10:57
It’s too dark to see the seam between the drywall and the beam in the ceiling - only a few feet above my head, but I still know it’s there. I can picture it exactly. I can picture the whole loft inside my head. I can see the pattern on my pillow case, only a few feet away: curling brown branches with pinkish flowers and leaves.
I see a lot in my head.
Him. His smile, his laugh.
Sitting next to me on the edge of the dock.
Toes in the water, hands tangled together.
Laying on the floor, head rested on his fist, dirty blond hair curling into his forehead, silvery blue eyes twinkling. Frustrated with me for still not getting the math homework.
But it would be okay because he would be here. The chances of that: very slim to never. Maybe a vacation weekend for prom...
Or something.
I roll over and try to fill the space next to me with pillows. A space that leaves a big, ugly hole in my chest.
12:58 in that old, red house.
11:32
It's too hot. I picture exactly where the fan is, but I can't reach it. I picture exactly where the light switch is, but I have to get up for that too.
I wish I could sleep now, forget it all and forget the emptiness.
Forget that he is so far away, and all I want is for him to be here.
Between red, peeling, worn-out picnic tables are the silly faces he shoots at me when I look at him too long.
The stupid dance he does when a good song comes on, and how his sister does the exact same thing, in the exact same way.
Him laughing at my mess of a bedroom, so unlike his neat uncluttered one.
I can see the space next to me filled by a 6'2", very warm and snuggly form.
See the peaceful innocence of his face as he sleeps next to me.
But instead all I can see is the space,
Empty.
Next to me, empty for months. Just me. All by myself.
The hole is growing,
I’m losing myself to it.
1:33 1,758 miles away.
12:16
I see all the photos on the wall in my head. I can see which ones are where and what they look like. But they’re on a different wall I couldn’t even see from here if the light was on. There’s the one of our hands, splayed out and pressed together, his fingertips towering over mine. Next to it the one he took of my sister and I over the summer.
The summer… When we can really be together.
I can see the curves of his muscles as they blend into his shoulders and gently mold his t-shirt as he wraps his arms around me and I snuggle my head into his chest.
Us - standing there, wrapped in each other.
Him tall enough to rest his chin on the top of my head
Walking through town, taking in this tiny little place, buried deep in the mountains, rather than deep in the trees of the Hudson riverbank, Bronx.
Sailing with me, on that crazy little reservoir with its crazy gusty wind.
Going upstate to the cabin,
Midnight, moonlight swims in the pond
It’s yanking out tears - the full-body-sob kind.
This hole...
It’s overwhelming.
2:17 in the city.
12: 49
His sweatshirt is stuffed in the crack between the mattress and the wall; it feels just like it looked this morning.
My stuffed animal is tangled in it.
I wrap myself around it, with a sigh, giving up against the tears.
It’s been 11 weeks. It stopped smelling like him after 3.
It was the last piece that I really had.
It’s the physical conversations… regular words through texts and phone calls just aren’t...
I see him laughing at me and my safety blanket of a 12-year old, stuffed dog.
But the sweatshirt is about tied with it for the safety object now.
Him in it, sitting across from me, shaking his head at my stories of the kids from work.
Him, here, talking to his friends at school, there in the halls to be run into between classes.
The broad shoulders and indescribably recognizable laugh tangled in the crowded bleachers, Snuggling into them in the chill of the game.
Him. Here. With me... if only for a little while…
It tears into me, growing as the minutes pass.
Struggling to keep my balance and get some unconscious time to patch up myself and the hole inside me.
So that maybe, tomorrow, it won’t be so noticeable.
Maybe, tomorrow, I won’t need them to understand.
Maybe, tomorrow, it won’t be so hard to get up,
To cover up the hole,
To be alone…
To sleep.
2:50 in New York.
1:24
Sleep: here, now.
3:25: there, with him…