Yesenia and Enzo undressed in silence.
She knew they weren’t going to have sex. It was just hot and the AC was broken and they’d made the mistake of giving their fan to Yesenia’s sister when she moved to Arizona, because they’d figured she’d need it more, but also because they’d forgotten to get her a going away present. Yesenia wanted to open a window, but Enzo was worried about an animal getting in since none of their windows had any screens on them, and because the apartment always smelled like sofrito and meat, which he said made them an easy target. So, naturally, they took all the blankets off their bed and stripped down to their underwear.
The last time Yesenia had seen Enzo naked, three months earlier, she’d told him that she didn’t think their relationship would last another year. She’d said this while he was still inside her, a fact that she omitted when recounting the story to her friends, and especially to her therapist, a small woman who practiced santería on the side and who often warned her about the dangers of soul ties. Yesenia also omitted that she and Enzo both came anyway, and that afterwards, Enzo had gotten dressed and disappeared for four days. When he got back, he had a chipped tooth and a new haircut, and Yesenia had stopped wearing her engagement ring when she went out to bars.
Enzo wasn’t naked this time, but it was close enough, Yesenia thought. He looked over at her, then at the unmade bed positioned against the wall, and asked her, “Inside or outside?”
She remembered what her mother had told her when she first got with him, about women and easy exits, so she said, “Outside,” and waited for him to get in.
Despite everything, Enzo was still easy to coexist with, even if their coexistence made Yesenia feel like she was missing out on something. Mostly they were the same as they had always been, except now every day felt like the beginning of some kind of ending, albeit a quiet one: the dust left in the air after fireworks instead of the fireworks themselves.
Yesenia settled next to him in bed, near-naked and sorry. Not every night was like this, she thought. Some nights, even if he didn’t touch her, Enzo would make Yesenia laugh, and she would remind herself that it is possible to still be loved without being touched, and that sometimes, for so many other people, this is preferable.
“Could you get the light?” Enzo said, his back turned to her.
“Wait. Will you stay up with me for a bit?”
He said nothing for a few moments. Then he turned onto his back and put an arm behind his head, looked up at the ceiling. Yesenia wondered if he saw the same things she did: the discoloration, the inexplicable dents and lines, the way the blue paint from the walls bled onto it at the corners. When she glanced over at him, his eyes were closed, his face flushed and damp with sweat. He looked younger in the lamplight, the sharp edges of his cheekbones rounded out by shadows, his nose a fraction of its actual size. She fought the urge to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“Is this helping?” Enzo asked. “Me staying up with you?”
“I think so,” she said. “Maybe give it another minute.”
“Okay. Okay, yeah, I can do that.”
Yesenia sat up and brought her legs to her chest. She looked around the room, at all the little filths that reminded her that they were alive: pillowcases stained with acne cream, mugs sticky with leftover mixed drinks, tumbleweeds of hair caught in the carpet. If she concentrated hard enough, she could feel her heartbeat in her knees.
Enzo sighed. When his hand met Yesenia’s back, she flinched, straightened out, then laid back down beside him. She thought about how long she’d gone without touching him. Without being touched by him. But here was his hand, an offering.
The end hadn’t come yet, she told herself, and maybe it never would. Maybe they just needed to spend some time in a waiting room of sorts, where at least they knew that whatever they were waiting for would eventually call their names.
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Gabriella Navas is a Puerto Rican writer hailing from Jersey City, NJ. Her work has previously appeared in [PANK], Storm Cellar, GASHER, Fractured Lit, Quarterly West, and The Masters Review. She is easily distracted, frequently smitten, and always willing to talk about the healing powers of Chavela Vargas’s discography. She currently lives in Columbus, OH. You can find more of her words @gee.navas on Instagram.