i know this love of mine will never die.
The year was 2011. Winter was still in New York the February the traveling was over with. She stands in the en suite of my apartment, with the door wide open. Shaving her legs with the only razor I had available at the time - a disposable one for men a good friend had left a pack of by my sink, I never kept anything handy around. I was always out of town - three blades and baby oil from the year dot. I shifted around on the bed trying to get comfortable, but all the while I could not take my eyes off of her. I suggested earlier that I would run out to get some wax or toiletries for women if she wanted me to. At 8am after no sleep, which had her look at me like I had just descended from the moon in a space ship with a spoon of peanut butter in my hand. Why would I get out of bed early when I don't like to get out of bed at all, go out into the cold, and freeze off my nipples? That was a decent question. We had known each other for almost six months at that point. Irregular sleepovers were our life, and when she wasn't over, I longed for the moments that she were. They do that in the movies, you know. I never knew it happened in real time. Guess we all learn new stuff sometimes. Why would I get out of bed? I'd get out for her. That charmed her.
She blushed, hiding her cheeks under left of center blonde hair that covered the side of her face like a shawl to keep out the same goosebumps that were all over my body. My hands were pressed against my stomach, I had misplaced my shirt, but it didn't matter so much with her as the one who took it off. The one time I looked away from her, I looked to my hands. Do me a favour. Push the tips of your thumbs and your index fingers together loosely. You see it too, don't you. You do. She did too, and pretty soon she was crawling on the bed beside me, letting me know that the oil was more successful than any she'd used before. She asked me to feel, and I did. Her lips grazed mine. My heart jumped.
"It's funny to me," she said.
"What is?" I asked.
She was rolling around in the sheets, relearning how not to believe in clothes. She paused, her head tilted as that of a curious puppy would do the same and squinted.
"Having no heat in a five-k per month apartment and no comforter."
I will never forget the smile she gave to me in that moment. The one I would end up getting to see every single morning we were together knowing right away that I would never tire of seeing it.
The year was 2011, it was Paris. Long limbs were kicking at the pillows at the foot of the bed. We'd decided to lie like that, as kids do. Directly across from the television, we knew we would not have to confront our slowly ailing eyesight, and could still watch The Lion King in full colour and French, paying no attention to any of it, being too wrapped up in each other to care. We both had bed head, but after you have been sleeping for only two to three hours a night in strange albeit comfortable hotel rooms, once there is no longer a rush for fittings, you let yourself go. It was different that day. We had not removed the make up or the holding spray from our final shows up to eighteen hours before. The shower was across the room with plenty of on the house stick-it-in-your-bag smellies I left the tops off. just to banish the smell of nicotine and smoke from the rest of the place. It's the strawberry I remember most vividly. Strawberry tinted sticks of cancer.
Over the musical numbers, we discussed her fondness for the French soundtrack, and how for a week as a kid, I pretended to be a lion. Exchanging this kind of story became something that we did almost every night, in the same room or half of the world away. Things I had forgotten under the weight of time were unveiled and I shared them with her, as she did with me, and while doing so, we created handcuffs from red thread picked up at the market. We made our mark on that room, turning covers, eating chocolate, turning hanging paintings upside down just knowing clean up won't miss a beat. It was our private Idaho where not a single soul could reach through to penetrate, making the opportune moment to spend all seconds without clothes more than a novelty. I would say the beginning of the next year for us. We gave mutual appreciation to..... parts, that's not as dirty as it sounds. Paris, our Paris. Our secondary city, both of us wishing to run into Gertrude Stein by the Seine, but too engulfed to allow a move of a muscle.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked, green eyes fixed on me.
"That I'll love you always," I replied without trepidation.
She fell silent for a moment or two, the corners of her lips twitched. I knew it was my turn to ask.
"What are you?"
"I worry about it. Always, I mean. Can people say that?"
No thought was needed, "I can. I just know."
The year is 2012. London has been calling this morning, but I'm too fucking tired to get out of bed. There's a little boy on my shoulder, his sleepy head decorated with a headband given to him by his Uncle Christian the last time he and Shey visited. Now the guy's hair's gone, there's no need for it, and he soon promised to send over all of the ones he still had lying around on the checkered floor. She's out getting breakfast. I know this due to a recent trip to Camden market, where we picked up one of those tiny chalk boards to hang on the kitchen wall. There's nothing on that, not that I can see from so far away - the last I remember, it read NIKKO, ZOE + FREJA'S HOUSE, BEWARE OF T-REX. We left his stuffed dinosaur by the door. What she does do-- what we do, we leave notes. Gone to pick up pastries, loving you. Loving you every single step. I love you like the sun. Neighbours singing ABBA at 7am, gone to give them sugar. I love you. I'm in love with you. I love you more every day. You're my sweetheart. Burned myself making eggs, gone to get plasters, and so on. There's one on her pillow. I have to reach for it carefully, to not disturb the small person with his mouth wide open, breathing baby snores into my ear.
Loving you always, that's what it reads.
It makes me smile, as every single note, word, and message from her has in the two years we have shared spottily on this crazy planet. I was pretty young when I decided to avoid the all encompassing type of love. I betrayed myself, got hurt, and decided all over again knowing I would break it, get broken, and spend more years trying to fix it. I think about when she came into my life, how closed off I was. about how our first kiss was just a couple of girls showing appreciation. about the fact she had my heart from the day I met her. When I look to my right, there's a painting I left on the scratty easel I picked up just last month. I paint sometimes. The pictures live in closets, so I tend to put them back there at the end of the day as the blue oil I find myself addicted to doesn't go well with the surrounding decor. Plus, anyone peers through the second storey window---the front door clicks and snips shut. Quiet as a mouse, it still manages to wake Nikko up. I kind of always remember waking up like that too when I was a kid and my mum got home, like some kind of sixth sense. We're staring at the door as he dives off of the pillow and out of the covers to run to the woman who owns both of our hearts, bodies and souls; whose we get in return.
"Hey, you two." She's smiling, kicking off her flats. "You just woke up, huh?"
"He just woke up. I have been awake ten minutes."
His arms are wrapped around her, a tiny weight to make taking my jacket off harder for her, and we share a look that says it's lucky I'm not up too, or she'd be being sandwiched between the two of us. Once off, she perches herself on the edge of the bed, bringing Nikko into her lap, and I cannot wait another moment before joining them from behind. Legs either side of her, arms around both waists, lips to the sharp bone on her shoulder. I inhale her.
"I missed you," I tell her.
And,
"I missed you, too," she says.
"Always do."
"Always."
for tradition, have a little bit music.
[there's no i without she, and no her without me.
there just isn't. been fun, kids. i'd make this longer, but i don't want to. just. for the love of god, keep writing. please. thank you so much for the last year. i love you, you know who you are.]