REM Cycle.

It was late, and the air was thick with nostalgia.  A single light dangling above the sink highlighted the otherwise dark room.  She sat on a stool while he stood on the other side of the island.  They talked softly as not to wake the others living in the house.

“I never stood a chance with you,” she said, smiling.  He took a sip from a cup that his little sister made him, and she watched his mouth turn up at either side.

“Sure you did.”

“Ha!  You knew you had me from the beginning,” she accused.

“Why are you so sure?”

“Don’t you remember our first dinner together?” 
He laughed at the memory.  “You hardly ate.  It could have been worse, though.”

“How so?”

“You could have ordered a salad.”  They were both laughing now.

“I couldn’t help it. I still thought everything you did or said was charming,” she said.  He was grinning again.  “Even now, sometimes when you talk the words come out in cursive.  I didn’t even know you and you were already something to me.  That sort of thing made my stomach turn.” 

He looked in her eyes for a moment.  “I didn’t know I had you,” he confessed.

“I didn’t make that clear?” she asked.

“No.  I don’t know.  Maybe you did and I didn’t understand at the time.  Maybe I still don’t.  You just always seemed so…white.  It didn’t make sense for you to come around.”

“White?”

“Yeah.”

“Making you…?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Shaded.” 

She wondered why it always came down to this, and why he continued to question it. 

“Let’s go up,” he said.

He poured the watered-down whiskey into the sink.  She waited for him, hoping he’d write about her someday.  The kind of writing that would lead to people asking him how he made love last for so long, or if he really knew a girl like the one he talked about in his stories.  Allowing the previous conversation to saturate, he followed her up the stairs in silence.  They crept into his bed, where they spent most of their nights, and she wrapped herself in his old, cool sheets.  She reached to pull the curtain closed in hopes that morning would delay. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

“We should talk like this more often,” he said.

“I know, dear.” She traced his face, her favorite picture, and put it in her pocket.  Though she had spent most of her summer with him, she still couldn’t quite describe the color of his eyes. 

“I was thinking about rules today,” she said.

“Rules?”

“Yeah.” She was looking away from him now. “The biggest ones are always broken at night.”

“Like?”

“Like midnight snacks.”  He laughed under his breath, this being the perfect illustration of the way she saw the world. 

“I think it’s the moon,” she said.

“Of course it’s the moon,” he agreed.  She was staring again as she pulled the covers over her shoulders, noting his ability to always have the unexpected yet perfectly appropriate response.  She kept going. 

“So, I’m going to asking for your permission now,” she said, picking at her cuticles. 

“My permission?”

“Yes. To love you,” she said, her voice quieting. 

“That’s the rule?”

“It’s the one I’m breaking.  I thought I’d give it a try.  Rebellion, I mean.”

“Is this about summer ending?”

She looked down and replayed the last three months in her mind. The countless cloudless days and a scene much like this one and the one before that she could never quite hold on to.  She swam through his head like a child who was never taught to swim.

“You love me now,” he said. She wasn’t sure if it was an insult or not, so her rebuttal came quickly. 

“That’s the sad part.” Her voice was shaking. “I keep trying to. You won’t let me.  You fight it every time.”

He stared up at the ceiling with one hand folded behind his head. She was looking at his bedroom door, gathering the location of her belongings in her mind in case she had to leave. It was an empty threat.  She knew she wouldn’t go, so did he, but she had to give herself the chance.

“You still have a lot to learn. Maybe you’d be better off without me,” he said.  He turned toward the wall so his back was facing her.

“I wouldn’t leave unless you made me.  I’ll stay until you tell me to go.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know, darling,” he said.

“Because you haven’t told me.”

“I wasn’t just talking about myself.”

“Alright, then.  What do I need to know about the world?”

He sighed.  “That it’s been pissed on.”  The way he said it

made her feel like he had been wanting to tell her for a long time, but that he didn’t want to be the one to contaminate her.  He didn’t require a response, but it came after a minute of silence.
     “Just because I see colors doesn’t mean I don’t know that.

I know the world’s been pissed on.  I also know that that

isn’t what you were speaking of entirely.”  He didn’t move.  “You were talking about your world.  Your world’s been pissed on, and from the little you have told me, I’d guess you had to stand by and watch while it happened.  That’s a tragedy.  And I wish I could have been there to love you then, but you seem to be under the impression that I want to clean it up for you now.”

     “Isn’t that what this is about?”

     She gave a quick laugh, expecting him to believe that she couldn’t love him simply.  “I may not be old enough to buy you a drink, dear, but I’m smart enough to know that to try to clean up a mess of yours would be a losing battle.  It’s a romantic notion that’s been lost in translation.  Love has become associated with the art of fixing, and it’s bullshit.  People seem to think that allowing someone to plug up their empty places for a while will keep them from spewing again, and that’s bullshit, too.  Real love is the exact opposite.  It holds the bucket and catches everything that comes spilling out.”  She wasn’t sure that she was making sense now, so she made her point.  “I don’t want to fix anything of yours.  I wouldn’t be able to if I tried.  That’s your responsibility.  I just want you to let me in the room in case you can’t reach the wrench.”

     He lifted his head as to make sure she heard him.  “You wouldn’t know where to look.”

“What are you so afraid of?” she finally asked, raising her voice and knowing he wouldn’t tell her. He stopped to think, and he turned back toward her.

“If I left, would you call?” he asked.

“No,” she answered, lowering her head.

“Why not?”

“I’ll think it’s because you don’t want me anymore,” she said.  “It doesn’t make sense for you to come around, either.”

“And if I called?”

“I’d answer.”

“Why?”
“I’d want to hear your reasoning.  And because I’d still

want to be the person you’d write about for the right reasons.”

She kissed him, not waiting to hear his response.  That night, she fell asleep to the sound of his breath in her ear, still the prettiest melody.