“You got to get that beauty sleep too before the photo shoot,” he says.
“I have enough concealer to hide my shadows and cut.”
“So do you have any bedsheets?” Orion asks.
I shake my head. “I was more concerned with packing a million shoes apparently.”
“Oh, I got this.” Orion hops up, ready to problem solve as he grabs some of the clothes and jackets I took time folding and brings them to the air mattress. He creates pillows by stuffing sweaters into cotton T-shirts so the wool won’t be scratchy on our faces. He lays out one towel across the air mattress as bedding and tops it off with the black trench coat as my blanket.
“If I had my phone, I’d take a picture of this,” I say. It’s really impressive.
“I kind of love it too,” Orion says. He puts one of the sweater-pillows on the floor and makes a sleeping bag out of a sweater and my tan suede jacket.
“What are you doing?”
“Just making my bed. Is that cool? I’ll sleep under your jacket so it doesn’t touch the floor.”
“No, I don’t care about that. You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”
“I really don’t mind. I appreciate you letting a total stranger crash anyway.”
“You’re not a total stranger. If we’re going to share a heart, we can share a bed.”
Orion’s face scrunches. “Eh, technically you’re giving me your heart. We’re not sharing. But I’m not going to ignore . . .”
“A dying man’s wish?” I ask.
“Hey, you filled in the blank, not me.”
Orion throws his sweater-pillow and outerwear-blankets on the bed. We take off our boots. I normally sleep in my underwear, but I don’t want to make things uncomfortable, so I switch into my sweatpants. Orion sets an alarm on his phone before using my charger; together we form a perfect team. I switch off the lights and get into bed, where Orion is already getting cozy. The room is dark even without blinds, but not pitch-black thanks to the city lights keeping the block awake. I think about buying curtains tomorrow because it’s important I get full-night sleeps, especially on the days I work, before remembering that’s not going to be my issue.
How many of those thoughts will I have before I fully accept dying?
Hopefully a ton. That means I’m still alive.
This is the first time I’m sharing a bed with another boy. We’re not cheating either by lying on opposite ends with our feet in each other’s faces. This is head to head with our eyes up at the ceiling. It’s really nice and the kind of life I was planning on creating for myself out here in New York. I had some luck back home with talking to some boys, but it never came anywhere near this level. Everything always felt so tricky because of hiding my feelings from my parents and not always feeling safe doing anything romantic as I walked through my red state. I also never felt that right pull to another boy; someone who would’ve been worth it all.
It’s so quiet that I feel like my heartbeats are so loud, like I’m anticipating something.
Orion ends the silence when he whispers, “I have a question.”
“You don’t have to whisper.”
“I didn’t know if you were sleeping.”
“You’ll know. I’m the loudest snorer ever.”
“You can’t be the loudest snorer ever and have a roommate in a studio.”
“My snoring is white noise to Scarlett at this point.” I turn over so I can see him, but he keeps staring at the ceiling. “Please don’t smother me in my sleep.”