She often woke with words in her head. Bassoon, cancan and Fara Verto (the last being a spell from Harry Potter to transform an animal into a water goblet). She often had no idea what to do with these words, they were the conversation confetti of her sleeping self, blowing around her mind the by gibbering activity of dreaming, too easily forgotten upon waking. She was left then, with only these small bright pieces landing with perfect imprecision on those first fragile thoughts of the morning: bassoon, cancan and Fera Verto.
Her cellphone had pinged at her not so many moments before, and so sloppily she reached for her cell tucked into the corner of her bookshelf, the thing between which it and her bed was situated. She slid the cell open, and snorted with chagrin because only Bailey would be up so early, and be so damn chipper and yes, greeting her in German at eight-ten in the morning. Bliss, who was still thinking about transfiguration spells, decided that she was not entirely awake enough to remember how say ‘I’m fine,’ in German, if she had ever known in the first place. French was really more her style, or made up languages like Frank Herbert’s Fremen dialect and J. K.’s muddle mixed of Latin and Hawaiian.
She tucked the phone under the edge of her pillow, realizing that if someone else texted or called, her glaringly bright ringtone would be almost directly under her ear and that, more than the German, would be traumatizing at such an early hour. Still, she felt too warm and lazy with sleep yet and as if in defiance of phone and world beyond, pressed her skull against the shape of her cell under the pillow.
It was still a bit strange to her, waking up and feeling good about it. How long had it been since she’d experience that almost intangible tingle of joy the moment she opened her eyes in the morning? How long had she been unhappy, to have so thoroughly forgotten what this felt like, her mind peeling itself from a cocoon of sleep with twitching eagerness for the day, because day the filled with good things, or even bad things that could still be gilded in the glimmer of her own happiness? And yes, she realized – was acutely and stingingly aware – of the danger when one singular person could hold such influence on mind and mood. For as long as she’d been unhappy (or perhaps more realistically, disengaged and unsatisfied, for even in such a state happiness could be had, if in miserly amounts) she’d also been exactly careful to make sure that the people she allowed herself to love were of such caliber that they could only influence her so much. She didn’t allow her sense of well being – for what it was at the time – to hinge on someone else’s mercurial self. She called it independence, and told herself that she wasn’t really aloof as much as she was at a distance, a personal bubble of participation almost double the size of anyone else.
But she was that way because she knew her own fragility. And for too long there had been no one in her life to remind her of anything else. Of course there was family, but family was always that spongy mass of normality that soaked up Bliss’s quirks, insecurities and foibles without any real protestations about the validity of such. Had she finally worn them down so that they no longer had the energy or inclination to correct her misperceptions? Or was it her own quick clean strike of anger they worried about, if they pushed too hard and then had to suffer for it, catching a glimpse of the raw-Bliss, the one who was unhappy and couldn’t own to it? Surely they had to ask themselves then, if this deeper uglier Bliss was somehow their fault and oh, Bliss hated to see that flicker of guilt on the faces of the people she loved. So she stopped, and they stopped and she woke up in the morning exhausted at the prospect of another day, and worried about not being strong enough to carry on through it.
Yes, it was odd to wake up happy. Wonderfully odd, tastily odd, blessedly odd. And yes, it was for just one person, this happiness. He had come into her life, and he kissed her brow and told her that she was strong. He reminded her of the goodness that could be had when she invested herself unerringly to another, and simply trusted, though trust was never simple. But he didn’t allow it to be complicated, because he trusted first, and loved first. Because he laughed, so did she, and because he was honest, so was she. They didn’t so much as lead each other, but rather walked together and Bliss discovered that her personal bubble needed popping and he was the chap to do it.
Somewhere beyond her bedroom window a dog barked, and Bliss could tell the morning was overcast, the light having that metallic sheen of sun filtered through a thin unmoving bank of clouds. She turned her head on her pillow, the shape of her cell under her cheek as she stared past the edge of the curtain to a shuttered world beyond. Scratching her nose (she was determined to keep her nails long now, who knew they could be so erotic when applied to the skin of another?) Bliss realized she’d as much gone to bed happy as she’d woken up happy. There was a wonderful kind of risk in that, letting him make her so goddamn giddy. What would happen if he suddenly changed his mind, if he walked away? Could she survive it, survive him?
And she decided that yes, she could and would, but more importantly – most importantly – she trusted him. He wouldn’t leave her bleeding, as others had. Together they had had yesterday, and they had today and Bliss trusted that they’d have tomorrow as well.
Because she loved him.
Because he loved her.
Later she would text Bailey (in English) and Bliss would playfully needle her for being such a morning person. Then she’d text her boyfriend, in between spooning in unholy amounts of creamer and sugar into her coffee, and texting wouldn’t be enough, so he’d call and they’d laugh together as Bliss tried to pull on a pair of tights while still talking on the phone. And she’d tell him, while trying not to fall over as she wiggled her way into day clothes, that she’d woken up with the oddest assortment of words in her head…
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