May [H.S]

36

Magnolia
•••

L'esprit de l'escalier.

The upstairs was quiet, for the most part, soft and chilly. I peeled into the kitchen and caught a glimpse of the coupled figures outside through the window, a spiraling cloud of smoke leaking from between them. With the backdoor cracked, I could smell it, and the stench trailed through the entirety of the upstairs portion of the house. The heat in my cheeks and the slight fuzzy feeling in my head convinced my feet to carry me over toward the direction of Z's living room, a drink in hand.

On the tiled, then hardwood flooring I'm reminded how high the platforms of my shoes are, the strides are nothing compared to slowly trailing around the pool table for the past couple of hours. Falling flat on my face and into the living room where I know he still is would be the cherry on top of this night, it would confirm to me what I already suspected, that the universe had it out for me and the Calvin Klein bag. Which I left in Z's room down the hall, I scold myself under my breath, realizing and turning around way too quickly for my intoxicated equilibrium to gauge. Smacking a hand against the bumpy, almost painful wall, I catch myself and shuffle over to Z's bedroom to swipe the bag from the edge of his bed.

A soft tune plays from down the hall, different from the music that had been contained to the downstairs, it's melodic, a change in pace. Trailing through the ambient orange lighting in the hall, the quick stride that overtook me softens–as the music plays out, a spiraling kaleidoscope of memories shimmers through my head. Slowly, I shuffle into the room, and my shoulder greets the arch of the doorway for support. The lump in my throat feels so sudden, unexplainable–I lean against the archway before breathing in the room–how it's changed in the short time I was downstairs.

The sultry fragrant wind blows from the window beside me in fickle spurts, tickling the hot flushed state of my cheeks. It smells of the day, the foliage that crept along the exterior of the house, and mildly wet gravel. The cooling sensation from the wind is short-lived as it flees back from where it came from, sucked out alongside the sheer white curtains framing the window.

With the sound of the music accompanied by the rush of the wind, and what I know to be windchimes from the front porch, I can no longer hear the beat of my heart thrumming in my chest and through each and every one of my veins.

Harry is still on that godforsaken couch, but it's clear from some time earlier and now that he's managed to peel himself from it, at least to put on the music that now filled the room, wrapping me tight with the trance-like effect of David Gilmour through the box speakers. I bet on the disc spinning in the player across the room being one of his, a collection of songs that he'd cherry picked–accented with his scribbly chicken-scratch writing with something like Floyd-mix, soundtrack to tripping balls on acid or something clever–then again, knowing him it was just labeled with a number that only made sense to him.

The room is dark save for the amber light in the foyer spilling into it and casting wild shadows onto the floor. His lips are parted, every so often one of the lyrics catches there and he mouths them, sucked straight in. A wrinkle has managed its way between his eyebrows, misplaced with the rest of his face, pinkened and relaxed. He taps his foot to the beat of the song, as well as his fingers which rest on his thighs.

If this, watching him in this way had to be my sustenance for the entirety of my life, I would die fulfilled. I wondered how long I had until he heard me and reacted accordingly, another eye roll, a scowl infecting each lively and perfectly mellow part of his features.

I drop the bag where I'm standing, surveying his mildly altered body language as I take a sip from the drink in my other hand.

The soft noise of it making contact with the floor doesn't alert his attention, nor do my footsteps as I close the space between us. I make it all the way next to him, and flick the lamp on beside the armrest of the couch before he indicates at all that he knows I'm in the room with him. The soft warmth of the lamp emits over the extent of him, his arms stretching out further above his head.