Xavier
Sasha slept and slept, flat on her back, lips slightly parted. She looked like a character from a fairy tale, someone under a spell. Pale sunlight filtered through the windows right onto her face, but she did not stir. Xavier watched her, then decided it was creepy to watch someone sleep, so he forced himself to turn away. When he turned back, the sun had gone behind a cloud and the light in the room was dim. For a moment, his heart pounded. She was so still, she looked dead.
Xavier shook his head.
He had to get out of that room, he decided. He was going a little crazy. Xavier went downstairs. There was no one there. He heard the binging and pinging of a handheld video game coming from a room off the side of the front desk, but that was it. He sat in a chair in the lobby and read an old water-wrinkled magazine about sailboats and a catalog for above-ground swimming pools. He stared at the huge plate-glass window facing the street, at the backs of the gold and blue letters, at the fake palm tree, at the fake flower arrangements. Across the empty parking lot and across the freeway were a convenience store and a gas station. Xavier walked outside. He was hungry. He bought a tiny little pizza that was spinning slowly in a heated case next to two very shiny hot dogs. He bought a large orange soda. He searched for a present for Sasha, something fun for when she woke up. There were bags of shark-shaped gummies and he got one. He imagined opening up the bag and lining the gummies up on the window. Xavier imagined her smiling when she saw them. Sasha, watch out! Shark attack!! is what he’d say.
She was still asleep when Xavier got back.
He went downstairs and ate in the lobby, sitting on a very scratchy chair. The guy at the front desk was back now, talking on the phone to someone with very bad reception, he was saying, “Not bloated—LOA-DED. I said it is LOA-DED.” Xavier sort of wished he had his own phone with him.
More hours passed. He sat and he waited and he wondered if he would tell Sasha the truth when she woke up. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine doing so, but it seemed impossible.
Xavier climbed those hot stairs again. It was late afternoon now. He tried to be as quiet as he could, but when he opened the door, Sasha opened her eyes.
She sat up, moving in slow motion like she was underwater. “What time is it?” she said. Her voice was thick with sleep. She rubbed her eyes.
“Four fifteen,” Xavier said. “You snoozed for a really long time. You seemed like you needed it.”
She swallowed, then looked blankly around the room.
“There’s a convenience store across the street, pretty decent food if you like E. coli on your pizza. . . .”
Xavier stopped and stared at her. Even like that, hair in her face, eyes puffy, lips dry, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He took a breath. It wasn’t the right time to tell her, he knew that. But what if there was no such thing as the right time? What if the part of him that told him there was, was the same as the part of him that kept him from figuring out how he felt in the first place, that kept him from kissing her those times he wanted to/could have/should have?
Telling her would change things. But maybe that was okay.
Ignore your sweaty hands, ignore your dry mouth, the pounding of your desperate heart.
“Sasha, listen. I know this is going to sound like it’s coming out of nowhere. Or maybe it won’t. Or maybe it will sound crazy. . . .” The words fell out of his mouth without waiting for him to even think them. “Maybe you already know what I’m about to say, but . . . We’ve been friends for a while and during that time I was so preoccupied with . . .” But no, he didn’t want to mention Ivy at all, not now. He felt his face growing hot. He forced himself to look up at her. He had to be brave. She deserved for him to be brave. “I feel like maybe . . .” Say it. Say it. JUST SAY IT.
“Xavier.”
Sasha was staring back at him, eyes wide, entirely unreadable. Was that excitement? Hope? Happiness? Horror? Did she know what he was about to say? She must know. She knew. Xavier couldn’t breathe.
“Xavier,” she said again. She stood up from the bed, walked toward him, looking at him like she’d never seen him before in her life. Did she want him to say it or was she trying to stop him?
She had the strangest expression on her face, and Xavier had no idea what it meant.
“Can I . . . kiss you?” He heard the words as he said them.
She just stayed there blinking, like she could not understand what he was saying. She opened her mouth and then snapped it shut.
“I’m sorry,” Xavier said. “I don’t mean to make things weird. . . .”
She stared at him and slowly nodded.
“You’re sure?” Xavier said.
She nodded again.
And he knew then that she was just scared, too, scared the way he had been for so long.
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” Xavier told her. “I promise.”
Their lips were five feet apart, four feet, three feet, two feet, one foot, one inch. Xavier paused.
This is actually happening, Xavier told himself. Don’t ever forget this moment.
And then he kissed her.
There they were, lips against lips, his body was on fire.
“Is this okay?” Xavier said.
She pulled back a few inches, just enough to look him in the eye. And she seemed for a second unsure, but she said, “Yes. I’ve wanted this for so long.” And then they were kissing again, fast and hard, desperate and urgent, like this was their one chance, like they were running out of time.