the sweetness in her voice with each turn of phrase. You lock yourself in the toilet when you arrive and take them in once more, letting the sentences caress your scalp. Think of this: she closes her eyes and prises open your chest, one rib at a ­time – she knows what to do, she doesn’t need to ­see – slipping her sentences next to your beating heart, the small bundle of muscles swelling beneath her hand. A symptom of something which could only be known as joy.

‘Are you two a thing now?’

The journey you have made is to an apartment your friend Abi and her boyfriend, Dylan, have rented for his birthday. They both live at home, so they wanted a little more space. You’re early. It’s just the three of you. More are on their way. Something slow, funky, with a heavy bassline spreads from the speaker into the living room. Night has fallen. Time has slowed, as has your rhythm.

‘I guess,’ you say.

‘You guess?’ Abi takes a sip of her wine. ‘Don’t be scared now.’

But you are. You haven’t admitted it to anyone, perhaps this is the first time you’ve admitted it to yourself. You’re scared of this moment, which feels like when you wandered onto the beach to photograph lightning in the middle of a storm, volatile and gorgeous, unpredictable strands falling haphazard from the sky. You didn’t know what you would capture, and you knew it was a risk, but it was something you had to do. Here, you know that this is a feeling you cannot ignore.

It’s one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen; you’re scared that she might not just see your beauty, but your ugly too.

‘Where is she?’

‘At another party.’

‘Is it far? Tell her to come.’

What if she says no?

‘She’s not going to say no.’

‘Did I say that out loud?’

‘You didn’t have to. Call her.’

She picks up after a couple of rings and the party spills onto the line.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m still at the party,’ she says. ‘Leaving soon, though.’

‘I think you should get into an Uber and come here.’

‘You think I should get an Uber and come to you?’

‘Yes.’

There’s a pause, and it’s like everything has stopped. Even the party has lulled in the background.

‘Send me the address.’

You’re holding the camera once more. Her long frame curled up on the windowsill, puffing on a cigarette. You take the shot, and she takes the camera from you, places it on the side. Takes your hand instead. The warmth of her hand in yours, the thumb at work once more. She blinks, slowly, just before her lips stretch into a smile. She pulls you closer. She’s swaying a little, and you realize she’s leading you in a dance. The bassline is thicker, faster, but slow enough that this doesn’t feel like a rush. Slow enough to gaze into her eyes as you press closer, moving in an easy, measured rhythm.

You’re scared. But when you hear music, and something, something takes you, closes your eyes, moves your feet, hips, shoulders, bobs your head, reaches inwards, invites you to do the same, leads you, if only for a moment, towards something else which has no name, needs no name, do you question it? Or do you dance, even when you don’t know the song?

19

Speaking of music and rhythms, it’s Carnival Sunday and what should be dub shaking your bones is the muffled roar of rain. It comes as warned, steady and light. She had already made her decision to seek alternative arrangements, but it doesn’t hurt to lament.

‘The one day in the year when I just want to turn up, and dance,