Content note: depiction of mental illness
You and your boyfriend Ethan are having dinner tonight at your place and tonight you’ve got a serious talk planned. It’s your first real relationship, so you’re a little nervous — but everything will be fine! Probably, at least. You’re making Fettuccine Alfredo for the first time but you’re not sure how well it’ll turn out. Your cookies with cream-cheese icing in the middle are a backup, baking in the oven. The heat from the stove gives your forearm steady kisses as you stir. The apartment walls sweat with sugary heat. The smell swells in your nose and breathes with you. You think about the things you’ll say to Ethan so you practise a few dozen times. You like listening to yourself. Your face is warming up so you go over to the sink, splash water on your cheeks, then get back to talking.
All night you were packing your suitcases and cleaning up the apartment. There’s two suitcases in your room right now, sitting like overstuffed turkeys. You managed to get most of your wardrobe inside. Last night while you were giving things a deep clean you knew what you had to do. This is what you have to do.
When you stir again you think about Ethan. On good days he smells like pumpkin and on bad ones he smells like pasta-water but you don’t mind. He’s always giving you little crystals for good luck and making cards to explain what they mean. He sends you songs and says they remind him of you — always jazz. You don’t know a thing about jazz but you like it now. You listen to it throughout your day and think of how much you miss him.
Ethan’s never been unreasonable, either. It’s been a few months, so there’s room for failure later on, but overall you’re pretty confident in this relationship. That means that maybe this dinner won’t go too badly. And if it does, you won’t mind it too much. Because he always comes around. Even though you’re a gay man, a part of you will always wonder if perhaps older women are your type. Growing up you’d get obsessed with your friends’ mothers and fantasize about marrying them. Sometimes you think you’re in love with everyone, mostly married women over 50, but you’ve learned to keep it to yourself.
Your body starts to shake a little as you start stirring the sauce. To calm down you think about how much you want to be inside of Ethan — but not in a sex way. You think about becoming a part of him. That would make things easier for you. You would serve your heart on a plate and he’d eat it as it’s beating. He’d take a bite and the muscles would become woven between his teeth. You feel every breath he’d take. Every word of his would therefore be a word of yours. He’d smile to show you off. Your heart would crawl up and take over his gums then slither into his skull and hibernate. He’ll keep you for later, bring you out only when necessary. You really want to see what he sees.
A knock on the door. You drop the wooden spoon and rush to open it.
“Hey,” he says, “I brought dessert.” His hair falls all over his face and he’s holding out a strawberry pie, clearly homemade, and he’s beaming at his creation. He leans down to kiss you. The way he’s showing off the pie makes his arms look larger. Even though the pie itself is ugly you’re still excited to eat it because it’s his. His nose has reddened because of the August sun kissing him on his afternoon runs. It reminds you of Rudolf. It makes you sad that Christmas is so far away. You take the pie out of his hands and walk to the kitchen, singing a little thank-you, then get back to stirring.
Ethan sits down on the counter and watches you cook.
“How’s your day been?” he asks.
And you say, “Everything is good. Are you hungry?” and you get him a glass of water.
“Thanks.” He drinks it all in one go then says, “I am, actually. It smells nice.”
Ethan picks at his nails and begins telling you about all the articles he’s read today for his summer class on Russian Folklore and you ignore it because your head is too full. Right now, you’re thinking about water. Thrashing on some days, mulling on others, occasionally replying with the licking wind. Water stirs with the sky and talks with the storms. You talk to the water sometimes because it reminds you that we all need something. Sometimes you go to the river to write in your journal and when you can’t think of a word to put down you stare at it rippling and a word flows to you, climbs up your leg, jumps off your pen. You did that last night before you got to packing. Isn’t it so lovely to think about the fact that the water you drink is the water that I drink which is the water that Ethan drinks and —
“Where are you going off to?” Ethan says.
“What?”
“Where are you going off to?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It seems like you’re thinking a lot. What are you thinking about?”
Ethan is onto you so you can’t trust him. Don’t tell him anything at dinner.
— Noah Sparrow is a Montreal-Tiohtià:ke based writer, currently studying creative writing at Concordia University. He has published political pieces with Monitor Magazine and poetry with LBRNTH. His work consistently deals with queerness and the absurd.
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