Jackson must’ve trained Chloe right, because she isn’t barking when we enter the house, just wagging her tail with tired enthusiasm; she’s already over my newness. He immediately throws all the clothes off his bed and onto the floor, including the shirts we folded and socks we balled up.
“You’re more than welcome to sleep in the bed with me. It’s big enough, obviously.” He gestures at his king-size mattress. It’s definitely big enough so that we wouldn’t touch. Maybe he even played a game with you, rolling over to you, bumping into you and laughing until your lips found each other’s . . . and I’ll black out everything from there.
This is making me feel a way.
I don’t know how Jackson truly feels about this. He’s probably being nice but might actually prefer if I slept on the floor with Chloe, which is pretty much the treatment he received at my house. To take it to another level, I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, if you’ll see it as some sort of betrayal. It only makes me think about how all our families would react to this, and whether or not they would be happy to see my friendship with Jackson has grown so much that I would feel comfortable sleeping in a bed with him, or if they would mistake it for something it’s not.
To top it off and even it out, I don’t know if I’m feeling okay with this idea because I trust Jackson is a good guy who won’t pull anything that’ll make this uncomfortable, because I trust Jackson doesn’t have any feelings in him to make me suspicious of this simple invitation, or if I’m feeling okay with this because I’m truly lonely and miss sleeping in a bed with someone—because I missing sleeping in a bed with you. Sleeping in a bed you’ve slept in next to someone you’ve slept with might be the next best thing for both Jackson and me.
“Are you sure you don’t want me sleeping down here with Chloe?”
“Chloe sleeps alone,” Jackson says.
“Sucks for Chloe.”
“No, Chloe gets action. She just sends all her hookups back to their respective doghouses once the deed is done.”
“Poor guys.”
“You’re assuming Chloe plays it straight.”
Jackson closes the window because all sorts of bugs have been known to sneak in during the middle of the night, not that they make it very far throughout the rest of the house before Chloe hunts them down and eats them. In a flash, Jackson unbuckles his pants, his jeans drop to his ankles, and he kicks his way out of them. I’m expecting him to pull on some pajamas over his slightly hairy legs and somewhat revealing gray boxers, but he sits on top of his covers like this shouldn’t be surprising to me even though I’ve only seen him going to bed in my sweatpants the past few nights. Jackson counts the pillows, throwing one off the bed so only four remain. It fills me with warmth that he’s making the bed safe for me. He sets his phone to charge, uses a remote to turn on his air conditioner, and lies down.
I wonder if this is his routine.
I walk to the opposite side of the bed, to the left side. “Did Theo sleep here or where you are?”
Jackson knows where I’m coming from with this. “He originally only slept here,” he says, patting the side he’s on. “He never admitted it, but I think it was something left over from you. But one night he fell asleep on that side and changed.”
You used to joke I ruined you because you would find yourself wandering to everyone’s right, not just mine. But Jackson somehow fixed you. I press a hand on this side of the bed where you once woke up feeling differently, and I sit down, hoping Jackson can somehow fix me, too. The cold air fills the room. Soon I’m under a light sheet, the comforter at my feet if I need it. Jackson turns off the light and the whirlwind of discomfort I was anticipating never hits me. It doesn’t feel right, but it doesn’t feel wrong either.
What hasn’t changed is how much I like noise when I go to sleep, something that started when I was a kid. My parents originally thought I only wanted the TV on so I could keep watching cartoons instead of going to sleep, but I truly just wanted noise to drown out everything happening outside my window.
“Bore me to sleep with a story,” I say.
Jackson laughs. He launches right in with how whenever Anika and Veronika stayed over during high school, they would play their card game, talk shit about the latest person they couldn’t stand, have heart-to-hearts that always surprised them and sometimes made things awkward, and would always end in three-way spooning. He asks me about the good days with you and Wade. I push all the bad stuff away, remembering fun times, like relay races in middle school and funny things like Wade’s aversion to eating snacks shaped like animals and the way he quickly steps onto an escalator as if it’s going to suddenly change its speed. Jackson tells me how much he misses his friends, but I can’t get myself to admit that about Wade.
It’s after midnight, officially the thirteenth. Jackson must know it too, but neither of us brings it up. You know Jackson and I would sacrifice so much to have you lying here between us, but I’m learning there should be some times I put you to rest for a little bit instead of obsessing about you every day. Or I’m trying. I don’t know what will be left of me if love and grief can’t bring you
back to life. Maybe I need to be brought back to life, too.
Tuesday, December 13th, 2016
It’s been one month since the universe lost you. One month since you woke up in the morning. One month since you opened a book. One month since you ate a meal. One month since you keyed a text message. One month since you went for a walk. One month since you held a hand. One month since you kissed your boyfriend. One month since you thought of a future that’s not happening. One month since you maybe dreamed up your own alternate universes.
It’s been one month since you died.
It’s been one month since you lived.
“What did Theo do on his last day?”
Jackson and I haven’t spoken much today. To each other, at least. We had a fairly quiet breakfast with Ms. Lane—scrambled eggs and sausage links. Anika called Jackson because she remembered the date, and the two caught up for a little bit. I called your family and spoke with Denise for a bit, relieved your parents let her stay home from school today. I guess they’ve cut back on their whole stick-to-a-routine business. Jackson and I have only spoken about little things, like what time we need to get to the pier, but nothing bigger than that. But once Jackson pulls into the beachside parking lot, the gleaming sand and Pacific Ocean straight ahead of us, all my silence turns into curiosity, and all my curiosity refuses to hold back.
I want to know everything about the day you died.
Jackson doesn’t answer me.
We get out of the car. Jackson kicks off his sneakers, leaving them in the front seat, his little life hack to keep sand out of his shoes. (“You can’t get sand in your shoes if your shoes never touch the sand,” he told me yesterday.) I do the same, leaving my socks behind too, and my feet are burning against the asphalt, so I hop over to a patch of grass as if I’m walking on hot coals. Jackson doesn’t seem to be as distressed as I am.