Earnings Season #13
Under the water, Aleksandr’s palm against her stomach draws her closer into him; a little safer.
He doesn’t shush her, doesn’t quiet her. He just holds her. The feeling of his chest against her back, his arms around her,
feels like safety carved out in the night; a place she can take the parts of herself—the ugly, disgusting, horrible parts
of herself—and look at them, and point: There, I think that’s me. I think I’ll never be free of that. I think that is who I am, at the root of everything, and I both
hate it and cannot live without it.
“No one knows,” she whispers. “About today. I’ve never told any of my friends, not even Jamie, the actual date. But I—I . . .
I miss them. I miss them so much—and it—sometimes it feels like I’ll never get out from that—and I—I just—I feel so alone, like there’s this space between me and everyone and everything, and I’ll just—this is it, I’ll die here, this is the rest
of my life. Just this pain, finding it everywhere, waiting for me, no matter where I go, what I do—”
Lili lets her words fail her, then—as the sobs catch again, shaking with the need to share this, torn by the inability to
believe anyone could hear it and stay.
But he holds her, not moving away.
Time passes. Held by him, the hurt drains: suffering becoming pain, pain becoming sadness, sadness becoming grief.
She looks at him, then, turning slightly in his arms.
Aleksandr meets her gaze, steady.
Oh, the things that bloom in her chest, amid the shambles of herself, the parts she can’t hold together, the ruin she’s ashamed
to show anyone, seeing the way he looks at her, like he’d hold it all for her.
Having this—having so much of this—comes in direct proportion to inevitable pain.
Having joy like this means it can hurt her.
Instead, Lili reaches for his face and kisses him. His lips are warm and soft against hers, and he lets her shape the kiss.
Her cheeks are wet with her tears, his breath is a comfort, and his body is a place she wants to stay.
Even if she doesn’t believe it will last.
Even if this is just another hurt she’ll hide at the heart of her—even if this is the next car crash, the story she’ll be
telling for the rest of her life.
She pushes aside the cost of things and closes her eyes.
The rush of sand, the tick of a clock.
Here, with him, for a little longer.
It’s early, when she wakes.
They left the curtains drawn, so morning light starts to come into the bedroom.
Lili blinks against it, stretching in the warmth of sleep. Behind her, Aleksandr’s arms are wrapped around her. He’s asleep,
his hand sprawled over her stomach under his shirt she’s wearing. The silence is soft, and the rhythm of his breath is steady.
Reaching for her phone on the nightstand, Lili checks the time, squinting.
5:58 a.m.
Slowly, she extricates herself from his arms.
Seeing Aleksandr asleep feels like a secret she wants to keep. How he breathes, the way his hair is mussed. The usual tension
in his face while awake—perception, calculation—is gone while he rests.
These moments, him in the early morning; the presence of him in her life. It all feels precious and stolen. Like she’s claiming—asking
for—more than she should.
Lili leans down and kisses his forehead, pushing aside the thought.
“Where are you going?” he mumbles.
“Shh,” she whispers. “I’ll be back.”
Softly, she closes the bedroom door behind her, so the espresso machine won’t wake him further.
As the coffee runs, Lili looks over the day’s newspapers spread out on the kitchen counter. After a moment’s consideration,
she grabs the Times. She pours a dash of oat milk into her cup.
Balancing two mugs, newspaper tucked under her arm, Lili uses her elbow to finagle the bedroom door open, taking a sip from
her coffee as she goes. As she gets back into bed, an arm wraps around her waist, and Aleksandr pulls her in aggressively.
Lili lets out a little shriek, trying to keep the coffee from spilling, as he pulls her flat against the bed, towards him.
“Hot coffee!” she protests, twisting to set the mugs down on the nightstand.
Aleksandr grins, propping his head up on one hand to look at her.
“Good morning,” he says. His voice is husky from sleep as he smooths his hand up her bare stomach, under her shirt, borrowed
from him. The buttons are done unevenly. Leaning forward, he kisses the spot between her breasts. Lili exhales, and she feels
his smile against her skin. As he continues kissing her—brushes of his lips against the slope of her breasts, pushing her
loose shirt open—she settles her hands in his hair, a little sigh on her breath.
But then he’s frowning, drawing away. He reaches under his side, finding a small black crystal.
“Why is there a rock in my bed?”
“That’s not a rock,” Lili says. “It’s obsidian.
It’s protective. Keeps away emotional negativity, evil spirits.
It’s actually really good for your Scorpio moon.
Helps ground you. With the Capricorn, Scorpio, and Aries mix, it’s just a lot of .
. .” She waves her hands generally around him. “Intensity.”
He stares at her.
“You, Aleksandr,” she informs him. “You’re the evil spirit.”
He rolls his eyes. He sets the obsidian on the nightstand, before pulling her more firmly under him, and kissing her again,
a long kiss, sleepy but heated.
“How’d you sleep?” he asks, brushing his knuckle over her cheek. Lili leans into it; the skitter of calming things, settling.
“Alright?”
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I’m . . . okay. What are you doing today?”
“Well, I was planning on staying in bed.”
“Sleeping? Past six, really?” she teases.
“I didn’t say anything about sleeping.”
“Oh—”
“No, not like that—I just meant, with you.”
A little pain lurches, but she breathes, and it passes.
“What about you?” he asks.
“Just writing, I think.” She feels fragile after yesterday, wants to gather herself through work.
“How’s your thesis?”
She nods. “Good, yeah. Actually—could you—” Lili bites her lip, hesitating. “Could you read it?”
Aleksandr raises an eyebrow, with a mischievous smile.
“Not to edit it, or anything,” she says, firmly. “And don’t try to make me see the glorious neoliberal light. You just said
some interesting things, last weekend. Not that I agree with you, obviously, but to, like, defend against counterarguments,
that sort of thing . . .”
Aleksandr’s smile only grows. “I’d love to,” he says.
Sentiment she can’t express hovers on her tongue.
The way he looks at her: Could she be worth this? Past today, past tomorrow?
Here, in his bed, under morning light, she feels more herself and less herself than she ever has before. Like she can watch herself think, watch herself feel. I’m allowed to have this, she tells herself. Something shaped like happiness.
But she isn’t sure.
She isn’t sure.
Lili clears her throat, looking away to the window where morning is growing brighter. Under her fingers, the bare skin of
his shoulders is warm.
“Want to go on a run?” he asks.
Lili frowns. Aleksandr is also looking out the window, evaluating the morning.
“Excuse me?”
“A run. It usually clears my head.”
“What are we running from? Is someone chasing us?”
“Is that a no?”
Lili stares at him. “No,” she confirms. “No, I’ll stay and read, like a normal person at six on a Friday.”
“Would you like me to stay with you?”
“No, no. Go torture yourself, it’s fine.”
Aleksandr grins, getting out of bed. “I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“An hour or two? Are you running around this entire island?”
“Hardly,” he says, heading into his closet. “Text me if you need anything.”
Sitting up in bed, Lili reaches her arms above her, stretching. Taking a long drink of her coffee, she closes her eyes for
a moment: the morning light, the hot mug in her hands, the sounds of Aleksandr opening and closing drawers as he gets dressed.
On his nightstand, the copy of Solzhenitsyn rests, the last few chapters unread. She’d left it here when she went upstate.
Nestling into the warm sheets, Lili leans against the headboard and finds her page.
Aleksandr kisses her, quick, before he goes, and she smiles. Listens to the sound of the elevator, as he leaves. A few moments
later, hearing the front door open downstairs, the growing sunshine coming through the window, some exchange with Louis, and
Aleksandr’s laugh; and Lili closes her eyes, again, just a moment, in the steadily strengthening light of morning, and holds
onto the drift of his voice.