Stay?

When it was good, it was very, very good. There was an ease in the way they existed around each other that was akin to planets in orbit— constant, complementary, a gentle fact of the world. They could pick up conversations that had been left off months ago. They could read each other’s faces like neon signs. They’ve never tried, but their bodies could probably slot together perfectly, the curve of their arms sculpted for each other’s backs.

 

When it was bad, it wasn’t horrid. It was kind of… just, whatever.

 

“I’m leaving.” He said. Sunlight through the doorway cast his face in shadow, lighting the edges of his hair on fire; a golden halo. 

 

At the dining table, she took a sip of her coffee. She didn’t have to check if her hands were steady; she poured drinks for a living. Across the room, his hands were, too, as he hung his apartment key carefully on the hook by the door; that’s the surgeon in him. 

 

He raised his head. She met his eyes. She watched, silently, the way he hesitated before disappearing, leaving sunlight rushing in to fill the space he left behind. 

 

She wondered why he always waited that split second for something that would never come. 

 

The bar is quiet that night. When the sunrise reached its tendrils over the horizon, Zen, who was scrubbing the countertop, glanced first at the time, then at the empty seats, then at her, all with knowing eyes. “It’s off again, huh?” 

 

“There was never an on in the first place.” She replied. She was wiping down the shelves of liquor, and the apartment keys jingled jarringly in her pocket every time she picked up a new bottle. She wasn’t used to having two.

 

Zen chuckled. “Right, right. Because you two are ‘just friends’.”

 

“It’s true.” She said. 

 

“I don’t doubt that. In fact, I’ve noticed,” Zen said, “that you don’t even touch each other. Do you reckon that’s where all the tension is coming from? Maybe you should—”

 

“No.” She said.

 

“I’m just saying.” Zen said. “A quick—”

 

“No.” She said. 

 

Zen displayed palms-up in a futile attempt to look innocent. “Sometimes all you need—”

 

“Aren’t you due for a smoke break?” 

 

For the next two months, he remained beyond her horizon. It’s the longest they’ve gone without speaking to each other in a very long time. Occasionally, she caught herself sitting at the dining table, back to the wall, staring through the empty doorway. When the sunlight fell through just right, she could see the outline of his silhouette there, a golden afterimage burnt into her retinas.

 

“No doctor boy? Still?” Zen noted, after yet another sunrise without a hint of his company. They were cleaning again: scrubbing down the counter, organising the glasses.

 

She shrugged. “It might be over for good, this time.”

 

Zen laughed, heartily. “You are such a liar.”

 

He showed up in the third month. Just outside the bar, on the periphery of a group of young men passing by. It could’ve be written off as pure coincidence— friends, hanging out, walking around in the city together, their path just happening to cross that particular street. She watched him until he turned his head to look through the window, his eyes finding hers with ease, magnets, snapping into place noiselessly. She leaned one hip onto the countertop and smiled. She didn’t believe in pure coincidences. 

 

“You look like a cat who’s just caught the canary,” Zen commented, following her line of sight. “Oh. I see. There he is.”

 

He came back the next day at an ungodly hour, still in his work clothes, and found her polishing the countertop meticulously with a cloth and some granite stone cleaner. Zen was nowhere to be seen. (She suspected that Zen was all-knowing and knew exactly where to be, and when.)

 

“What can I get for you?” She said to him, easily, like she didn’t know his order by heart.

 

“Whiskey, on the rocks.” He replied, just as easily, like he hadn’t told her a million times before. A million nights, sitting right there, on that same seat, under those same lights. The deja vu is an elephant that they both ignore.

 

Pouring is easy. Pretending is easier. She smiled and joked and wrapped her hands around each thing just a little slower than necessary, and when she slid his glass across the bar, she threw in a wink for good measure. 

 

He remained unaffected. “Thanks.”

 

“How are you?” She asked.

 

His grip on the glass is white-knuckled. His answer is flippant. “Exhausted. You?”

 

“Never been better.” She said, teasingly. Her tone was underhanded and dirty. She’s never liked playing by the rules.

 

He stood up and walked out, leaving his drink untouched on the counter. She waited for him to turn back around, and for their eyes to make contact— magnets— before picking up his drink. Then she pressed her mouth to the rim of his glass and downed it in one smooth swallow. He didn’t react. Just turned and walked away, melting away into the dark.

 

Zen popped up from underneath the counter. “Is he gone?”

 

“Sure is.” She said, the whiskey hot in the back of her throat. 

 

“Is he coming back?”

 

She shrugged, as if she didn’t know the answer. The thing about planets in orbit was that they were predictable. And for a body like his, one that’s been following the same path for a very long time, he was beyond predictable. His actions were all but set in the granite stone of the bar.

 

He came back. And, he actually managed to take a sip of his drink, this time. Then she said, “Missed me?” And off he went, again, without a word. She finished the rest of his drink, as usual, and added a two-finger salute when he turned back to look.

 

“I can’t tell if you actually want him around, or not,” Zen said. 

 

“It’s not about what I want.” She said. 

 

“Then what’s it about?”

 

She shrugged. The answer was gravity, but it was hard to explain that to someone who didn’t feel it. The answer was in the way the earth rotated along its axis, the pull of the compass needle towards the north pole, the silent glitter of stars in the night, millions of miles away from each other, yet blurring together like they were close enough to touch. The answer was a word in her mouth that’s never been spoken aloud.

 

The next night, he came in early. “How’s work?” She asked. 

 

He chose to be honest. “Good.”

 

“Update me.” She said.

 

“Patient got that implant, finally.”

 

“Oh, good.”

 

“Yeah, we’re still keeping an eye on his condition, but it looks like he’s recovering well.”

 

She nodded. “Driving home?”

 

He flinched, which was understandable, considering that she herself had to brace to avoid the same knee-jerk reaction. Home. The keys, plural, sat heavy in her pocket.

 

Unsurprisingly, he stood like he was going to leave. “Probably.”

 

“With that much alcohol in your system?” She nodded to his glass, half-empty. “Where’s your car?”

 

She watched the realisation dawn on his face. Either he stayed long enough for the alcohol to wear off, or he let her drive him home. Neither choice gave him the out he was looking for. 

 

“The same damn trick, every time.” He said.

 

She smiled. “It works.”

 

He stayed, and she asked, again, “missed me?” as if she didn’t know the answer. He gave her an ugly look in response and downed the rest of his drink, solidifying his fate. She looked at his hair, warm orange under the light, and wondered what each individual strand would feel like in her hands.

 

“Bad idea.” He said.

 

“You never know.” She said, without really meaning it.

 

“Stargazing.” He said. 

 

“That was a great idea.”

 

He scoffed. “We haven’t even tried.”

 

“Well, you left before we could.”

 

They both flinched. It was embarrassing, weathered adults cowering in the face of two little words. You left. They shared self-deprecating smiles.

 

“Now?” He asked.

 

The air is chilly outside, but the sky is gorgeously clear enough to make up for it. They stood in silence for a moment before she felt him step closer. 

 

“I know.” He said, before she could say bad idea.

 

She turned her head to look at him, his face backlit by the lights in the bar, his cheekbones soft in the dark. Some people say that objects never touch— touch is the meeting of atoms, and atoms are mostly empty space— so maybe the space between their shoulders shouldn’t matter. That little bit of nothing is negligible if you take the whole universe into account.

 

“Why do you hesitate?” She asked, as if she didn’t know the answer. “That little pause right before you leave, every time. What are you waiting for?”

 

A long pause. The stars twinkled in the distance. She recalled hearing somewhere that their universe is colliding slowly with another one, so in a few trillion years, those stars might brush past Earth, maybe even come close enough to skim its atmosphere. She wondered if they might finally meet each other, then, in the form of ash and dust.

 

“To stay.” He said. “I wait, just in case you ask me to stay.”

 

For a moment, she considered it. Considered offering him his key instead of waiting for him to ask for it. Considered drinking with him, instead of for him. Considered mirroring that step he took, a few inches to the side, just enough so their shoulders would touch, so that the spaces in those atoms could intertwine. But the answer was the same. She would never ask him to stay. 

 

“I know.” He said. “I wait, anyway.”