This Close to Okay(15)
i know you never tell, but i like asking…to annoy you! Tallie texted him back.
Annoyed. You got your wish.
aaand you love me.
That, I do.
Her cats purred down by her feet like two fuzzy engines. Tallie held her breath, attempting to listen for Emmett moving around out there on the couch. Had he bolted in the night? She tiptoed to her bedroom door, unlocked and opened it slowly. From there, she could see Emmett’s hair, set like a red-gold paintbrush against her pillow and the lavender fabric of her couch. She closed and locked the door, went into her bathroom. As a way to self-soothe, Tallie took baths as hot as she could stand every night when she got home from work. Usually, she steeped herself like tea until she was blushed and loose, limbs limp from the heat, eyelids heavy. Since she’d skipped her ritual the night before, it was time for a shower. She undressed and stepped into the white-tiled coolness.
*
Afterward, she took her time brushing her teeth and washing her face. She used her apple toner, her hyaluronic acid, her caffeine under-eye treatment, and moisturizer with sunscreen. Squeezed the skinny tube of coconut lip gloss onto her finger and swiped it across her lips. She liked coconuts in the morning and mint at night. She didn’t change or shorten one thing about her morning skin-care routine. The glass serum bottles and smells soothed her. Joel used to ask, But what’s it do? as he inspected the teeny print on the labels. He liked to claim skin care was a scam, but he didn’t understand that she used it to organize her mornings and evenings. It wouldn’t even matter if her routine did anything or not. But it did! Her skin had been clear, soft, and smooth for almost the entirety of the two years since she’d started paying more attention to it and taking time for herself. The fertility drugs she’d been prescribed had reconfigured the precious science of her body and, in turn, wrecked her skin. She needed the exfoliators, boosters, ampoules, acids, and essences. Eye creams, sunscreens, and night creams. Retinol and sheet masks. Morning and night, the ritualistic three or five or ten steps she could control when she couldn’t control anything else.
*
Careful not to make any extra noise, Tallie walked past Emmett camped on the couch with his backpack underneath his knees. She stood in her kitchen, replied to texts from a couple of her girlfriends. Texted, i love you, miss you, to Aisha, knowing she wouldn’t see it until Sunday. Tallie took her laptop to the kitchen table and checked the browser history—sports websites and articles. Emmett certainly hadn’t googled how to murder the woman who bought you coffee last night.
She walked into the living room, got on the floor across from him. She was eager for him to wake up so she could gauge his mood, to see if he was feeling better. His head was turned toward her, and she resisted the urge to get closer. To lean in and inspect him more, to see how he smelled as he slept. To whisper Who are you? into his ear so he’d dreamily open his mouth and scatter his secrets across the morning light.
EMMETT
He woke up to Tallie trying to be quiet in the kitchen and the smell of coffee, bacon, eggs. He had a full-blown, throbbing red-wine headache. He took himself and his backpack to the bathroom first thing.
“Hi, Emmett, good morning. I hope you’re feeling well. I put a new toothbrush on the counter for you. You probably see it,” she said from the other side of the door after tapping on it.
Peeing, he spotted the red toothbrush still in the package on the counter.
“Good morning. Yes, I feel okay. Thank you. I see the toothbrush.”
“And I have coffee and breakfast when you get out.”
“Thank you,” he said again.
Emmett brushed his teeth using her cinnamon toothpaste, his reflection blinking back at him. He hadn’t intended on being alive to see himself in a morning mirror. He pictured the bridge in cloudy daylight, the cars whizzing by. Was there a chance he’d be conscious after hitting the river? He’d read about the rare survivor stories, but he’d also read that the impact from jumping off a bridge was the equivalent of getting hit by a car, that his body could be falling at the rate of seventy-five miles an hour. He would accelerate as he fell, then his bones would break, his organs would tear apart. Simple physics. And by chance, if those things didn’t kill him instantly, his last breath would be water.
He wasn’t scared.
Emmett splashed his face, wiped it dry on her hanging towel. Looked around at the little glass bottles and plastic tubes she had in there. Everything smelled like flowers, a girl garden.
(The hallway bathroom. Two candles: one half full of wax, one with a wick that hasn’t been lit. A photo of her and another woman hangs in a white frame next to the light switch. A hook next to the frame, holding two wooden necklaces, one beaded one. Pearly white liquid soap in the dispenser. Pale blue bath mat. Four fat bulbs of white light above her mirror. A postcard of Michelangelo’s David tacked next to it. The bathroom door handles are curved silver with curlicues on the ends. Swan’s neck faucet, silver. White floor vent, white tile. A full-length mirror on the back of the door. A wall outlet with two plugs, one holding an auto night-light. A small garbage can in the corner next to the toilet. A shower curtain matching the bath mat. A round frosted window fit for a ship.)
He was greeted by the cats sitting side by side in the hallway, watching the door. He petted them on their heads, rubbed behind their ears. When he walked into the kitchen, Tallie handed him a Harry Styles mug of coffee. Emmett pointed to Harry’s face and thanked her one more time, took a sip as she sat at the kitchen table.