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

bone. It is to bleed and heal. It is to be in the world, honest. It is to place someone next to your beating heart, in the absolute darkness of your inner, and trust they will hold you close. To love is to trust, to trust is to have faith. How else are you meant to love? You knew what you were getting into, but taking the Underground, returning home with no certainty of when you will see her next, it is terrifying.

‘So now I have a ­place –­’

‘Yes?’

‘When can you come visit?’

‘How soon is too soon?’

The next week, you’re standing at her counter in Dublin cooking breakfast. The slithers of bacon sputter in the pan, while she taps on her laptop, planning things you can do together in the city.

‘We should definitely go to the Guinness Storehouse while you’re here,’ she says. ‘There’s something visually pleasing about watching it being made.’

‘Let’s do it. Guinness is Ghana’s second national drink.’

‘Really?’ she says, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, it’s like you go to a bar and instead of a pint of lager, you ask for a Guinness.’

‘You’re not just saying that to please me?’

‘Promise.’

‘OK, perfect.’ She returns her gaze to her laptop. ‘I mean, it’s such a coupley thing to do, but whatever,’ she says, unable to hide the glee this idea gives her. ‘We’ll do that tomorrow. I got a bunch of work to do today. And then ­tonight – we’re going out.’

That first night: rum, cider, cider, interrupted by three stoners cleansing you both with sage, and a wonderful ensemble of improvised music. She asks you to describe her scent, and you are embarrassed, because you’ve thought about it before, and had an answer which slipped from your mouth: sweet, like flowers in fresh bloom. Not sickly but sweet enough to bring a smile to your face. That night you both get drunk and steal glasses from the bar. You tell her she deserves to be loved in the way you love her, and she starts to cry, quiet as rain.

The next morning, you gaze in the mirror with bloodshot eyes and ask if she has any paracetamol.

‘I thought you didn’t get hangovers,’ she says.

‘Oh, go away.’

You walk across Phoenix Park instead. The dredges of summer hang above you while she describes a summer before she knew you, spent working in Dublin. A time which imbued the city with a different feeling, one which allowed her to breathe here. It’s a strange turn of phrase, you think, being allowed to breathe, having to seek permission for something so natural, the basis of life; in turn, having to seek permission to live. You’re trying to remember the occasions when you couldn’t breathe, when each inhale took effort, trying to bypass the weight lodged on the left side of your chest, trying to bypass the weight of having to know how you can breathe ­here –

‘Where did you go?’ Her eyes twinkle as they meet yours. You shake your head as the threads of thought come loose and fall away.

Walking towards the cinema, you pass a police van. They aren’t questioning you or her but glance in your direction. With this act, they confirm what you already know: that your bodies are not your own. You’re scared they will take them back, so you pull down the hood which is shielding you from the cold. She doesn’t mention ­it – the unspoken exchange, the act of ­self-­preservation – until you are sat outside her apartment block, watching a dog dance across the lawn with the moon as his spotlight.

‘Are you all right?’ She pauses as she lights her cigarette, taking a long drag. ‘The police. Earlier. You good?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Thinking about the film.’

The film you saw together that evening, Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, undid you. You didn’t cry, just a twinge as something snapped into place, recognizing yourself in the actions of others. You didn’t cry when Fonnie’s cheekbones had gained shape and a purpose he didn’t intend; when the tired man was on one side of the glass, and Tish on the other, equally wearied, cradling her unborn child, a protective forearm around her distended stomach. You didn’t cry when Fonnie, stretched too far, snapped, trying to explain the intricacies of his current condition without the language to do so; Tish, collateral damage, a story you know too well. You didn’t cry when she, unmoving, reached towards him to say, I understand what you goin’ through, I’m with you, baby. No, you didn’t cry, just a twinge as something snapped into place, recognizing yourself in the actions of others. The motivation of each character was the manifestation of ­love – she told you ­this – in their various actions. All actions are prayer, and these people have faith. Sometimes, this is all you can have. Sometimes, faith is enough.

That night, you dream the police wrote your death story and only included your name as a footnote. You jerk awake, squeezing her leg as you do; your limbs are wrapped together, and she lets out a small moan as you grapple for purchase. It’s not the first time these anxieties have visited you in the night and, like before, the images remain long into your waking moments. You often worry that this will be your destiny, and, though she’s always with you, she won’t be there ­then – and you won’t know who to call in that emergency. You wonder if the emergency has already begun. Evidence for this idea: the daily surprise of your enormous frame being walked into; being tailed by security guards in stores, both those who look like you and not; the scrubbing of identity with syllables that have never been your name. Further reading: jokes at your expense, implying a criminality or lack of intellect; others wanting to ­co-­opt a word they dare not say in your presence, like they have not plucked enough from you; the wearying practice of being looked at, not seen.

You leave her in bed, and go first to the kitchen, for a glass of water,