DAY 10.

We are the sum of all our parts.

Our hair. Our eyes. Our birthmarks shaped like Texas if you squint at them funny.

We learned things from an early age. Those things were whispered about on the back of the bus where the cool kids sat. Our older siblings talked about those things in hushed voices on their phones. They had their own personal lines. We envied them so.

We asked our parents about those things. The birds and the bees. The life cycle. Where babies really came from.

We were horrified. We scratched out our eyes and wondered why anyone would want to do those things. We cringed. We blushed when viewing members of the opposite sex.

We are the sum of all our parts. A mouth here. A hand there.

We’re not nearly as horrified anymore. If anything, we are intrigued. But maybe we should’ve stayed afraid. Cautious.

Now we give out ourselves too quickly. We go through the motions, mistaking aggression for passion. Disguising lust for love. We don’t know where we’ve gone wrong. We don’t know why we feel so empty as we sit on the edges of those beds.

We are hands, and feet, and mouths, and ears, and eyes, and teeth, and skin, and nerve endings, and cells, and reactions.

We are automatic.

When our clothes are scattered on the floor of a basement, we begin to wonder: who have we all become?

DAY 06.

He has candles lit. It’s weird, but she goes with it. He’s made a fancy dinner. He says Grace before they eat, and takes her hand. She tries not to stare at him like he’s insane. She didn’t know he believed in God. She had no idea he believed in anything but sex and art and indie music. Sometimes, he’s full of surprises.

They eat in silence. The quiet is punctuated by his failed attempts at witty conversation. He asks about her day. She has no idea what to say.

He’s wearing a nice shirt. Her hands are sweating and she drops her fork. Her face burns. He pours her some more tonic water. She hates tonic water.

She begins to wonder if this is a date. There is an answer she is hoping for, but she knows that hoping with him usually gets her nowhere.

He doesn’t let her help him clean up. He plays her some guitar on his couch. He doesn’t sing so great but it doesn’t matter. He tries anyway. This is him showing off. The one way he knows how to connect is through music.

The first time she met him was all about music. They laid on her bed and listened to songs by bands she’d never heard of. He talked and talked her loneliness away. It was that easy.

They watch a movie in his room. She sits on the edge of his bed and tries to forget how many other girls have been here. His fingers stroke her hair every so often while Sleepy Hollow plays on his laptop.

She might throw up if he tries to kiss her. Not from not wanting to but from never having done so before. She’s wondered how it happens. How two people can just meet at the mouth in such an uncomplicated way. There are too many things to think about. Too many things that could go wrong.

All of this, whatever this really is, could just end in an instant. Poof, and it’s gone.