Page 42 of Way Down Deep

You’re doing morethan shouting. You’ve reached down and grabbed my hand, and I know I can pull myself up. I just hope I can pull you up from yours, too. Or at least give you something that you can use to do it.

IthinkI called you my bucket a million years ago.

God, it feels like a million years. But in the best way.

If this was a movie, I’d scale your building and come rappelling through your window and carry you off into the sunset. Which would somehow be spectacularly bright and colorful, even though it’s always overcast here. And I’d be taller and more muscly than I am. Probably played by Ryan Gosling or whoever.

But I don’t think this is a movie.

No. It’s better.

That made me smile. Tell me what it is, then.

Not beingafraid for once of what happens when you can’t just stop watching altogether.

Isit okay that sometimes I want to fast forward to the later bits? The bits that come after 10pm?

It’s okay. I want to fast forward to the part where I actually get to hold you in my arms.

I’m wearingkind of a scratchy sweater. Just so you’re warned.

Idon’t thinka sweater made of rusty nails and broken glass would stop me.

You should have been here tonight. Watching that stupid-slash-amazing movie on my couch. Eating around the burned kernels in the bowl of popcorn I made. There were a lot of burned ones. That’s one thing I suck at cooking. Which is sad, since it comes in a packet with basically one instruction.

Iwould eatthe burned ones gladly. In fact, I’m starting to feel foolish for not being there with you. Scared still, but foolish.

Shit, sorry. Have to go—I hear the boy moaning. More later.

Goodnight, stranger.

Hope he’s okay. Night, my Malcolm.

11

Monday

10.10am

Morning, you.

Sorry about the abrupt exit. It wound up being a long, rough night, though I didn’t mind it so much. Sometimes it really wears me down into that place of despair, but not this time. Even after maybe three hours’ real sleep, I feel pretty functional. I have you to thank for that, you and our date.

Did you get Man vs. Wild in the UK? It was one of those survival shows, and it followed this dude named Bear around the wilderness while he used his Special Forces training to keep from dying, e.g. by sleeping in a hollowed-out elk, or sometimes a hotel room.

Anyhow, in this show, he’s forever talking about morale. Like, at the end of a long, harrowing day, he’ll build a fire, or boil some tea out of twigs and pine needles, or eat a grub, or drink a canteen of his own warm pee, and then talk about how much better he feels, how it’s boosted his morale. (And also boosted his vitamins, pronounced the wrong-ass British way, like “vittamins.”)

I’m not into hot pee-drinking, but the morale thing is definitely true. The circumstances of my long night were no different than those of any other I’ve endured since I moved here, but following on the heels of our movie date, it was so much easier to bear. Like you make me stronger. Or you make dawn worth waiting for, thinking I might get to read your thoughts, learn a little more about you, maybe make you smile and try to picture exactly that.

You’re the twig in my pine needle tea, Maya. You’re my steaming elk carcass, sheltering me against the dark and cold.

Sorry. I’m feeling silly this morning. Sleep-deprived and smitten. It’s a dangerous combination. I’d better not operate any heavy machinery. I can’t, anyhow—I’m basically made of mangled jerky from my hips down, thanks to yesterday’s run.

What are you up to? I’m about to drink some coffee and sit in the living room with the boy, watch him stare at the tablet probably, and talk, unacknowledged, in his general direction.

I spoke to my aunt this morning—my mom’s sister. We used to be pretty close, and I guess we still are, though she only knew the broad strokes of everything that’s been happening, here. I’ve been avoiding her calls, just because there’s so much to say, and so much of it hurts.

To be honest, you know way more about it all than my dad even does, which is partly my fault for not calling much, but also partly his for not really asking or seeming interested. I don’t want to say he doesn’t care… I know him too well to think about it like that.

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