Sleep doesn’t come easily to me, not as an adult anyway. I used to close my eyes and drift into a deep, peaceful slumber knowing Harlow was lying beside me and our whole life was ahead of us. Ever since being locked up I rarely sleep a full two hours without waking up in a cold sweat. Sometimes I’m able to remember my nightmares, but other times I’m jolted awake in a panic and have no real cognitive recognition as to why.
Prison will do that to a guy—make everything they’ve ever taken for granted, even sleep, into something to fear. You’d have to be an idiot to think that the experience is anything less than torturous, but what you don’t realize is that it’s the little things that get to you the most. Sure, you have some of your own belongings while you’re inside, but they provide little to no comfort. When I was first locked up, I used to try to drown out all the noises before I could fall asleep. There’d be constant banging, shouting, and even smells that kept me awake. I soon realized that the external noises were easier to fall asleep to than the quiet.
Silence was scarier than the noise because it left room for your own imagination. It’s amazing what your mind can conjure up to torment you.
Surprisingly, it hadn’t taken me long to fall asleep tonight. Rehashing the past was mentally exhausting, but I’d fully primed myself for not being able to rest for even a wink. Here I am, though, at 3:23 am if the clock on the windowsill is correct. I apparently misjudged how drained I was, and now I’m feeling more rested than I probably have the right to. The last thing I remember is undressing and climbing under the comforter that smelled like Harlow and being ridiculously turned on by that. The bed groans and the floor creaks as I shift from my back and roll onto my side to find a comfier position. The sound reminds me of the rickety bed Harlow and I bought at Duke. Anyone within a ten-block radius could hear the springs squeak whenever we attempted to get it on.
I’m smiling at the memory and the heat it causes to slide over my body, but it’s short-lived because I hear what sounds like sobbing coming from the landing outside the door. The warmth quickly turns to an icy chill as I toss the sheets aside and swing my legs out of bed, letting them hit the floor with a thud. I’m at the door in three long strides in nothing but my underwear, and out onto the landing before I can register what the hell I’m even doing. The hall’s dark and still, there’s no indication that Harlow was even out here. Her bedroom door is firmly closed and I’m about to turn and go back to bed, convinced I’d imagined the noise, when a light flicks on from somewhere downstairs and filters up the stairwell from below. I don’t hesitate for a second as I rush the stairs, and when I hear another sob, I jump the bottom three, rounding into the kitchen as quickly as I can.
She’s bent at the fridge, the door obscuring most of her from my view, but when she straightens and closes it, she turns around and lets out an almighty shriek, hurling the milk carton she’s taken out straight at my head. Sleep has apparently left my reflexes sluggish; I duck but not quite quickly enough. The carton connects with my forehead and implodes on impact, dousing me in ice-cold milk and prompting an involuntary yelp of my own.
“Jesus, that’s cold!” I screech as my body spasms like a fish pulled from the water. I tilt at the waist in a futile attempt to stop the milk running the full length of my body but it’s useless, I’m covered. The shock of the cold gives way to an acute ache across my forehead, and I rub the spot where the carton connected.
Her eyes are trained on my abs, now coated in a slick gloss of white liquid, as she takes a second to register what the hell is happening. I can almost see the cogs turning as she works out the view in front of her. I’m swiping milk from my lashes, and her features are turning from wide-eyed and startled to something resembling humor. I’m standing in a puddle, wearing a soggy pair of boxers, a shocked expression, and nothing else.
Then something magical happens.
What sounds like a mixture of a bark and a snort escapes her, filling the silence between us. It lifts the heavily-charged energy that’s been following us around and replaces it with something altogether lighter. That’s all it takes. She’s gone. Full-blown hysterical laughter bubbles from her wide-stretched lips as she desperately grabs hold of the countertop, bending and gasping for air through her giggling fit. Her hair falls across her face and she clutches at her side, laughing uncontrollably.
It sounds amazing. If throwing shit at me is all it takes to make her laugh like this, she can empty the full goddamn fridge and pelt me with its contents all night long.
“You’re soaked,” she hisses through her teeth, trying to rein herself in and failing miserably. “I didn’t mean to throw it at you…you scared me and I just…I reacted.”
The thing with laughter is that it’s ridiculously infectious, like when you see someone yawn, try as you might, you can’t help but yawn yourself. I begin laughing at how incapacitated her own laughter has rendered her, and it only adds fuel to her flames. Tears gather at the corners of her eyes, and for the first time this evening it’s the good kind—the kind I have absolutely no problem causing. The more she laughs, the more it makes me laugh, and the more I laugh it causes her to continue on even harder. It feels incredible.
“You’ve been working on that pitching arm I see,” I joke, rubbing my head again.
“Nah, just a lucky shot,” she retorts. “I think it’s gonna bruise,” she confesses and scrunches up her nose like she may actually feel a little guilty.
I couldn’t give a toss if there were blood pouring from my head right now, it would be a small price to pay for the last three minutes. I can feel my smile widen as she takes a step closer, squinting at my forehead. She’s standing barefoot in the puddle of milk that surrounds me and lifts onto her tiptoes, reaching out to touch the spot she’s looking at. The movement raises her chest up closer to mine, and the oversized gray t-shirt she’s wearing slides dangerously high up her thighs.
Suddenly this whole situation isn’t half as humorous anymore. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and the faintest of sighs escapes. It’s just loud enough for me to notice as she runs the tip of her index finger across my temple and I about lose my mind. I have zero clue about how to react or what to do with my hands as I freeze in place. My heart is screaming for me to wrap them around her waist and pull her in, but my head is telling me to stop being an irrational prick and take a step back for both our sakes.
“Well, there’s no lump at least,” she coos.
I attempt to flash her an easy smile that’s anything but. “Good.”
My voice comes out lower than I’d anticipated and doesn’t sound like my own. I’m pretty sure I’ve stopped breathing, too. Harlow’s face is hovering in front of me, and I have to wonder if she knows what she’s doing. If she’s purposefully trying to torture me right now. I watch as her top teeth slowly drag against her bottom lip and the groan it brings out in me can’t be helped. Every single nerve ending in my body spontaneously combusts, and the need I have for her is unbearable. I close my eyes because if I have to look at her for even a nano-second longer, I can’t be held accountable for my actions, it just wouldn’t be fair.
“Ellis?”
My name’s a whisper, and I screw my eyes up even tighter so I don’t accidently look down at her mouth. It’s painful. Physically painful to be this close to her and hear her whisper my name like she wants me. I don’t respond, but it’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because I physically can’t. I’m fighting a magnetic force so irresistible that I begin trembling as I force myself not to move and stand my ground.
“Ellis,” she says again, only this time I feel the word breathed over my mouth and my eyes fly open instinctively just in time to watch hers close.
She leans forward.
I stop breathing.
And then she kisses me.
It takes a moment to register that her lips are pressed against mine by her own will and as soon as it does the gloves are off. I respond with a desperation that should embarrass me, but I couldn’t slow myself if my life depended on it. My pulse is wild and out of control, thrumming heavily under my skin as her lips fall into a perfect tempo with mine and I can feel the flush of her skin radiating against me. There’s too much longing, and way too much love for me to even attempt to disguise, so I give in and don’t.
One of my hands finds the small of her back, pulling her closer still as I slide the other beneath her hair to cradle her head. Her arms slip behind my neck, and her tongue traces the seam of my lips, then everything else ceases to exist. There’s no painful past, and no repercussions to fear for the future, just us. In this moment she’s just a girl and I’m just a guy, loving each other the only way we know how—passionately—the way we’re meant to.
1998
Nothing about Harlow was predictable. She kept me on my toes and lit a light inside of me that only shone when she was around. Without her, I felt like I was left fumbling in the dark. I was in far too deep, and I’d known it from our very first kiss. She was effortless, it took no exertion or strength to love her, and when I was with her she made everything brighter. So, when I watched helplessly as she collapsed out of the blue, my world spiraled into an unfathomable darkness.
“Let’s go out, I’m bored.” Two hours of reading a math textbook on a Saturday was never my idea of fun, and I’d have been lying if I said that I’d been able to concentrate with my girlfriend perched at the end of my bed. I had a million and one thoughts about how to cure my boredom, but every one of them was tainted by the fact that my parents were sitting downstairs. I’m not opposed to fooling around in public; the thrill of maybe getting caught is an adrenaline rush like no other. Sadly, when it’s your parents that stand to catch you, the game loses its appeal. There’s nothing quite like the thought of your own mother to calm your libido down to subzero temperatures.
“What do you have in mind?” she’d answered, eagerly closing up her book and scooting closer to me.
“Anything but this, I feel like we’ve been cooped up in here all day.”
“Ellis, it’s not even lunchtime.” She rolled her eyes and stood up from the bed, stretching like a lazy house cat. The hem of her t-shirt flashed the creamy taught skin of her stomach, and I quickly grabbed her waist, pulling her onto my lap as she let out a startled squeal.
“Don’t do that!” she laughed. “You almost gave me a freaking heart attack.”
“Always so dramatic, Peewee.” She hated the nickname, but I kind of loved the response it initiated.
“DO NOT CALL ME THAT!” she spluttered, trying to twist and nip me. It wasn’t hard to hold her back, she was tiny after all, but man, was she fierce when she wanted to be. She could also Chinese burn your arm like a bitch. I guess that’s what growing up with siblings teaches you. You don’t need size or even a lot of strength to inflict pain.
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry. You’re not gonna play dirty, right? If I let go of your arms, please don’t make me regret it.”
“Fine, but the next time you call me that, I’m revoking all sexual activity—for a week.”
“What! How is that a justifiable trade-off?” I scoffed. Her answering scowl told me she wasn’t joking.
“Okay, you win. I’m sorry, Harlow. I will not call you Peewee anymore. Scout’s honor.”
“You forget that I know you’ve never been a scout, jackass.”
“Now, now. Less of the name calling or I’ll revoke all sexual activity for a week,” I mocked. I guess I never did know when to quit because she moved like a ninja and nipple twisted me to the point of actual tears.
I shouted to my dad that we’d decided to head out to the skate park. It was a bright, warm day and far too beautiful to be spent inside. Harlow grabbed her board, and we made our way into town, coasting idly along the quiet winding roads.
“Race you to the park!” she shouted after she’d already passed me.
“You little cheat!”
I frantically began kick-pushing to pick up speed. “You better skate faster than that, H, you’re not exactly making this a very hard race. It would be more of a challenge to let you win!” I teased. I was gaining on her fast, but she was still a little way ahead of me.
I watched as she began to slow and then came to an abrupt stop, kicking the tail of her board and catching it under her arm.
“What’s up, why’d you stop?” I asked rolling to a halt beside her. “Are you really so worried about losing that you decided to quit?” I tutted.
Her chest was heaving as though she’d run a marathon, not skated two hundred feet. She let her board drop at her side and put her hand up while bending at the waist trying to steady her breathing.
“Harlow, you okay, babe?” I asked rubbing her back.
“I can’t—”
Heave.
“Catch—”
Heave.
“My breath.”
Heave.
I lost the playful tone in my voice immediately. Her head was glistening with sweat, and she looked pale, at least a few shades lighter than normal.
“Sit down, baby, and rest your head between your knees. Take slow, deep breaths.” I had no idea if it would help or not, but that’s what my coach told us to do whenever we’d been running drills on the ice all morning, and the rookies looked ready to pass out.
“Does that help?”
She looked up at me, panicked. “I think I’m—”
I jumped back as she vomited onto the sidewalk, her whole body trembling while being wracked with her retching.
“Shit—you’re okay, Harlow, I’m here,” I told her, quickly trying to gather her hair away from her face. I was racking my brain trying to recall if we’d eaten anything that could have disagreed with her, but in truth, she had a stronger stomach than me—I’d never known anything to make her vomit. She can drink more liquor than a sailor (we’d stolen plenty from her brothers) and still wake up the next day and eat a breakfast burrito. I couldn’t think of any logical reason why she would get ill so quickly except one.
“Harlow, you’re not pregnant are you?” The question left my lips as soon as it had entered my head, and I had no time to try and disguise the panic in my voice. If the flare of her nostrils were anything to go by, I’d hazard a guess that she didn’t appreciate the terrified tone.
“No, why would you think that?” she panted, tilting her head to glare at me.
“I don’t know, just the random sickness, I guess.”
“I’m more concerned with not being able to breathe,” she gasped.
“Shit, I need to get you home.”
I searched my pant pockets, but all I turned out was my wallet, a packet of gum and a handful of lint. I hadn’t picked up my cell when we’d left the house. We were still a little way off from the skate park, and we were closer to the pier than we were to home.
“You think you can make it to the Bait House? I can call us a cab, or get my dad to come get us.”
She nodded but looked less than confident. Her skin was cold and clammy as I slid my arms beneath hers to help her stand.
We walked tentatively down to the pier, stopping a couple of times for her to dry heave. She looked terrible, more so every time I risked a glance in her direction, and it was beginning to worry the hell out of me.
“Ellis,” she whispered as her legs gave from under her just meters away from the Bait House entrance. Her eyes had rolled to the back of her head, and my heart dropped to the floor.
“Harlow!”
She didn’t respond as I held her body limp against my own.
“Harlow!”
I scooped her legs up and flew through the doors of the Bait House screaming for someone to help me.
I vaguely recall Sal, the owner, dialing 9-1-1 and shouting out questions to me that I didn’t have answers for as I laid her down. I’d never felt so useless. One of the kitchen staff that knew first-aid rushed around the counter to help me.
“She’s stopped breathing,” I cried, staring down at the eerie stillness of her chest. I hovered over her, gripping my hair, tears streaming down my face, praying she’d be okay while the guy from the kitchen looked for her pulse, then began CPR. I could only watch in shock, feeling like I was seeing it unfold in horrifically slow motion. A lady ran in with a portable defibrillator from her boat, pushing me aside and sliding to her knees. She began opening up the box and reading out the instructions loudly to the guy still giving Harlow compressions.
I was terrified, and it dawned on me that if Harlow could hear us, or were even aware of what was going on, she’d be terrified too. I dropped down beside her, grabbing her hand and lacing our fingers together while I did my best to even out my voice, whispering reassurances to her. I kept repeating that everything was going to be okay so she wouldn’t be scared. In truth, I was afraid enough for the both of us.
I don’t remember much past her shirt being torn open and sticky electrode pads being pressed down onto her chest as the machine beeped, signaling it was ready to dispense a shock. The lady pulled our joined hands apart and pushed me back.
Not knowing how to help her was the single most devastating moment of my life—at least up until that point, anyway.
You can learn a lot in a ten-minute ambulance ride. For instance, you discover what it feels like to watch your girlfriend’s heart failing in front of your eyes. The EMTs had let me ride with her, firing questions at me at an alarming rate—her name, age, preexisting conditions, medication, and allergies—all while hooking her up to various machines.
Her heart had been restarted as a result of the lady from the Bait House’s quick thinking. The EMT had told me that those patients who received CPR and or a shock from an AED before being hospitalized had better survival rates. I think the guy was trying to reassure me, he’d even leaned over and squeezed my shoulder, but all his words served to do was alert me to the fact that my girlfriend could be about to die.
Eighteen-year-olds weren’t supposed to have heart attacks, especially not when they were as fit and healthy as Harlow was. I’d left instructions for Sal to call our parents and have them meet us at the hospital. I might have physically been a man, I had the strength and build, but inside I’d never felt smaller. I was a scared, helpless child that needed his mom and dad.
If I’d thought that sitting in the ambulance with Harlow was bad, it was nothing compared to arriving at the emergency room and not being able to stay with her. I argued powerlessly with one nurse while a porter held me back. I struggled against him, still holding onto her fingers, as another nurse helped him to restrain me, and she was pulled from my grasp.
A team of medical staff wheeled her through a set of double doors and out of sight. I hated them for it. All I could think was that if anything happened to her, I wouldn’t be there. I was directed to a waiting room where a nurse promised to update me as soon as she could. That’s where her parents found me sitting, crying into my hands and not having a clue as to whether or not Harlow was even alive.
Dianne seemed to morph into calm and collected mode. She headed straight for the nurse sitting at the station set up in the corner of the cold, antiseptic room. Mike seemed to be handling things about as well as me: not good. He looked like he’d aged ten years since I saw him yesterday. I guess that’s what fear and worry will do to you. I handed him the paperwork one of the nurses had asked me to fill out, I hadn’t even attempted it, but Mike looked like he could do with the distraction.
“She’s being sent for an ECG and tests,” Dianne proclaimed as she hurried back to us. Mike immediately stood and hugged his wife, the pair of them close to tears.
“She’ll be okay, Dianne; she’s a tough one,” he told her.
“The nurse couldn’t say anything more than we already know,” she lamented. “Someone should be out to see us soon.”
So, we waited.
Hospitals are cold, uninviting places. Have you ever noticed that? There’s never a moment when you’re in one that you sit back and think, well this is a nice comfy seat, or, what a cozy room. All the rooms are painted the same washed-out nondescript blue, or pale green. The nurses always look exhausted, because they’re juggling too many patients with countless mounds of paperwork. The doctors don’t walk; they jog everywhere, too busy to stop and talk to anyone, and if they’re talking, they’re still walking.
Then there’s always that one nurse who’s probably never genuinely smiled a day in her life, and who makes you feel like a criminal for wanting to know if there’s any news. She’ll attempt a smile for you, but it’s practiced and fake. She’ll tell you that as soon as she has any news, she’ll be right out to let you know. Only you can see it’s a lie because you’ve heard her say it to every other person in the waiting room. Yet there we all were—stuck and clueless.
The plant sitting in the corner of the room was a fake. I stared at it for the longest time wondering why it was bothering me so much that the only decoration was a plastic ficus. I wondered if it was because the room had no natural light, being illuminated by fluorescents, which probably meant that it was hard to keep a real ficus alive. The thought that they couldn’t maintain a plant’s health in a place where keeping people alive was their job didn’t just worry me, it fucking terrified me.