The Dirty Ones

We don’t get under the covers. Not yet. We lie there, wrapped up in each other. Holding each other. Thinking, just thinking.

Writing the end of the story.

I don’t know when I fall asleep, but sleep is always like that. I just know it’s late when I wake up. Or early, depends how you look at things like time.

Gently, so I don’t wake him, I untangle myself from his embrace, pull my sweater back on, and go looking for my notebook.

It’s a beautiful notebook. I don’t need any more light than the twinkling ones outside to see it because I made it with my own hands from a beautiful old book with a gilded cover of yellow flowers inlaid over navy blue leather. It was falling apart, sitting on a shelf in a thrift store in Burlington, and I rescued it. Turned it into something new. I made the papers inside. Sewing the binding up with my own thread and fingers. And I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. A special story. One that deserves to be written in such a beautiful book.

This is the story this book deserves.

Connor loves Kiera and Kiera loves Connor. All the black moments are behind them. At least for now. At least for the rest of this night. And it’s time to be happy.

I sneak out of the bedroom and walk the long hallway to the other side of Sofia’s lower floor and slip into the office.

I consider writing at the desk because it faces Central Park and you can see the Upper West Side on the other side, peeking out from the carpet of treetops like the future coming up with the sun.

But Sofia’s window couch that faces Camille’s apartment beckons me with an invitation on the other wall of windows.

Come, it says. Come here and see what I’ve got to show you.

It’s just a side street view. Except for Camille’s building, there’s mostly old townhouses on this street. Partly hidden by the bare branches of trees. But Sofia pointed out Camille’s apartment earlier, so I crawl across the large sectional couch, just like Sofia described herself when she told me about her writing routine, and prop my back up with pillows. Press my warm feet against the cold glass and imagine the two of them. Writing with each other, separated only by panes of glass and forty feet of air.

I wish I was part of that.

I will be part of that.

Maybe I can sell my cottage and move to the Upper East Side? Be a real trio like we pretend we are online?

Yes. I’d like that.

It’s only then that I notice a book on the couch next to me. I pick it up, and lean forward, catching some light outside so I can read the spine.

The Great Gatsby.

It’s a first printing, I know that immediately. Bound in navy blue leather with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s name embossed in gold gilt over blue on the front-side of the cover, I’d recognize it anywhere because I’ve wanted one for years but could never justify the expenditure for an item that was nothing but pure sentimental indulgence.

God, how the three of us loved that story in school. We read it incessantly that year.

Why did we do that?

Oh, God! How did I forget? This was the book Connor used to read to us. It wasn’t just the dictionary and grocery lists, was it? So stupid that I forgot.

Jesus, how I used to love hearing him read this story. His voice was perfect. So magic.

I would just get lost in that time. The art deco, the giant mansions, the opulent parties… all of it.

But I put it aside because I didn’t come in here to read someone else’s story. I came in to capture my own.

So I grab my pen, half-hidden in a pocket attached to the inside cover of my notebook, and begin to write.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – CONNOR

I realize I’ve had this dream before. Kiera is there. All of us are there. Me, and Hayes, and Camille, and Sofia, and Bennett.

But the thing that’s different this time around is that Louise is there.

She was there. But for some reason she feels like an interloper in this dream. Like she’s so out of place in this dream, I dream myself up some annoyance. Try to follow her. Tell her to leave. But the dream does that dream thing and morphs into a party, and for some reason I’m really short in this dream so I’m like waist-high to everyone. And no one sees me as I push my way through the crowd, and duck under the serving trays of waiters, and try not to notice that I don’t recognize a single person anymore.

Everyone’s a stranger.

But I see Louise through a parting of the crowd. She’s wearing a very flashy gold dress, the kind made up of little pieces of metal that look like scales and reflect everything back at you, only it’s blurry and dark. Like shadows dancing across her gold body.