Pru

“I love you,” Pru says during a commercial.

“Me too,” I say. It’s great not to feel shy with friends, to just say whatever.

We’re roommates and buds and amateur therapists. She told me I have a guilt complex last night. I told her she has hopeless OCD. She says, “what do you mean, what do you mean, what do you mean.” We laughed so hard I nearly peed.

Jeopardy’s on now. We both suck at it.

A car horn sounds. There is a cheer from the college house up the road. Tonight could be loud, so I’ll earplug it.

“Wow,” she says. I’m looking at the show now, trying to figure out what she thinks is the “wow,” thing.

I look at her briefly -- she’s not looking at the show, she’s looking at me. I smile, bend down to butterfly lace my shoe. Out of the corner of my eye I see her face has reddened.

*

Carl was a long illness I’m nearly over. Yesterday I stopped crying without the medication. Everywhere I went I used to picture what his reactions would be to people and places, how he’d smile and the air would warm. He’d always known what to say when someone was talking too long -- cornering us and rambling. He’d know the polite way to get out of it. He knew the polite way to break up too -- said that he just wasn’t ready to take care of somebody.

This morning in Walgreen’s, walking near the dye-free antihistamines he uses, I didn’t cry but almost fell. The store seemed to be moving, but I didn’t see things falling off shelves. Vertigo. I looked it up on the web when I got home.

*

At bedtime we turn in. My room faces the courtyard. I get the morning sun, which Pru would just complain about. Pru’s room we call “the Cave.” My room, “the Mesa.” Piles of books.

“Night, Pru,” I say from the bathroom after brushing. It’s Friday and tomorrow we’ll go for brunch like every Saturday. It’s what I look forward to. We love the waitress with the Pluto tattoo, who tells us about her hairless cat. Pru will order pancakes and I’ll order eggs medium and we always share the delicious hash browns.

In bed I’m on the last mystery in a series. When books end I feel irritable and cut off. I’m slowing my reading and experimenting with rereading earlier chapters between the new ones.

When she knocks I stare at the door for a second. I should have said hey come in idiot face or something casual of that nature in the moment that I didn’t say anything.

She opens the door and walks in, wearing her PJ’s -- the ones that make her stomach look flat and long. Her glasses are off and her hair has been brushed glossy.

Pru is prettier than me by a lot. Lanky, angular -- a soft profile. She smells like expensive soap -- stuff she said I could share whenever. Her mom had sent it for her birthday. She brings the exotic smell of it to the room like she might a snack.

“Shit,” Pru says, sitting on the foot of my bed, shaking her head slowly. Her eyes dripping.

“Pru,” I say. I don’t want anything to ruin brunch tomorrow. I imagine those eggs, the dark gold potatoes.

“Please don’t cry.”

“I wish I didn’t feel this,” she says, wiping her eyes on her PJ’s.

“I’m sick of feelings too,” I say, bringing the covers up above and over my body.

She snuggles in toward me, rubbing her hair against my neck coltishly. It feels glossy and ticklish. She gets in the covers. She and I probably look cute -- a picture of us could be a Christmas card. Hair down and pajamas and soap smell.

“Have you ever?” she asks.

“No,” I say. I should ask her the same question to be courteous -- but her answer is so potent now that vertigo sets in.

“I’m on that damn ship,” I say.

Pru, my best friend, kisses me -- her lips oval and sliding open in a way male lips don’t. Opening like a sea anemone. A dark and pretty ocean moment you’d see on Animal Planet, and say to yourself, “Wow.” When its on TV it’s safe. What I feel here is not.

I close my mouth and she has to stop. I try not to wipe my wet lips on my sleeve. They are wet when I smile at her, hoping I won’t ever hurt her.

“You’re my best friend,” I say.

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