Page 28 of The Seven Year Slip

“Go to sleep, Lemon,” he muttered, his Southern drawl thick with sleep.

Mortified, I quickly slipped under the covers, turned my back to him, and waited for either sleep or death to claim me.

10

(Sub)liminal Spaces

Morning light trickled inthrough the bedroom curtains. My head was fuzzy, the comforter kicked off halfway through the night. I curled my arm around the pillow in the middle of the bed and burrowed my head into it. It was warm, and the apartment was quiet. I’d had such a lovely dream—that I had dinner with a man who could actuallycookfor once. I’d never dated anyone who could do anything in the kitchen beyond grilled cheese. He had a nice smile, too, and beautiful eyes, and I wanted to laugh at myself because I wouldneverdo half the things I did in that dream. I wouldn’t let him stay in my aunt’s apartment. I wouldn’t dance with him in the kitchen. We wouldn’t sleep in the same bed, with a pillow between us.

... A pillow that I was very surely hugging right then.

And, suddenly, it all came crashing back to me. I woke up with a start, and scrambled to sit up, grabbing the clock on the nightstand: 10:04 a.m. I looked around. It was my aunt’s bedroom. Her monstera plant wilted in the corner, her tapestry from Lebanon on the wall.

Yesterday had been real.

Oh—oh,no.

I buried my head in the pillow and took a deep breath.

“Get up,” I told myself. Iwan must be around here somewhere. His indentation was still in the bed beside me, but it was no longer warm. When had he woken up? I was such a heavy sleeper, I wouldn’t even wake up if an atomic bomb went off. God, I hoped I hadn’tdrooledin my sleep.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and pushed myself to my feet. His toiletries were still in the bathroom (not that I checked) and his duffel bag was still on the far side of my aunt’s dresser (I justcasuallysaw it while leaving the room), but he was nowhere to be found.

A lonely, heavy feeling knotted in the middle of my chest as I stepped into the kitchen. He’d put the dishes away this morning, everything returned to where they’d been the night before, though I straightened the wineglasses into neat rows and stacked the utensils on top of each other in the drawers, where he’d haphazardly put them. It was automatic, really, a way to keep my hands busy. The apartment was so quiet without anyone else here, the sounds of the city muted, a dull hum of car engines and pigeon coos and people.

As I opened the bread box to get out a bagel, I noticed a piece of paper on the counter, trapped under a pen, with scratchy handwriting across it.

Gone to get that esteemed dishwashing gig. Coffee’s hot! — I

That peculiar knot unwound in my chest at the sight of it. I hadn’t known I had wanted to see him again until I realized that I could, and I hated that there was a knot there to begin with. I tookthe piece of paper, began to ball it up to throw it into the trash can under the sink, but resisted the urge, and put it back. Then I slipped into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth, since my mouth tasted sour from last night’s wine. I put on some mascara so I didn’t look half as dead as I felt. How did Iwan getupso early? He had had almost as much to drink as I had—then again, he was a good five years younger than me, too. And there was a gap betweenearly twentiesandlate twentiesthat only people existing in bodies in theirlate twentiesunderstood. You could still fight god, but you’d have to ice your knees afterward.

By the time the bagel popped out of the toaster, I’d washed my face and pulled my hair back into a tiny ponytail. The coffeepot was still warm, so I took advantage of it and poured myself a cup.

It smelled good, at least.

I slipped onto the barstool to enjoy my breakfast, listening to the pigeons coo on their AC unit, and tried to convince myself that this guy wasn’t growing on me.

“Damn it,” I whispered because he made really excellent coffee, too.

He was gone forthe majority of the day, and Sundays were usually when I stayed in and caught up on my TV shows—the few that I still watched. MainlySurvivorand whatever show Drew and Fiona bullied me into watching, claiming I’d love it. However, my aunt never paid for cableorinternet, and it wasn’t exactly like my phone could connect to Wi-Fi seven years in the future, so I decided to snoop instead.

Just a little.

Just to stave off the boredom.

I wasn’t going to at first, but his duffel bag wasright therein thebedroom, and I kept passing it every time I walked in. Just a little peek, I reasoned, sliding the duffel bag out from beside the dresser. I began to unzip it, but my conscience got the better of me.

It was rude to go through someone else’s things, and he hadn’t really given me areasonnot to trust him.

“You can’t control everything,” I whispered to myself, and pushed down the tendency. “It’s probably just clothes and stuff anyway.”

But ignoring the temptation was a lot harder than I gave myself credit for, because while he’d told me a lot about himself, I found myself wanting to know...everything. Where he went to high school. His first crush.

His favorite color.

With one last tempting look at the duffel, I closed the bedroom door behind me so I wouldn’t be coaxed into snooping by my own bad thoughts, and went into my aunt’s study.

I needed to distract myself.

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