Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 30: Love at First Puke

Dark haired, with piercing black eyes, and a jawline so sharp the guard's should have confiscated it upon his arrival, Steak sits on his knees next to my old seat, scrubbing at my puke stain with a rag cut from an old orange uni.

It's the most beautiful sight I've ever seen.

People talk about this too: noticing you really love your partner the first time they help you through an illness, or clean up after you're sick everywhere from a New Year's Eve hangover. Something about seeing a guy on his knees for you, cleaning up something disgusting without judging you, really gets the bonding hormones flowing.

He smiles at me, throws the soiled rag into the mop bucket, and sits back on his heels.

"No sign of Garda Girdle," whispers Shiv, "she's not big on bodily fluids, probably left the room." Her eyes scan the cafeteria, just in case. "Go talk to him while she's missing! Hurry!"

Shiv shoves me in the back. I'm aware of everyone's eyes watching me as I cross the room. Are they really this starved for drama? Maybe they're hoping I'll puke again... Maybe they're hoping I'll puke on him...

"Hey," I say, awkwardly holding out my hand for a handshake.

"That was quite the welcome gift," Steak says, getting to his feet. "Don't want to shake your hand, I was just holding a puke rag. Couldn't you have gotten me flowers or something? Or said, 'I'm going to be the one wearing a hideous orange shirt?' You didn't need to do all this to get my attention."

"I didn't mean to do it!" I say, laughing. "It was the carrots or peaches or whatever that mush is."

"Oh," says Steak, "the mac and cheese?"
My stomach flips again, dangerously. "That's not what it is!" I insist. "Really?"
Steak dips his pinky into my tray and tastes it. "No, no, I'm kidding –" he says, "You're right. It's some kind of vegetable. Maybe pizza?"
"You won't shake my hand but you'll eat with your fingers after cleaning up my–"

"Ah fuck," he says, "Guess it's too late now. I've caught whatever you've got."

Shiv takes a seat at the far end of the table behind him, waving her hands to get my attention so she can mouth: feelings! You've got feelings!

I shake my head at her, grinning, and Steak turns to see what I'm looking at.

"Sorry," I say, wanting his gaze back on me. "Just my dumb friends."
"Introduce me sometime. Hey – I have to get this mop back upstairs quickly, I don't want to draw any attention to our forbidden romance–"

I feel my cheeks darken.

"–but cleaning up your puke's made one thing clear to me: I want to see you again. If I could get down to the library tonight, could you meet me? If you can't, I'll try again every day this week."

I have five minutes left to choke down some food and hope my stomach will handle it. When Girdle returns she orders everyone back into our cells. The second the door slams behind us, Shiv drops to her knees, crawls under the desk, and retrieves her Pruno from its hiding place.

"You haven't drunk a sip!" she says, letting the bag wriggle on her lap.

"No?" I say, sitting down on my bed. "I didn't know it was ready."

"The second I saw you puke, I suspected you. That would have been so genius! I thought you'd downed the Pruno so you could get sick at just the right moment – give the trustees a reason to be downstairs, scare off Garda Girdle so you and Steak could get it on..."
"I wouldn't make myself puke for that!" I say, half offended half queasy again at the mention of it. "And I wouldn't steal your Pruno and Steak and I were not going to get it on in the middle of the room!"

"Oh come on," Shiv rolls her eyes and adjusts the bag on her lap, resealing it inside its paper bag disguise. "You did everything but! You were eye-fucking so hard. I've never seen two people like actual magnets like that! Did it feel crazy? Or were you so nauseated by it you couldn't really process? Tangler was nauseated too, she thought it was so cheesy she was going to puke next..."
I motion for Shiv to hide the Pruno, again, and lay back on my bed, listening to the sound of my heart pounding.

"It did feel a little crazy. He talks exactly like he writes, I didn't realize how relieved I'd feel about that! It does feel like I've met him before, now. It's like the letters actually count. I can read them in his voice, I know his sense of humor. I'd have never guessed you could get a feel for someone through words like that."

"Ouch," says Shiv, crawling from the Pruno's hiding spot under our table to her own bed. "Your best friend is literally a murder mystery novelist, but!"

"That's not what I meant. You know, he could have been doing what Kristina Kelly did – allegedly," I add, since I never actually met her. "Polling everyone in the room before she sent back a letter, getting it proofread and added to. I could have been talking to him, or to anyone on his floor or to bits of all of them, collected into one letter. But when I met him I could tell I wasn't. I really have been getting to know him."

"And?" Shiv prompts, "You want to know way more, don't you?"

I ignore the sexual undertones and the lewd look she's giving me. "Yeah, I guess. It was really nice. He said he wants to meet me again, anyway–"

"Tonight. I know, literally the whole room overheard. And if he can't get you tonight he'll try again every day for a week. It's so romantic, isn't it?"

She splays back on her bed and lowers her chin to her chest, scrutinizing me. In a therapist's voice she asks, "And how does that make you feel, Josephina?"

"Excited," I admit.

She rummages in her sheets and tosses me a pen. "Write to him about it, then. 'The penis mightier' and all that."