Compelled

Have I been awake long? The minutes and hours blend together in the dark. Moonlight seeps in through the worn blue sheet that hangs from the window frame, held up by a thumbtack in each corner. It isn’t enough light to make out the shade of baby blue on the walls, but I can close my eyes and see it. I know this room better than my own, better than the freckles on his back that I reach out and touch with my forefinger. I trace up and down his spine, over the pine tree tattoo on his shoulder that has started to fade. Its lines are broken, blue ink bleeding into his pale skin. There’s a comfort to this place, familiar even in the dark.

Blue pervades here in the same way I do; obvious, intrusive, lingering well past its relevance. We’re held in this time capsule of his life, unchanging memorabilia. But we do change, don’t we? The blue fades, and I along with it. Where there once was a poster above his bed of a monkey with headphones that I’d drawn a mustache on, there is now a corkboard covered in signatures and letters from that one year he spent in college. Hanging in the opposite corner, the framed photo of our first date is covered so thick with dust that our smiles are marred. A cobweb looms above it, gently swaying when a breeze rolls in from behind the sheet.

I listen to his breathing, calm and steady. He’s relaxed, at peace in his dreams. I kiss the nape of his neck sweetly and wrap my arm around him, pressing my bare body against his, wishing that sleep would come to me so easily.

In, out. In, out.

I try to deepen my breaths, clear my mind.

Innn, outtt. Innn, outtt. Innn…

—

“Wanna go have sex?”

Laying next to him on the couch, I had never been more aware of my sixteen-year-old body. Every movement felt like a risk. Was breathing always this hard? Innn, outtt. I was suffocating under the blanket covering us, a thin layer of sweat coating my entire body. I could smell him, stronger than usual. Could he smell me? Neither of us had spoken for the past hour, pretending to be engrossed by the sci-fi on the television.

“Yeah, sure.”

Shaking off surprise, he moved quickly to lead me upstairs, afraid I would change my mind if we dallied. I wouldn’t have, I was ready. I was in love.

We climbed under the covers before removing our clothes in case the darkness wasn’t enough to hide our shame. My shame. Uncomfortable in my own skin as I was, I couldn’t look at myself publicly naked, let alone him. I took a deep breath and handed over control. He’d done this once before, after all, just a couple of months prior. He knew what to do.

“It’s not working,” he whispered, looking down at the space where our bodies should have met between my legs. “I think you need to relax.”

In, out. In, out.

“Are you okay?”

There were tears streaming down my face.

Innn, outtt. Innn, outtt.

He lay down beside me and kissed my cheek. He put his arm around me, pressing his bare body against mine. Whatever awkwardness there had been was gone. I was safe.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I love you. We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

There was no sex that night, but I’ll always remember it as my first time.

—

I open my eyes, frustrated, and flop onto my back to stare at the ceiling like I did that first night and so many others after. It’s white, blank, the only space in this room that is. Even the carpet is littered with memories. There are fibers that were pulled up by his cat years ago, and dents where table legs stood before being moved. The bed had been against the other wall then. That red stain by the door is where I knocked over a bottle of wine last New Year’s Eve when we stayed up dancing to 90s alternative, just us two. It was raining outside that night, a heavy downpour, and his parents had gone out of town for the holiday. I’d come home from college just to see him, to be the girl he’d kiss at midnight.

Midnight. What time is it again? Could it be that late? I reach over him trying to find my phone. He rolls onto his back with a grunt, settling almost instantly. The moonlight hits his lips, the bridge of his nose, the softness of his closed eyelids. I want to bother him. I want to kiss him until his arms wrap around me and he smiles as he wakes, happy to have me in his bed where we can lay equally awake and contemplative, laughing at the kids we once were. But I don’t, and he starts to snore, so I adjust the pillows under his head.

Across the room, I see an unremarkable piece by an unremarkable artist. The newest trophy in his collection, still on the floor leaning against the wall. Light catches the black, soulless eyes. With no discernable pupils, it still manages to follow me wherever I go. I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I hold its gaze, leaning side to side as if to trick it into blinking. It doesn’t, of course. It’s a painting. Just a painting.

I lay back down in the bed more awake than before. I stare at the ceiling trying to make my mind just as blank, though I can’t help but see the outline of an owl when I blink. It’s dark and fuzzy, something like when I stare at a bright light for too long, yet I find keeping my eyes closed is even more unsettling. How can he sleep like this? Why am I lying awake alone? I try to calm myself once again, slowing my blinking as I slow my breaths.

Innn, outtt. Innn, outtt. Innn…

—

“It’s not even in the middle of the canvas! And what is up with that background.”

I stood in his room, my arms crossed, glaring down at the painting of a barn owl that he’d just spent $200 on. There the subject sat, poorly planned and off-center, surrounded by green globs in varying hues that encircled it like a halo.

He told me the name of the artist. “When he blows up, it’ll be a steal!”

“No, it won’t. It’s a realistic owl, but it isn’t good art.”

“I’m not going to apologize for supporting the arts. It’s a great piece.” He crouched in front of the canvas. “Look at the visible brush strokes, the detail of the feathers…”

The more I studied it, the more I abhorred it. Abhor: to feel extreme hatred or loathing toward. It was the first word on the first vocabulary list we were assigned in our freshman year English class. My friend and I remembered it by saying, “when you hate something, you feel it in your abs,” like a gut feeling. Instinct.

In, out. In, out.

“That doesn’t make it less ugly,” I sighed.

“Well, you know what, it’s my room, my choice, and you’re just going to have to live with it.”

—

This was the hill I planned to die on.

I propped myself up on my elbows to view the painting again, though I didn’t need to. There it sat, looking exactly the same as before, staring me down the way it had been since I walked in the room tonight. Last night? It can’t be tomorrow already.

I felt compelled to move closer, abandoning the security of the bed in a flourish of blue sheets tossed to the side. I wasn’t careful, yet he slept on, even as my knee pinched against his thigh and my hand brushed his chest. Pausing for a moment, I looked down at him, the same boyish features hidden under new stubble and messy hair. I liked if this length, longer, but he didn’t. He kept it for me.

In two short steps, I’m before the painting, sitting cross-legged and wondering if it looks at him in the same way I do, as if he’s not real, not here at all, even when I can reach out and touch him. If I blink, he’ll be gone. So close up, I almost can’t tell that the owl is perched slightly to the right, placed there through no fault of its own, unable to adjust on the branch, unable to sleep. I trace along dashes of paint with my forefinger, over the ridges of the talons and the speckled white feathers above. Maybe we aren’t so different, the owl and I, both stuck here in the purgatory of his room.

There’s a rustling. I glance over my shoulder.

“Hey,” he’s squinting at me, moving to sit up, “come back to bed.”

“I haven’t been able to sleep.” I turn back to the painting. “You should hang this before it gets ruined.”

He’s behind me, arms wrapped around my shoulders, chin resting on my head.

“No more red wine for you, Spills McGee.”

He chuckles and kisses my hair, giving me a squeeze before standing up. Hands on his hips, he scans the walls thoughtfully, clicking his tongue. I watch him reach out over my head, taking the dust cloaked photo of us off its nail with one hand and lifting the owl painting into its place with the other. Satisfied, he finds a new home for the photo on the top shelf of his closet among little league trophies and Magic cards.

“There, a place of honor. What d’you think?”

I stand up and take two steps back toward the bed. At this distance, the asymmetry is apparent, and the green dashes are dizzying. The morning sun looms behind the sheeted window, illuminating the shades of chartreuse, olive, and lime that stick out in peaks around the owl whose black eyes are now revealed for what they are; paint on canvas, nothing more. Not awake, not watching, not plotting. Just paint.

There’s a squeak to my voice as I reply, “Yeah, it looks great there,” and sit back onto the bed. He doesn’t notice the shift in my tone or the pooling in my eyes when he comes to sit beside me. I try to remind myself that change is natural, change is progress. It’s what took me out of state for college, and what’s taking him to Alaska next week. Change is good. Change is growth.

In, out. In, out. Innn, outtt. Innn…