The Becoming of Being Known
I was afraid of both the dark and the light. If it were too dark then I couldn’t see, but if it were too light then I was susceptible to being known and seen. The comforter beneath me offered no relief as we laid on top of it. Every decorative seam in horizontal lines road across me from neck to toes. If I could feel them in my skin that skin could be witnessed.
I can’t cry. I don’t know what he is going to do. I don’t want to be the eccentric post-sex crier.
Low leveled sounds of taxis beeped outside, managing to come through the sealed 14th floor window. Everything was silent besides that.
The panic started in my feet. I could feel it grow in my legs and then hips. My stomach dropped and my shoulders tensed until my throat felt so constrained that by the time it reached my head with all the possible and improbable worries I was already crying because I knew it was coming.
“Chloe?” Andrew said.
I wasn’t sure if saying something would be worse than saying nothing, but I also wasn’t sure if I could say anything at all.
“Chloe are you okay?”
I shook my head yes, but by then the staggering breaths rushing to get in and out at the same time became a second betrayal of trust against my own body. At first I wanted my ex-boyfriend to be there, but within the time that my mind had thought that i’d realized I didn’t want him. I was glad he wasn’t there. I just wanted someone who knew what to do.
I knew what to do.
I didn’t look at Andrew, but I could see the shadow of his body leaning up on his elbow and I closed my eyes. If I could not see him then I didn’t have to worry if he could see me. I turned my head to the side away from him and brought my arms up against my face. The bed weighed down on both sides of me. The support started in my neck then to my left shoulder which was lifted off the grooved comforter so that all my weight was on my right side. By the time I opened my eyes I couldn’t see in front of me, but I could feel the pressure of his breath grow and release as our chests waded in and out.
“You’re safe.” He said. “We’re okay.”
The last time this happened the guy stood over me and watched, doing nothing.
The two things I was most worried about were the first two things Andrew had answered: to be safe and to be okay.
His body was big enough that he wrapped me within him entirely. The way some people need space when they are afraid I needed the inventory of who I was with, the confidence that their body was really there.
“I’m sorry.” I said in a voice that sounded so scared I was surprised. It sounded as if I had muffled it into my own chest, like the manifestation of the words themselves were hiding deeper within me.
“Never apologize for this.” He said with unshaken authority and confidence that in fact I never did again. Somehow the words felt like a binding promise, a security, that the relationship was real and that we were. It felt as though we would now forever be associated to one another even if only by our own selves.
It lead me to feel that we knew each other. Of course we didn’t, but feeling that way was enough. Enough that 3 nights over two months was everything. It became the kind of feeling you get when it feels impossible that someone won’t be important to you.
We lulled there like my alarm wouldn’t be going off in half an hour for me to get up, like it was not 6:00 in the morning and we’d been together all night or that I’d be leaving in two days to go home for Christmas. Like he wasn’t half way done with his senior year, like we could see how everything was going to happen to us.
He took a sharp breath in and stood up out of bed and kissed my arm and shoulder blade on his way up. The suction on the window released as he opened it and I shivered.
“I’ll get you an Uber.” He said smiling.
“The subways won’t be so bad if people are going to work.”
“After what happened I’m not letting you take the subway.”
It didn’t feel rude it was it’s own tenderness of protection that I had missed so much. That someone wanted such a large part in my being okay. All I did was nod.