Despedida

That night we slept in the ocean. Your same bed I’d grown to know so well turned into a storm of waves, the sheets became drenched in salt water, a chaos of sweat and tears.

When the water had calmed and the room had quietened so that all we could hear was the street five floors below I asked you to please not fall asleep, not just yet. “Ok, I won’t,” you breathed onto my back as your arms tightened around me and your lips left a slow, tired kiss on the back of my shoulder.

I hated the inevitability of morning, the cruelty of the promise of goodbye I knew I couldn’t run away from. I hated it so much it made my heart race and my stomach burn, I held your hand tighter. You did fall asleep, I felt your breathing slow on my neck and your muscles unclenching as your body sunk heavier into the bed. The imminence of tomorrow kept me up longer.

I stared at your room, your posters, bookshelf, the pile of our clothes on your couch as a sequence of images played in my head like a roll of film. I saw you on your knees, eyes closed and kissing me while I breathed in your hair and remembered how I had wanted nothing more than to stop time right there. I saw you take my hands in yours as our elbows rested on the table at the restaurant as you brought them to your face gently rubbing your lips on them, how I had to take deep breaths not to cry. I saw you pulling my hand as we ran across the street laughing, what a strange happy haze we were, it seemed we existed in another dimension from the people walking on the street, from the kids in pyjamas with their parents in convenience stores.

Despedida

I tried to find logic in how it was that our story had unraveled so easily, how every word exchanged, every kiss came so naturally, how our bodies responded to each other as if through telepathy, how they fit together so well. I saw us in my room, I saw me taking care of you, I saw you telling me not to cry. These images played on an infinite loop as I eventually fell asleep too.

We fell into a familiar sleeping pattern, I’d tell you everything was ok when you would jolt and wake up from a bad dream, we would look for each other’s hands in our sleep, we let out sighs of relief as we held each other, closing our arms around each other’s bodies. I remember finding it strange and rare how we could so easily take care of each other when we were both so helpless at taking care of ourselves.

Slowly the sanctity of night was broken as the room became white and yellow with daylight. You told me we’d be fine and for some reason I believed you.