We fuck that night with the windows open and it’s the best we’ve had in a while, in a long while. I know this because we knock a wine glass off our bedside table and neither of us stops to pick it up, but I hear it roll away and picture the mess it leaves behind–red ring on a white carpet–and I don’t know if it’s that image that keeps me going or something else entirely, but afterwards neither of us says anything and all I can hear is his breath, his body and mine paused for the first time in years. We don’t mention the unpaid parking fines that have been stacking up for months or the work alarm that I quietly snoozed and the sun, so obviously high in the sky, and when the doorbell rings with our mail, neither of moves to answer it, and I know this is a good thing or at least a memory that will keep us going for a while. Both of us fixed and sweated, cold but in heat, and I think maybe this is how it works: all this rage and life and nowhere to put it but an empty wine glass on the floor and the windows cracked open, just enough.
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Carlotta Eden is a writer and editor living near London, working with the Society of Authors. She co-founded Synaesthesia Magazine and her stories can be found in wigleaf, matchbook, WhiskeyPaper, CHEAP POP, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @1chae.
Artwork by: Mosa Moseneke
