INT. - BEDROOM - EARLY MORNING
We are in the bedroom. Hers, not his. He wishes he had a bedroom this big—maybe that’s why he’s here and she’s not there. It reminds the boy of a gym in the sense that there is at least one mirror posted on every side. It didn’t exactly represent her personality, the boy thought. She was very unassuming, very humble. He wondered why she needed to have so many mirrors, especially one right in front of the window. He liked windows. Liked to see outside, people watch, and explore the neighborhood with his eyes, but he couldn’t do that here. Here he is forced to look at his own reflection, her own reflection—staring right back at him all the time. At certain times of the day, in certain situations, he can’t help but feel that there is no privacy in the room; there is always the feeling that he’s being watched. During intimacy. During sex. Sleeping. He peels one eye open only to see the mirror on the ceiling has been glued to him for hours. One part of the room is where she puts on her minimal amount of makeup. Just for kicks one time the boy counted how many different products she had: four. He would always wonder aloud why she needed to have a makeup station when she didn’t have any makeup or put any on really (something he had always commended her for). In the corner of her make up mirror is a picture of the boy and the girl—a sign that suggests they might be more than what they are or could be if it weren’t for the fact that there were no photos on social media of them together and neither of them had told their parents anything. They were both content being as close as they were without the whole world knowing.
He met her on the train, as random as random could get. It was a late winter day, February or March, and he was heading home listening to music and she was right in front of him—not listening to music, but in her own world. If you asked them, neither could say with certainty who was “it” first, but they proceeded to play eye tag for the whole start of the subway ride home. She’d look at him. He’d look at her. Never looking at the same time. Back and forth. Back and forth. And then their eyes met and both of them were entranced. A uncomfortably comfortable held gaze and then they broke it. For about a second before they did it again and she spoke first and he followed and they exchanged numbers that night, went out the following week, made love, started seeing each other from time to time, then more consistently, which pretty much brings us to them and these mirrors. If you’ve been following along you’ll realize that only one corner of the room has been described and there are three very distinct sections left. The other corner is a shrine to the girl’s father, who passed away when she was very young. He was an immensely popular figure in her family, a wonderful husband to his wife and a great father to his four girls, and his memory was so strong, so vivid, so powerful, that the girl has always taken the shrine with her wherever she’s gone. It’s grown in size. There are more pictures now. More artifacts. More things. CD’s he liked. Books, too. Lotions he used. Hats he wore. Candles perpetually lit in his honor. The boy admires the shrine greatly, but sometimes feels as if its gaze is as unwavering as the mirrors. He never dared say anything to the girl, but as the shrine as grown little by little, he is starting to feel like the father is actually there in the room. His spirit is present. The third corner has two things of note: a gargantuan dresser and a clothing rack of articles that the girl has designed. The boy always jokes around that designing more clothes is awesome, except she doesn’t need anymore considering she has the biggest dresser in the world. He’s only half-serious. One of the things he likes most about the girl is her creativity. And the fourth corner—the last corner. The yoga corner. Where the girl rises in the early morning each and every day and finds her inner peace, finds her calm, and her breath. Always to the dismay of the boy, who always wakes up because of her movements and the accompanying music she plays. When he rises, moans and groans because of how early it is, she softly offers up another yoga mat if he feels so daring, but he declines and nestles himself back to sleep while she continues her morning ritual.
He loves her bed. Not just because she’s usually in it, but because it supports him. He never liked the bed at his apartment. Yes, he could sleep, but there was something missing. It just didn’t hold him the right way. Not the way she held him. Not the way her bed held him. Maybe it was because she had just the right amount of pillows. Three. One for him. One for her. And one for whoever needed it. You see, at his place he had his pillow and another one that for the longest time was of no use. Finally, one day, he took the second pillow and started to hold it when he fell asleep. He tried it with his arms outstretched. He tried it under his legs to create the perfect sleeping posture. He tried it around his midsection, but for the life of him nothing seemed to work. No matter what he did he’d wake up the next morning with a crook in his neck. Tight as tight could be. Like his collarbone had been raised. He hated it. In her bed, it was a different story. There was always something to hold on to and there was never anything wrong when he woke up the next morning. Not at all. Not even the damn music or the damn yoga. She gave him a key to her apartment and a key to her bedroom and some days he would come there after work and sleep in her bed, even when she hadn’t returned from her work, yet. When when he would get there last and she was waiting for him—sometimes awake, sometimes asleep—he would crawl into the bedroom, inch closer to her, and proceed to grab ahold of her caressingly, never too tight, around the sweet spot of her abdomen. Not around her belly button. Just a little above. He would always joke that there was no good place to put his other arm. Sometimes it would get stuck under his side. Sometimes it would get stuck under her body. Usually he would place it under his pillow, right under his head and this would do the trick. Holding on to her in that comfortable bed under the softest blankets you could ever dream of. For her birthday a year ago she was gifted with Egyptian cotton sheets. It was like sleeping on a cloud in heaven, he imagined. He didn’t know from experience, but he figured that’s what it must be like. And the bed was big. Big enough. His bed at home did not allow him to fully extend; his feet would always pop out of the end. Not here, though. Not in this bed. He could stretch without getting up and be as big as he wanted to be. With her.
Was this the bed he wanted to stay in? He had been asking himself that question a lot, lately. Avoiding it, too. All signs pointed to yes. She pointed to yes. The way he felt about her pointed to yes. To be able to be with someone like her and not ever feel weight on his shoulders was something he had never found and had been clearly taking for granted. He had already basically abandoned his own bed. Did she feel the same way? He thought she did. Maybe she didn’t put it into words quite like he did, but he could tell that she was comforted by his presence. She enjoyed seeing him waiting for her when she got home. It wasn’t hard to tell. Her mattress was his home. It molded itself to him. Their mold. He looked into her eyes tonight. They had both taken the day off and had found each other lying next to each other as always. She was facing the window and he was facing the back of her head, burning a hole of wonder into it. She must have felt the heat because she turned around and stared right back at him. He looked at her with wonder and they spoke silently to each other. He noticed how brown her eyes were. How her pupils and her eye color sort of blended together. He scanned her forehead and the top of her hairline, which featured some baby hairs. He wandered to her nose and admired her nose ring, then moved to her ears and her many piercings. Then her lips, which he hung onto until he was ready to leave them. He delighted in her cheeks and focused on her expression. She was in deep thought. Probably doing the same thing he was. Looking him up and down. Staring through him like she always would.
Finally their eyes stopped traveling and locked on each other. Locked like their bodies. And in unison, without moving, they threw their keys away.
The boy turned off the light.