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Half his face is fogged, running hot despite the cold of winter. "So, you're coming right?" His eyes flutter about like he's nervous what your answer will be. What an incredibly funny man he is. He does this often, reaching out to you in this desperate but fearful manner. Will she reject me? His expression seems to be caught in purgatory, wondering about you.
Shouldn't you leave this part of yourself for the girl you like? You wonder. Imagining him floundering with another girl makes you sick, you pray for whoever he'll end up with. He'll be waiting at the front for his wife-to-be and all she can see is his face flushed red, attempting to display his friendly affections to some other woman. You should answer him soon, he looks like he's drowning while upright on land. "I guess," you say with no real commitment because he will hear your confirmation and forget about you. What everyone fears is rejection, but that's it. The love they want are from a select few. So, you can say I guess because it means he will leave you alone as long as you don't push him away.
"Amazing," he sighs, relieved. "I even brought your favorite board game. Maybe I should've mentioned that first. Ticket to Ride, right?" He blabbers on and on as you observe him, feeling the distance between him and you as if it's a real, palpable thing manifesting into the steam that's escaping from his lips.
You want to respond to him with words, but you just nod dumbly as he lists all the things you like.
"I know you don't really drink so there's really no pressure. I have soda and stuff obviously." He waves his hands around summoning this memory of his decked out fridge in some strange, fantastical wizardry. He often lives in his own world, it makes you laugh even now. Gideon lights up at the sound of your crackling joy and speaks with more fervor than before about all the things he has memorized about you, all things he did for you. "It's a simple party," he claims.
"With thirty people," you add on.
"Mm," his voice pitches up, "maybe thirty-two?" He can't look at you in the eyes.
"Oh, I'm sure you can make it thirty-five," you chuckle into your hot coffee.
"What if I lied and it's actually closer to forty?"
"Oh, Gideon," you tut.
He likes it when you say his name, but he would never tell you that. He'd rather coax it out of you, cast you under a spell and whenever you say his name three times he'll appear. In fact, he wouldn't be able to contain his excitement and just show up right in front of you at the first syllable.
"Now, why would you lie to me?" You shove him lightly.
"Because I want you to come."
It's your turn to fumble, mouth opening and closing, meanwhile you force your head down as to not look at him. You fill your mouth up with coffee instead. Black because you didn't have the funds to buy milk and now you can't stand the taste of anything in your crude. "Then has everything been a lie?" you joke.
"I don't know… I guess you'll just have to come and find out." His smile casual, almost lazily strewn out.
"Oh, go to hell." You swirl your coffee around but there's nothing to mix.
The snow comes gently and rests on your lashes. The green bench the two of you are sitting on slowly becomes dusted with white and the sun shimmers at just the right angle, creating an illusion where the snow becomes a single entity, breathing slowly underneath the crawling students of the campus. And for what it's worth, if he could answer your jest with sincerity, he already feels like he's in hell. Every time you offer a lackadaisical response to his begging requests he feels a part of himself tearing away into a black hole. I mean it, the words on his tongue. But he withholds and swallows his heart down back into his chest. A pill he regularly takes, self-medicated. At what point does a man become so pathetic that he can't even be laughed at? He doesn't know and he believes he's toeing the line.
"Ladies first," he humors you.
"Fuck off!" You shake your head, ruffling the snow that was settled on you.
Eventually, both of you go your separate ways to head to class. He sends you all the details about the upcoming party because of course he does. Why would this "future pilot" bother focusing in his economics class.
I'm transferring, he said to you in the beginning of the semester. I'm going to aviation school, he continued but you've already tapped out. Something about needing to raise his GPA? Or something about needing certain credits? Whatever, you can't find it in yourself to care about that nonsense. College, aviation school, grades, the future. All of it is merely a concept to you, grains of sand that you swirl around in your palm until it all eventually slips away through the gaps between your fingers.
You know you should care. He cares, after all. But you're so tired. Class begins and you slip away into spiraling halls to take notes about things you barely understand; the professors, your adversaries or comrades against the miserable academic system. Just graduate, you tell yourself. But you'll walk onto that stage and take your scroll, and you'll keep walking. You'll walk down the stairs or pick up another scroll, you'll just keep going and going and going in your graduation robes and silly cap. The tassel with the year you'll have graduated tied onto it, swinging side to side like a pendulum mocking you, luring you into the maw of some great beast.
Where will you go?
Why does he want you to come?
Picking up your things, shoving your laptop in your backpack you had since high school, hearing the chatter of people your age shuffling past in the same way you remember your blurry childhood when you thought you had something to lose. And you finally gained something when you met Gideon. Though, not really, he was never yours. It's foolish to cry over this, you've only known him for two years, that's nothing compared to the excruciating two decades you've lived without him. But he listened to you— how stupid you sound!— but he listened to you! And in your profoundly stagnant life that exists more like a tale than something truly alive, when you looked into the audience beyond the stage you saw his hand waving at you with his phone up, recording you.
What do you really know about him? How can you pretend that your sadness doesn't come from a place of self-pity? You'll miss him, but only because you had lied to yourself that he was a part of your life when, in reality, he is the sound of passing laughter. These futile, flipping pictures of mountains and skies you'll never visit. So you smiled at him when he told you he's leaving at the end of the semester. And you shook your head and said it didn't matter that he told you so late. Congratulations, you're shocked you could even say the word without breaking down.
He waited for a second, stared at your bowed head before he begun again, explaining the program he got accepted into.
Yes, yes, you nod and you nod until your head felt like an anchor chained onto your neck. He's leaving and you're staying here, in the place you've been stuck at for your entire life. Because, in the end, you'll never gain the courage to exit the auditorium. You just keep hoping that someone will clap for you if you keep walking down the stage, if you linger by the seats; you imagine the languid speeches about incredible people and their terrific destinies are for you because that's what every student wants. Potential and wit; energy bunched up in tight fibers ready to snap at any second.
Gideon is exactly what you are not, and so, you cannot keep him. You knew, and yet, you still hoped. Such is human nature, though, you wrongly assumed that if the pain is expected it wouldn't hurt when it finally came. But it does and now you're going to his farewell party with all his friends you've only ever spoken to briefly as they prod you to "get to know the girl Gideon's been talking to."
I'm sure he talks to many girls, you said to them with your eyes surveying the plethora of women in his gaggle of friends.
Not like you, one of them chirped.
You laughed at that because you didn't have anything to say.
All the while, Gideon shakes his head and groans about how you shouldn't listen to them. They take every opportunity to make fun of me, he bemoaned.
Nodding is all you're able to do in these situations. Everyone is mystified by his presence and you are this curious shadow that languishes in the values of the wall. As everyone is buzzing with some invisible joy, you look at Gideon who riffs off of their splendor. You realize, maybe joy isn't so invisible. It takes shape as this future-pilot-to-be who regularly shaves the sides of his head by himself because he has always been planning to fly off into the cerulean above the land you're constrained to.
You begin watching videos of pilots. The ocean looks beautiful from so high up. He'll forget you, but you'll remember him here on this dull ground.
"Hey, you're not gonna leave me hanging, right?" He nudges you while walking to class the following week.
"What do you mean?" You squint at him, as though your sight could somehow give way through his layered mind and drifting words.
"Ah," he begins, stammering. "Are you mad at me?"
"Why would I be?"
"Because," he pauses. "Well, because I'm leaving."
"I can still text you, right? It's not the end of the world."
Gideon frowns at this. "Yeah, I suppose," he finally agrees with great struggle. Except you stopped texting me, he ruminates.
You're odd, that's the best way Gideon can describe it. You have these temporary flashes of light where you dispel these terrible worries he has about your feelings towards him. She likes me, I think. And he feels the courage charge through him to step closer to you, but then you shroud yourself again. You don't just step back, you disappear. Shrinking away into some unknown, some black space that rends you and him apart, and he finds himself desperately searching for an after image of you. Fickle, impermanent solution that drains away when he's not looking. But he can't forget the small fleeting affections you offered him before. The aroma of something— and maybe he's hallucinating, but there was a time.
Your dazed expression after drinking too much beer at some unmemorable astronomy club meet up. Your lips wet from the drink and your saliva— shit!— he remembers. And it haunts him to even acknowledge he does. Don't leave me, Gideon, you mumbled as he held you up to keep you standing. He didn't know what to do with that, so he took you outside to rest at the steps. Don't leave me, you repeated like it was some kind of magic spell that could keep him here. Your head on his shoulder, your beer in his right hand because he was afraid you'd drop it.
I have to go, he said after awhile.
In your haze you remained by his side and he counted your slow breaths as time expanded, waiting for your reply. I know. This place could never hold you. Your fingers climbed up his and ventured on the hills of his palm.
He should've asked you then what you meant by that, but the night passed and now you can't look at him without this tortured, dispirited look. Your laugh sounds more like a noise attempting to convey some form of elation you've never felt in your life. A breathless, gaping mouth curved upwards to appease him. Originally, he wished to assure you he'd be here for all your milestones. He planned an entire speech dedicated to comforting you and he fretted over these practiced lines: I'll come to your graduation, I'll still visit you on my breaks, I'll celebrate your birthday and the holidays with you. But you didn't react when he broke the news of his departure. Something in you died and he was left in the dark to try and piece together what had just happened.
It's not right, he thinks, to assume what you want from me. So, he ignores the tightness in his chest and tries to reassume a normalcy like he doesn't notice you're doing it again. Disappearing without explanation only to be summoned from your smog out of your unquenchable desire to see him. But how is he meant to interpret that? Would you rather erase him than suffer a temporary goodbye? In this confusing orbit, he decides to leave you alone to see what you'll do. Yet, he can't help himself when he sees your mask split a little, he feels this tug to tempt you out of your shell. Inevitably, he'll make his want known, he'll speak clearly, and he'll ask for you. Despite your apparent aversion of him, you always heed his call. This gives him enough to resurrect and surges his heart to beat.
For every minute he dreams of you, he also dreams of your needy voice begging him to stay. Your cool affront, shattered from the brief memory of your teary-eyed agony. Your hand in his as he swallowed down his heart, in fear he'd scare you away.
That's why, when he opened the door to see you standing there in the cold in your long coat and enormous scarf, he knew you still held some longing for him. You didn't want to erase him and he was so relieved he could cry, but he refrains to maintain his grinning persona, jumping at the opportunity to scurry off from this place.
"Come in! You look like a penguin out there," he chuckles.
"Just welcoming me in? What if I'm a vampire, here to suck your blood!" You turn your fingers into claws and Gideon shakes his head at your ridiculous attempt to frighten him.
"Come on then, vampire. Go ahead and suck me dry." He cranes his neck to display his smooth, bitable skin.
"Ugh, you're disgusting. I think you just soured my appetite." You pretend to gag.
"What are you thinking about? Get your head out of the gutter!" He shuts the door and leads you into his noisy home filled with lively banter.
You meet them all again, shaking hands and giving the occasional dap up that you don't really know how to do. Gideon watches you from the side as you fumble with Patrick's hand trying to figure out how to do the "perfect" dap up.
"It has to make a good sound," Patrick informs you.
"Try it with me," Gideon perks up.
So, you do, and Gideon feels the fire in him dissipate as you whine about how stupid this whole thing is and how you'll live without knowing how to properly dap someone up. In spite of all your complaints, you learn from Gideon and everyone gives each other knowing glances as they see him loosen up from your glee.
"How will you live without me?" His heart soaring.
"I don't know," you muddle your words under the swell of the music, for you are too afraid to admit the truth.
But he heard you, of course he did, and he's able to identify a pain laced in your voice.
To avoid spiraling into depression you insist on showing him all the gifts you bought him. Mainly alcohol and food, but most importantly, a keychain. You drop the small twinkling metal into his hand and he studies it for a second too long before facing you again.
"An airplane," he says, breathless.
"Yes, an airplane," you parrot. "Good job, Sherlock."
"Oh, praise me more, please." He begins to attach the charm onto his phone case.
"You're already putting it on?!"
"Am I not supposed to? I'm a future pilot, after all," he hums while looping the string around, pushing the plane through the circle to secure it.
"I just…" Your voice fading into the vibrant atmosphere of the crowded party.
"There!" He holds up his phone to show it off, airplane jangling on its side, hitting the plastic case every so often.
"Your case is so fucked up, Gideon… Have you considered investing in a new one?"
"I guess I'll just have to wait for your next gift!"
You roll your eyes at that, but you're blooming on the inside at the thought of a future with him.
He scuttles off to greet more people and introduce you to his buddies. It's a never ending stream of people, you realize. After some time you conclude that in order to act like a normal person under these circumstances you must drink. Soon, you ease up and your mouth begins to rattle on without much thought. Gideon encourages everyone to play your favorite board game and you win twice in a row before getting drowsy from the plentiful of alcohol sloshing in your half full stomach.
To nap, you hide away into a dark room to lie on the floor.
"Hey, have you seen—"
"Your girlfriend?" Patrick interrupts Gideon.
"Not my girlfriend," Gideon quickly corrects him.
"Right, your future girlfriend."
"Dude— you know what?— whatever, man. Do you know where she is?"
"I think she went somewhere upstairs."
"Ah," Gideon nods, "she probably went to sleep."
"Seriously? What a light weight!"
"At least she doesn't puke everywhere and gets black out drunk!"
"Guilty as charged."
"I'm going up."
Patrick raises a brow at this. "Are you gonna disappear for the rest of the night, lover boy?"
Gideon throws up a middle finger while climbing up the stairs.
He finds you in his room, splayed out on the hardwood floor. "Silly girl," he mutters to no one in particular and tucks you under the covers of his bed. Satisfied, you snuggle into the soft fabric surrounding you and he feels the need to stay next to you to stroke your hair and watch you slumber. Instead, he slips away to let you rest, for his responsibilities lie below. The party continues as you remain coddled in a dreamlike warmth, eyes flittering between the darkness of your own lids and the shadows of an unfamiliar room. But the playful chatter and constant waning laughter lulls you back to sleep as if you're home with a family you never really had. Alcohol dulling your senses, pulling a veil over your eyes, a child listening to your mother's heartbeat as your own heart forms.
But all dreams must come to wake. As the hum of life fades you rise, blinking to adjust your sight to the night. As though possessed, you slink off to the underworld, just a flight down, and find yourself alone. Just when you think it's a nightmare, you see Gideon passed out on the couch. Annoyingly tall, he is almost the entire length of the sofa. Cracking up a bit at the sight, you drag your feet over to him and kneel down to take in his face and form. He's pretty, but in a boyish way. His ruined phone case and screen is proof of that. Nose slightly crooked from an accident on the playground he often refers to as a "war injury"; ears cold to the touch due to his short hair; lips sufficiently moisturized because, as he liked to say, What if I meet someone?
Always ready for love. That's Gideon. Never afraid he won't receive it, every corner is a flame waiting for him to carry them into his heart. You are one of them— one of the many indistinguishable souls waiting for his ardor.
In the fog of desire mixed with watery beer and questionable vodka, you play with the folds of his ear and watch his face scrunch up at the touch. A small breath escapes you, pretending to be a chuckle. Tragedy to come, clutching the muscle in your chest. So entranced by his beauty, you don't notice him regaining consciousness.
You look like you love him.
Except, he can't tell if this is a dream or reality so he lets you touch him, your thumb exploring his lips.
"Are you real?" He's not sure if that's his voice, but it came from his throat so it must be.
"Mm," you ponder what to say next, but you're still a little drunk and the alcohol emerges from the plains of your smooth brain as a barrier between you and rationality. "What do you want me to be, Gideon?" You continue playing with his bottom lip with your thumb, your body disconnected from your quiet mind.
"I want you," he sighs.
You stay silent, waiting for him to resume talking but he doesn't. He remains there, eyes swirling with something you can't quite identify for you may have never known it.
"I don't think you do, actually." You remove your hand from his face, but he grabs your wrist with lightning quickness you're almost scared into sobriety.
"Don't go deciding things for me." He lets go of you and begins to sit up, struggling against the mixed liquor affecting him. Sluggishly, he stands and looms over you, his hands resting on your wrists now. "Don't go," he repeats.
"You don't even know me."
"But I know enough," he argues.
"What do you know?" You look up at his furrowed brow and raw desperation.
"I know you begged me not to leave that night." He wets his lips and takes in a breath. "I know you asked me to sleep with you when I brought you back to your dorm. And I know…" He looks away, but you pull him back to you.
"You know…?" Urging him to continue.
"I know you wanted to kiss me, but I wouldn't let you."
Breaths mingle together in a messy rhythm. "So, you remembered." You're not sure if you're mad, but you feel something rising in you.
"Yeah," he confirms. "I'm sorry."
"But if you… I don't…"
"You were drunk, I couldn't let you make that mistake."
"Mistake? You're not a mistake, Gideon."
What can he say to that? In theory he knows you're correct, but the way you elude him troubles him deeply. Yes, he knows some part of you lingers near him because you like him, however all those moments are memories drowned in roaring waves. They're elusive and blurry, pitted against all the luminous, almost harrowing, visions he has of places where you should be, yet are nowhere to be found. Every request you turn down, the many times you ghosted him before a hang out with friends— I don't want to be a bother, you said. Gideon would be lying if he said he understood, so he doesn't. He simply searches your face cast in obscurity for some kind of answer. Then, you ebb and he has to wait for you again. In that empty space he wonders if he's wasting his time. If you'll really come back.
"You treat me like I am." He releases his hold on you and retires to his room, which he laments will now have the scent of your perfume all over his sheets.
You are left alone in the dark, forced to puzzle together what he means by that.
Oh, fuck that. You don't know, you've never known, and you won't unless he tells you— unless you tell him. Call it liquid courage but your patience has run dry and you hull yourself up the stairs to confront him about what any of it means. He wants you, that's enough. Maybe it won't be enough to fix this, although you never knew you broke whatever it is in the first place, but it's enough to convince you to fall into his gravity once more.
You crawl over him on his bed. He hasn't even bothered covering himself, his shirt pushed slightly up so it shows his midriff— lean. He's been training, planning his leave ever since he got admitted into this college.
"Why are you here?" His words stumble on each other.
"Because you are."
"You're drunk."
"So are you." Your body slumps over next to his and you bring his shirt down to cover his stomach.
"What do you want from me?" He doesn't bother looking over at you and terror begins to fill your body.
"I want you." Your voice shakes.
"Don't lie, please don't lie." He's about to turn his back on you, but you clamber over him to get to the other side where he's facing.
Your head reels from all the movement, to anchor yourself you hide your head in his chest and cling to his shirt on his back.
"That was stupid," he admonishes you, and yet, his arms are around your quivering shape.
"I know," you groan. "But I feel like if I don't tell you now, I never will."
He goes still.
"I like you." A whisper.
"Why can you only tell me this when you're drunk?" The words carried on a miserable laugh.
"Because," you flounder, "because when I see you, when I hear your voice… it messes with my brain."
"I'm not some sort of witch, I'm just a man."
"Not to me! To me you're Gideon. And you're also a man. A man that I happen to like a lot."
"And you're telling me this now because…?"
You shove yourself deeper into the curve of his body and inhale his scent. "I'm really happy right now…" Your train of thought diminishing by the milliseconds.
"Hey, I smell like shit right now. Don't," he scolds you, but there's no bite.
"I've never gotten this close to you. It's… it's nice." You're muffled by his warm body, snuggling into the nape of his neck as the rest of you wraps around him.
He gives up. Painfully hard and somber.
"Oranges," you wistfully mumble.
It takes Gideon some time to understand you're trying to say he smells like oranges. He's in disbelief because, quite honestly, he smells like alcohol and sweat from chatting, singing karaoke, playing video games, the list could go on. In your drunken stupor, memories fizz up to the surface. Memories of a life you've never lived, nor ever will. On the porch with faceless family as everyone bustles inside the house murmuring about plans, dinner, and school. Peeling a mandarin orange with your clumsy hands, juice dripping down your arms as you inelegantly attempt to lick it all up. The air is still and humid, it's so hot you can see the heat deform the faraway mountains covered in a resplendent green.
How many times have you imagined this place? Your bleary eyes crack open to look at the man holding you in these blue hours. He's unable to fall asleep, staring at you stir into wakefulness. The vision of your false home and his emotionless face merge. Magic becomes real and the sun begins to creep into his room, the sounds of life return. Birds take flight from tall trees and the curtain sways with the hot breeze.
Summer was the only time you got to go home. When winter break starts you'll stay here on this empty, dead campus. And you'll wait for summer to come but it won't bring you back, not anymore. You wonder, can he soar you back to a place that never existed on iron wings? What a comical thought, you think, that's impossible.
"I'm telling you this because you're leaving." Your voice finds you in this dream.
"So, you're making it harder for me." He offers a melancholic smile.
"Like I mean anything to you."
"You mean a lot to me."
You laugh at that. Your dreams are rarely ever so pleasant, perhaps this is Gideon's fault. Somehow, his simplicity wormed its way into your heart and you became fascinated with this wondrous specimen that glittered much like the breathing snow beneath your boots.
He is upset by your careless laughter. "I'm not joking."
"Hm," you grab his nose and pinch it, "honk."
"You—!" He's so taken aback he can only laugh. "Go to sleep," he says between breaths.
"Can't. You're hard."
"I'll sleep downstairs then."
"You can't leave me!" Like an incredulous child, you wail.
"What do you want then?!" He squeezes your cheeks with his giant hand, perfect for a pilot.
"You."
"You're not helping yourself here…" His cock twitches at your incessant pleading for him, only him.
"Kiss me," you demand.
"Will you sleep if I do that?"
"Do it and find out."
"Why do I feel like I'll regret this…"
"You don't wanna kiss me?"
"Don't twist my words." His breath hot in your wanting mouth.
And in a brilliant flash of light, his lips are on yours. The sun which had washed over the surface of this blue wasteland shrinks away as little radiant tendrils. His tongue invading you, though, you always let him in. Drool dripping down your chins, mouths rasping for air until you're on each other again. He thrusts upwards into your want with his and you moan into the sloppy kisses. It tastes terrible, bitter and acidic— did he drink whiskey? Ah, he did always like it neat.
His chest is heaving up and down, you never realized he moved you to be on top of him. He's incandescent. Morganite hidden in aquamarine, blooming as this nebulous pink soul.
"Will you sleep now?" He has the audacity to ask.
"Can you?" You throw the question right back at him.
He chortles. "I'll sleep if you do."
"Do you wanna?" You can play this game all day.
"Wanna do what?" He's a formidable foe.
"Sleep!"
"Mm," he pretends to think, "let me feel how wet you are, then we'll talk."
"Not fair!" You bend down over to his face. "What about you?" Your lips find solace on the edges of his mouth and his smile lengthens with the shadows underneath the yawning sky.
"What about me?" he teases.
"You're insufferable." Tugging at his ear.
"Oh, says the girl who finally confesses to me after two years, right before I transfer."
You take your sweater off in defiance. "You never told me you wanted me."
He looks away, but takes several little glances at your naked torso. "You…" His lips purse before he finally relents to the truth. "You always pulled away. When you said congratulations to me, I thought: wow, this girl hates my guts. I wanted you to yell at me about what an asshole I am, but you just took it." He takes some time to reassess what he just said, blinking into a sobering reality. "Shit. I sound like a dickhead— no— I just— I wanted you to care about me leaving. No! I mean, of course you do, but… Ugh!" He puts his hands over his face, if I can't see you, neither can you.
You rest your hand down on his chest and feel for his stumbling heartbeat.
In time, he returns to you more clearheaded. "I thought you didn't want me here— with you— I mean. That maybe… I don't know. I was temporary to you and that's why you kept disappearing from me. It felt like you were waiting for the day I just abandon you, and that you wanted to be the one who did it first. That hurts, you know?" He finally looks up at you, hands on your hips. "You matter to me. It's not a joke."
What can you say to something like that? Except to hang your head in defeat (this isn't a fight) and let the tears fall from your eyes onto him.
In a panic, Gideon shoots up to brush away the wetness on your cheeks traveling down to your lips and chin. You begin to laugh, hoarse and pathetic, because you lack the foresight to know what else to do. Here you are, a woman with nothing and no one to be, and here he is, a man who sees this and is trying his damnedest to dry your eyes. You're almost convinced this is still an illusion, that he would never offer you this love and you would never be alive to receive it. But he keeps holding you and whispering that it's fine, that he understands, and he's sorry for what he might've said that caused this. This embrace, your reminder that you're well and fine. Skin stitched onto muscle, filled with nerves that light up at his touch which shivers in the fear he might be hurting you.
You shake your head, but the message it conveys gets lost as it drifts on stale air to him. He is in the process of untangling his body from yours, but you stop him with a tug of his arm. Your hand cannot wrap around his bicep and you laugh a bit at this discovery. "Your arm is huge," you inform him of something he already aware of.
He blinks, mouth cracking open to speak but nothing comes out. "You're crying," he decides to say.
"Mm, that I am Gideon Jiang." You swallow down the lump in your throat.
"And you're talking about my biceps."
"What better time than now?"
"I think I can name a number of times, actually."
"Oh? Why don't you list them for me?"
"I'll do that when you stop crying and tell me what's going on in that jumbled mind of yours." He pokes your forehead.
"You're not hard anymore."
"You're crying." He feels as if he's going mad with how many times he has to tell you this.
"I thought guys like it when girls cry," you sniffle.
Gideon raises a brow. "I'm gonna need names here."
"Are you mad I'm talking to other guys?"
"No, I'm worried the guys you're talking to are psychopaths! Also, who are you lying to? You hate talking to people!"
You giggle. "Kidding, kidding! I only talk to you." Your body crumbles and you rest your head on his shoulder, nestling your nose into the crook of his neck.
"Why are you crying?" he says it like its forbidden of him to ask.
"Never thought you'd like me," breath hot on his skin, "thought I'd be dead if it ever came true." Your mind too muddled to bother lying or burying your unsavory thoughts.
He stays very quiet, listening to your small breaths under his ear.
"When I wake up," you mummer between life and dream, "will you still be there?"
"I'll always be here."
"Liar," you huff. "You're leaving when spring starts."
He lays you down when your breaths become shallow and thinks for a second about leaving. There are glasses to pick up, beer bottles to toss. He hasn't even bothered going into the other rooms that most likely housed evidence of his friends' drunken escapades. But you were here, and so, he finds himself tethered to the empty space beside you. Facing you, growing sleepier as he matches the rhythm of his breaths with yours. In the two years he has known you, he has managed to map out the shape of your soul. The edges are blurry, curling like steam from a coffee pot. You always seemed to fog, shrouded in a colorless spirit until he reached out to touch your hand, just to see if you were really alive.
And you were. Responding to the touch with a small flinch before becoming curious enough to edge closer to him. It was not love that called him to you but intrigue. The same intrigue which had you coming back to him despite every muscle in your body repelling him. Now, he knows it had evolved into fondness and maybe it will blossom into love as he flies away overhead.
But for now, the morning rises and he is here snoring softly as you attempt to remember the shape of his crooked nose.
"Take a picture," he catches you watching him as he is coaxed into the living world by the warmth emanating off of you. "It'll last longer."
"Hm, I think my eyes are better. A camera can't capture your beauty." You wink, emboldened by sharing a bed with the man you're too afraid to admit you love.
"Is that your coy way of saying I'm too ugly to take pictures of?" He pulls you in and kisses your cheek.
"No, but maybe you're too stupid to recognize a compliment," you tease.
"I'm almost as stupid as the girl who couldn't admit she liked me for two years."
"Low blow! You'll have to pay for that, Gideon!"
"Oh? Tell me, what is my punishment?"
You grin. "Do I have to tell you everything?"
He laughs as he kisses you on the lips. One kiss quickly becomes a hundred, his hands settle on your bare skin before taking your bra off. "Let me breathe," you say between kisses.
"You're my oxygen," he says while taking off his shirt. "I need your kisses to breathe."
"God, that's a terrible line," you laugh. "Come down here then. I'll give you plenty."
The sun, not a dream, creeps onto the edges of the bed before eventually finding Gideon's back. For the first time he sees you under the shape of his shadow by the yellow light. Your chest heaving up and down, your heart running into his, and he feeds you the heart he had to swallow down. Neither of you ask if this will last. Imagination unfurling under distant fire; he sees you waiting for him after his classes and texting him good luck before each flight, you see him visiting you on the ground with flowers and endless stories.
These temporary flashes of fragile hope are enough to make a man soar, enough to make nothing into someone.
In the future you will tell him you love him and he will be waiting for you to. But, for now, he will leave once the snow melts and you will have some time before saying hello again.