BY MAT HOOPER
Copyright is held by the author.
THE OTHER morning, I woke up and saw Becks on my side of the bed. I didn’t hate her for it. It’s not like I ever told her which side was my favourite, but maybe she could’ve asked? My bed lined up in the corner of the room. One side got the actual edge of the bed and the open air of the rest of the world. The other side got the wall. She lay there, shirtless, sleeping with her hands nestled between her head and my pillow, on the good side, with her bare back trapping me against the wall.
I turned onto my back and faced the ceiling. The room glowed from sunlight sneaking between the blinds. I interlocked fingers on my chest like I was going to patiently wait for Becks to wake up, but that lasted all of a minute before I decided to replay the events of the night before.
We had sex. I remembered that. But I thought back further. The seeds of a hangover grew as I thought, but I put together a choppy highlight reel of the night.
It started as a boys’ night out, but what I remembered most was a beautiful girl at the bar. Her face was filled with freckles that looked like they each had a story to tell. She had this laugh that rose out of her like a sunrise. I remembered it clearly. Her clearly. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen — or at least that night. I had to talk to her.
I drowned the butterflies in my stomach with a shot of vodka and got one of my boys, Marcus, to gas me up. “You got this,” he said. “You’re the shit.” He was right. I did have it and I was the shit.
I walked up to her with the perfect cocktail of tipsy and confidence and said, “Hey. Quick question. Truth or dare?”
She looked at me, looked at her friends to check that I was worthy of talking to, then turned back to say, “Truth.”
I hit her with my most innocent smile and said, “Well, the truth is I was hanging out with my friends across the bar when I saw this radiant light suddenly appear. I heard wind chimes and harps playing, and I thought I was going to go blind from all the glowing. I shielded my eyes and was about to run away when out of nowhere the glowing stopped. I looked over, and it turned out it was just you. It was you laughing. And I was like, ‘Wow! She’s the most beautiful thing my eyes have ever seen.’ And that’s the truth.”
I know I mumbled through most of it and had more pauses than I wanted. It was probably too over-the-top in the first place, but it worked! She said, “I don’t think that’s how you play the game. When a person says ‘truth,’ you’re supposed to ask the other person a question. You’re not just supposed to confess something.”
It was just the kind of response I wanted.
“Oh. I didn’t know,” I said. “How about you go this time and show me how it’s done.”
She did and we played a couple more rounds. She told me her name. It was Summer or something. Maybe Autumn. I bought her and her friends a round of drinks. I even got Marcus to come over and flirt with one of them for a bit.
At one point, she finally chose dare, and I dared her to dance with me. She agreed, but said she had to go to the bathroom first. I let her go with a smile and leaned back on the bar. I knew the dance would lock things in. A couple songs could lead to a future date or maybe even me taking her home that night.
As I waited, I ordered us another round of drinks. Another perfect play.
The DJ ran through a couple songs. I figured the line for the bathroom was long. At one point, her friends looked at their phones and wandered off, leaving Marcus and I at the bar. Marcus said they left for good, but I held on to hope. I told myself they were getting the seasonal girl from the bathroom. The DJ made a couple more spins and I ended up chugging my drink. I took a lap around the bar. The girl’s bathroom line was empty. The dance floor was filled with faces that didn’t belong to any of them. The parking lot showed no sign of them. She was gone and all I had left was her drink in my hand.
I guess after that, her drink, a couple drinks later, a blacked-out Uber home, and probably a few phone calls telling Becks to come over — and there I was, sinking into the wrong side of the bed. Becks floating on the good side.
I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I figured it was from a lack of hydration or lack of food the night before. I thought about going to the kitchen and cooking up an omelet. Recover and let Becks sleep for a bit. But I didn’t move. Maybe lack of energy. I bent my pillow in half and slid it under my head to give it more support. I closed my eyes.
It wasn’t Becks’ first time lying with me. Three years ago, after I graduated college and got my own place back home, she practically made my bed hers. I hated being back in my hometown, but she made it a little easier. I remember lying in bed on both sides, talking to her for hours about my dreams and goals, and how this was only a temporary situation. How–soon–I would be in one of those big cities on the west or east coast. She believed every word like they came from a prophet. It was nice. The bed was nice. The memories didn’t feel like a collection of moments, but more like one long night of them.
I opened my eyes and looked over Becks’ shoulder. I saw her phone on my charger. I looked around the room for mine. I spotted it sitting next to my wallet on the counter. I slid out of bed, grabbed it, and slid back in. Becks didn’t move.
I opened my call log and saw I had made four phone calls to her the night before. My stomach churned. I checked our text history, and it was even worse. They were completely one-sided with only me sending:
Heyyy 🙂
You up?
Wake up!
You should come over!
Please!
Come ovaaaa!
Yoooooo!
I wanted to vomit.
I deleted our text history and tossed my phone. I tried to drift back to dreamland, but I couldn’t. The bright blue text bubbles shined in my mind.
I flipped back onto my side, parallel with the shape of Becks, only leaving a foot of space between us. I wondered how she could sleep so mindlessly, as if she didn’t hear the thoughts screaming from my head.
I placed the end of my fingers on the center of her back and began gliding them in circles. I grew the circles, expanding them until they reached her shoulders and lower back. Her skin perked up and her breathing became wider and wider. My fingers skated into figure eights and then shapes of my deepest imagination. She had these tingly sensations on her sides, right below her underarms and above her waist, and I felt her body rise as I took my fingers over them. After a couple rounds, she let out a long breath and turned around.
The first thing I saw was her smile. Her eyes were still slits and her yawn pushed her cheeks up.
“Good morning,” she said, and all I could do was smile back.
“Morning.”
My little guy stiffened ever-so-slightly, sensing a girl awake in the bed, but my head told me now is not the time.
Becks’ eyes blinked themselves back to sleep. My bed was still her bed. She slept when she wanted to. I wanted to join her and wrap my arms around this living croissant, but it seemed too delicate. Like if I touched it, she would fall apart.
I sat up and tossed the pillow to the side. I leaned against the wall, and Becks felt the movement. She breathed heavier and peeked an eye open.
“Go back to bed,” she said.
I should’ve. But she took too much of it. The walls were collapsing around me and no matter how I bent my pillow, it wasn’t comfy enough for me to sleep.
Becks peeked another eye open.
“Too much to drink last night?” she said.
“Something like that.”
Becks inspected me. She inspected the silence. I kept looking forward, avoiding her eyes.
“Wanna get some brunch?” she said. “There’s this new place downtown – Ebro’s I think it’s called – that I wanted to try.”
One of those “Ehhh” sounds escaped my mouth. I don’t know what for. To buy myself time? I was hungry. My stomach needed something in it. But the offer felt like a trap. Becks and brunch was too much of what I needed.
“I would be so down,” I said, “but I can’t. I promised Marcus I’d help him film today. He wants to enter that film festival at the end of the month, remember? He’s been trying to film this one scene, but he’s never satisfied when he goes to edit. So, we’re trying again today to get it right.”
I didn’t go into further detail. Not that I had to. I think a Becks of the past would’ve questioned why I couldn’t get brunch before filming, but this Becks said, “That should be fun.”
I nodded. Maybe muttered out a “Yeah.”
Her eyes drifted back to close, but I knew she wasn’t sleeping. Her eyes were open as mine.
After a moment of stillness, she got up and went to the bathroom. The silence and her absence shrunk the room.
I sat there, thinking about what she might be thinking about. Maybe my inconsistency. Maybe my consistent inconsistency. I didn’t know. I don’t know if I wanted to know.
She came out of the bathroom and searched for her scattered clothes on the floor.
“I’m going to get out of here,” she said. “I’ll let you get ready for filming. I want to eat.”
She slid into her clothes and sandals and grabbed her phone.
“I’ll walk you out.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I know where the door is. You need to get over this hangover.”
I paused. She came back to the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around me, placing her head on my shoulder. She squeezed, pulling my body into hers, wrapping her arms around me tight. I squeezed back. It felt like she wanted to squeeze any feelings I might have for her out of me. I wanted to give them to her. She pulled her head away, keeping her arms locked around me. She looked at me, our faces only inches apart. I don’t know who kissed who, but our eyes closed and our lips found the curves of one another, lying with each other for a second like two old lovers.
We pulled away and let each other go. We didn’t make any more eye contact.
“Good luck with filming,” she said. “Hope you’re able to get what you want.”
“Thanks,” I said.
She left and I sat there on the edge of my bed as I heard the front door of my apartment close.
My stomach churned one last time.
I love her, I thought. Maybe love was too strong of a word, but it was something like it. Something close.
More sunlight snuck into the room. I grabbed my phone off the floor. The battery was blinking in the corner, so I connected it to the charger and kept it in my hand. I fell back in my bed, on my side this time, still warm from Becks’ heat. I was floating again.
I opened up Instagram and clicked the search bar. I typed the name “Summer” and began a search for the girl from the night before.
***
Mat Hooper holds a BA in Creative Writing and is currently working on his debut novel. He has previously been published at the fiction site Maudlin House, has a blog titled “Hooper’s Bloopers”, and runs a newsletter titled, “While Ya Poop”.
