i'm losing you and it's effortless.

It is in her bedroom, with her gone to shower, that he finds himself anxious yet curious, coaxed into her life—her collection of nail polish, her crocheted pillows. It is a cozy bedroom, all personality and memories. She is a student, and her bedroom reflects chaos and cleverness. But it is also charming, the colours warm, bright, marked by content. Kind of like her, he contemplates. He touches her things, her bed sheets, picture frame, laptop. He feels uncomfortable in this room.

On her dresser, near the window, he sees a handmade book. He listens for the shower and hesitates before opening it. It is filled with pictures, words, scraps of paper. The words are short sentences, small phrases with sharp meanings. Beside, above, below the words are pictures—pictures of her, with, most importantly, other guys. He flips through the pages, and begins to see a pattern. The pictures, from beginning to end, are of the same guy.

He stops at a page. The picture is dead centre, staring, taunting. The words are sparse and followed by a broken heart. He mouths them: Forever? For always? For now. The words “for now” are bold. He picks at the edge of the journal and broods. He recognizes the face. Before him, there was him. She had mentioned him briefly. Passed it off with a wave of her hand, kissed his cheek for comfort. “Nothing but history,” she had said, alleging its triviality. He had treated her poorly, his words always biting. He remembers the look in her eyes. Wonders: Was that nostalgia?

He turns a few more pages. The picture is off to the left, the faces smiling, the heads turned towards each other. The entry is verbose, bursting with words. Some lines are emphasized, others are scrawled quickly. The most prominent line is capitalized. It reads: I WOULD JUST DISAPPEAR IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU LIKE NAILS IN MY FEET. He recoils. She said the same thing to him the other day, running her fingers along his. Breathing the words as if they were honest, smiling as if they were true. “I’ve never said these words,” she promises, “to anyone.”

“I will never let you leave,” he had said, again and again, “But I’d rather hold your hand than nail your feet to the ground.”

His eyes start to burn. The shower is still running. He turns to the last page, sees the last picture, dominant on the page, the orange timestamp overbearing: a month ago yesterday. It seems so blinding that he pushes the book back on the dresser. His eyes focus on the words above the picture: He loves me … We should be okay. He chews the inside of his cheek, and remembers last month. They had been together for three months by that point. They had sat under the stars together the night before this picture was taken. They had carefully exposed their hearts, shared, smiled, laughed their way closer together. Then, at exactly 11:11, they made wishes. And though he swore never to say what it was, the smile she had was knowing. He ensconced himself into her side, kissed at her shoulders, pale and freckly, held her tighter and tighter, and tried to become one. Later, as the moon reflected in glass buildings, he looked at her and said: “I love you.”



The shower is off. He closes the book and sits on the edge of her bed. He looks across the room at himself in the mirror, sees a boy behind dark hair, alone, deceived, a fool, a victim. He hears the door of the bathroom swing open. She walks in, towel around her body. She pulls her hair back and tightens it. She smiles and looks at him. He looks away.