The Bathroom Scene: Your Hands Were Cool & Strong


The bathroom floor is cool and white and firm. The window is too high and too small and the yellow light of October at 7 cannot bare to fill the room. I lie on your lap and my body folds. Not like batter folding, like old paper folding.


I do not think I can keep this plant alive.


We hung it over top the bathtub two months after I moved in. Ate marzipan and blueberries and discussed algae, ribbed tank tops, and how we both sort of like what sweat smells like. Not body odour sweat, but track day sweat and gardening sweat and first day of canoe trip sweat.


We knew there was not much light in our bathroom, but we checked and learned some plants don’t need so much light as others do. I chose where and you screwed in the hook because I couldn’t reach but really because that was how we did that sort of thing. You were wearing short shorts and rugby socks. I grabbed your ass while you stood on tiptoes, because it was perfect and it was yours and it was just right there.


The plant was good for a while. We called it a she and guessed what its sign was. Decided on Virgo and crafted a love triangle between her, my toothbrush, and your Castille soap. We took baths in her shadow, you or me or the both of us, and played songs our fathers showed us but told each other we found them ourselves. You’d get high and I’d get drunk and we’d both get sweet and horny, even though we both hate the word ‘sweet’ and the word ‘horny’. One is too gendered and the other too frat boy.


We filled the room with candles and a salt lamp and convinced ourselves false light could be enough. 


She started growing pale as summer started ending. That’s my favourite time of year, that gooey and golden month and a half or so where the air’s still hot but it smells crisp and crunchy. I made you take me to Rockaway those weekends, so we could feel salty and small and make the most of summer’s end. Lay you across me, your hair falling on my breasts, your skin soft and freckled and tasting like August. We’d read paperbacks and show off shells we found along the waterline. Never wear sunscreen and then complain about our burns. Roll cigarettes, add your chamomile and lavender to my tobacco, use the same grinder we use for weed and pretend to be surprised that we were halfway high. 


Came home and showered together: let fresh water replace salt, let your hands follow the topographic map of my too curved body, let my fingers meet you somewhere soft and warm and wet and yours. Got down on my knees and kneeled at the meeting of your thighs. You tasted like soap and saltwater and your pleasure became mine. Your head arched back, following the path your spine created, moaning soft and low and almost all breath. Your freckled hands found my knotted hair and you pulled me close, pulled me as far into you as I could go, pulled me deep into your orbit. We were building something beautiful, something ecstatic and close and just for us. But your eyes jerked open as you drew nearer to creation, head thrown back and high. 


“The plant looks sick”


You grabbed my hair, to pull me off this time. You grabbed my hair to make me see it, to make me face this pale, weak thing. 


“The plant looks sick.”

“Okay?”

“Not okay. Look. Look how long its stems are. And how pale. God, Lucy, she looks like she’s gonna fucking die have you even been taking care of her?”
“Yeah, I’ve been… Does this need to be happening right now?”


Your grip loosened and my hair fell from your hands. You looked at me, still kneeling at your cross, with unmistakable disgust. You looked at me how I imagine you looked at Jess, the ex whose Instagram we still review bi-monthly.


“You want me to pretend I’m not looking at a dying thing?”
“Em, come on.”
“No, you come on. I’m supposed to look at a dying thing and just because your head is between my legs I’m supposed to act like this room isn’t filled with death? Want me to pretend I’m cumming? I can pretend I’m cumming, Luce.”


You reached up to grab a paper leaf, crisp and yellow. A creature so clearly seeking quietus. 


“Look at this fucking leaf, Lucy. You ever seen a healthy plant with leaves like this?”


You climbed out of the tub without even looking at me, grabbed a towel with one hand and shook out your hair.


“Buy fertilizer or something I don’t give a shit. Just fix the fucking plant, Lucy.”


I stayed where I was, hot water still running, kneeling at her half-green deathbed.


We spent the next month or so in the comfort of routine. You got a job at the coffee shop down the street, I went back to school. You brought day-old pastries home and made fun of me for living off my inheritance, I told you all the poets I was learning about and made fun of you for not knowing what their big words meant. You took out the trash and fixed loose door hinges, I watered the plants and taught myself to make risotto.


We found our way to each other once every week or two. Our bodies still fit together with ease and familiarity, even when our words weren’t up to the task. We’d find each other in that bathroom. Sometimes I’d be watering the plant or clearing out the shower drain. Sometimes I’d sit on cool tile and think. Sometimes I’d just sit. You’d come in, all coffee breath and collarbones. Sometimes you’d kiss my neck. Sometimes you’d pick a fight. Sometimes you’d do both.


“But I bought the fertilizer last time, Em. Would mean a lot if you could pick it up after work.”

“Babe, we talked about this. Plants are your gig. You buy the fertilizer. Like, I do garbage and I buy the trash bags. I don’t complain about that. Plus, I work for a living.”

“Babe, I understand that you work and I respect that. I do, I respect that, but all the money I have was my dad’s and I don’t get any more and when I spend his money I feel like I am losing him and losing the safety that I had as a kid and–”
“Oh, you poor thing, losing daddy’s money.”


“That was mean.”
“No, I’m just saying you could get a job too you know. Like, if you don’t wanna be spending your dad’s fortune or whatever.”

“Yeah, I would love to. I would love a fucking job, but I am so fucking overwhelmed with school and grief and–”
“Oh yeah, poetry school must be exhausting.”
“At least I’m doing something with my brain. All you do is sit around and smoke weed and make pumpkin fucking cold brew for corporate Millenials. And then complain that they’re changing the neighbourhood as if you didn’t do that first”

“At least I pay my rent with my own hard work! At least I can follow through on my end of the fucking chores! At least I know how to fuck you in a way that matters, not like some straight girl who just got to college and wants to prove something to her shitty, rich, dead dad!”


The air turns still and thick and stagnant. Full of blooming contempt and the smell of rotting plants. 


My body gives up and I don’t have enough strength not to, so I am crying. 


“Luce, I’m sorry.


“Come on. You know I didn’t mean it.


“You work so hard, Lucy, I know you fight so hard.”


I am limp and brittle and I slump onto the bathroom floor. You kneel beside me, your freckled knees next to my knotted hair. You take your hands, both hands, and pull my head gently up, setting my damp face kindly on your lap. I am too tired to fight back. You cup your hands over my eyes, firmly but with such great care. You pull them back, still tender, still strong. You pull them back from my eyes, over my moon crater forehead, past the place where my hair begins, and land over my ears. 


“I know you’re good, Lucy, remember that. I know you are so good, my love.”


You touch me like I am precious. Like I am yours. 


I close my eyes and pretend that I am no one.

Your hands are cool and strong. Your window is too high and too small and the yellow light of October at 7 cannot bare to fill the room. I lie across your body and my whole self folds. Not like batter folding. Like a dead leaf folding.