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I’m ready for bed far quicker than he is, as usual. He’s still in the bathroom, while I’m snuggled into the blankets, tucking myself into a warm and plush cave. It’d be more than easy to slip into sleep right now, but I force my eyes to stay open, will myself to stay awake. Just enough to wait for my boyfriend to join me.
The door to our apartment’s on-suite bathroom is cracked. Normally, he has it fully closed, but I guess this time it didn’t latch properly. Through my barely open eyes, I can see a sliver of him, going through the motions of getting ready for bed. I watch appreciatively as he reaches up, tying his shoulder-length dark hair into a loose and messy bun, then grabs his toothbrush. It’s an expensive, electric thing, in a sleek and slim black. It looks so high-tech that I could have mistaken it from something fom a sci-fi show, rather than a toothbrush. He switches it on, the sound of its motorized brush breaking the relative silence, and then...
He sets it down.
That’s... confusing. I can feel my brow furrow (“fix your face, darling”) as I stir in the bed slightly, focusing in an effort to watch through the thin crack better, curious and nosy. He braces his hands on the counter, leaning slightly over the sink and getting closer to the mirror, like he’s examining himself. Then, as I’m watching, he flickers. The entirety of his body shifts and ripples, like he’s nothing more than a mirage— I can’t help but jolt in surprise, and squeeze my eyes shut in an impulsive thought that if I close my eyes and open them again, it would fix whatever cosmic glitch is going on.
Instead, I open my eyes and I’m greeted with a bloodchilling sight.
Gone is the familiar, safe visage of my boyfriend. Standing exactly in his place, in exactly the same way, is something inhuman.
His long hair, normally such a dark brown that it looks black in most lightings apart from direct sunlight, is entirely replaced by snowy white strands, though still tied in that messy bun. The contrast is startlingly different. Thin, dark veins spiderweb under his pale, green-gray skin, along with sharp tattoos that curl and swirl and swoop, ending in serrated points. I can see a thin strip of his face in the reflection, and he has piercing, shimmering gold eyes with thin slitted pupils that touch the top and bottom of his iris.
Though the door blocks most of his body from view, I can tell that even his physicality is different. Similar, in ways, but also sharper, more exaggerated, more muscled and defined. The hands braced against the counter are slightly wider, fingers slightly longer, and they end in black nails— nails that are perhaps too sharp to be called nails. Claws is more accurate.
He pushes himself off the counter, and turns away from the door. Even from here, I can see the silhouette of his body through the thin white material of the shirt he wears. Inhuman ridges run down his spine along each vertebrae.
And for some reason, I can’t tear my eyes away. Shock and disbelief, perhaps, has me glued to the bed in the same exact position, simply staring at the creature I thought was a man through the gap of our apartment’s bathroom door. It seems unrealistic. It feels impossible.
But his form doesn’t flicker back, no matter how many times I try to blink the sight away.
He turns again, as if to look back at the mirror— but his arm is swinging too wide to brace against the counter again. On instinct alone, a thrum of adrenaline screaming through my body, I slam my eyelids shut, doing my damnest to avoid squeezing them. I’m suddenly acutely aware of my breathing, of my pulse. It feels like a heavy pressure settles on my body, as the bathroom goes utterly silent. There’s no swish of fabric rustling against itself as he moves, there’s no creak of the apartment’s old floor underfoot as he shifts his weight. Just the monotone buzz of his toothbrush, still running in the background.
My heart races with terror that I’ve been caught, that he somehow knows that I know. He’s some kind of creature— a forgotten monster wrought from the planet’s deepest crevices. Or an alien, a descendant of the stars themselves. Maybe he can sense my fear. He’s not human, after all. I have no idea what he can really do.
The silence stretches. The toothbrush clicks off, and yet still, the silence continues. My ears ring from the weight of it. Finally, finally, I hear the door quietly and gently latch. I can’t help but breathe out a slow sigh of relief.
As the door closes, the light from the bathroom is cut off, and I’m left in a sudden darkness. So I shift, rolling onto my back and staring up at the ceiling. My thoughts are racing uncontrollably, every possible worst-case scenario tumbling through my head at a breakneck speed. A thousand different puzzle pieces on all of his peculiarities begin falling into place, but at the same time, my mind begins questioning everything he’s ever done. My brain is running through every emotion— I flicker through the first four of the five stages of grief in record time, stagnating on depression like I’ve suddenly stepped into thick tar. It feels like the only thing I can do is squeeze my eyes shut against the dark, in an attempt to silence my own mind.
It doesn’t work.
The toothbrush clicks back on, then back off. The water runs. I can hear the floorboards creak. It feels like it takes ten seconds. It feels like it takes ten hours.
And eventually, the door unlatches. I hear his footsteps, surprisingly light considering how tall and broad he is— and suddenly, it makes sense. I have to force myself to move, to react— terrified of who I’ll see, but still feigning bleariness as I open my eyes and watch as he approaches the bed. The alien form is gone, and the illusion that I fell in love with has returned. His hair and eyes are both dark again, nearly black in the dim bedroom lighting. His skin is lightly sunkissed, with the faintest of tan lines from his sleeves across his upper arms.
I reach over and flick open the comforter, and he sinks into the bed. Despite my best efforts, I can feel my breathing stutter as his body presses against mine, his sturdy arms wrapping around me and pulling me closer to him. I let the comforter fall back over us as I lay my head on his chest, feeling the slow rise and fall as he breathes.
It’s uncanny, the way he hesitates. As if he knows that I know.
“Are you okay?” He asks softly, his voice a low rumble.
I open my mouth to reply, but the words catch in my throat. ‘No,’ my brain screams, ‘you’re not human,’ but all I can do is inhale. He smells the same. The lingering scent of his cologne, of his deodorant, and the fresh scent of mint— as if he really did just brush his teeth.
I exhale, relaxing against him, unwinding my hands where they unconsciously clenched into fists in his shirt.
“Feeling a little nauseous, honestly,” I mutter, and bury my face into his side.
His hand rubs comforting circles against my back. “Do you want me to get you some medicine?”
I shake my head, gripping his shirt tighter again to pull myself closer to him. Deeper into the warmth that he radiates. It’s so easy to pretend I never saw anything, to pretend everything is okay. Maybe that’s because, more than anything, I don’t want it to be true. I want nothing more than to continue living with the man who practically worships me, regardless of— of circumstance.
And then, some treacherous part of me whispers; would it really be so bad to carry on in this relationship?
His other hand comes up to run gentle fingers through my hair, carefully untangling a stray knot. It feels safe. Images of inhuman skin and black veins and golden eyes flash through my mind. He scratches gently at my scalp. They feel blunt, nothing like the sharp claws I thought I had seen. It feels comforting. It makes me feel crazy.
I sigh against his chest, resting my hand over his heart. Its beat betrays nothing. “Nah. I think I’m just gonna sleep it off.”
He hums, the note concerned, but he doesn’t shift. He doesn’t push. He never does, not unless he thinks it’s genuinely necessary. “Alright,” he murmurs, and presses a kiss to the top of my head. The warm, loving gesture makes my heart flutter with butterflies, and my chest tighten with anxiety. “Let me know if you change your mind. Goodnight,” he stops to inhale, the noise barely audible. “I love you.”
My head is swimming. I squeeze my eyes shut again, and take a breath, hoping my words aren’t shaky as I reply. “I love you too. Goodnight.”
The minutes feel like hours, but even as his breathing slows and evens out, I still can’t bring myself to sleep. My mind is racing, playing back what I saw through the crack in the door over and over again, wondering if it’s even possible. Maybe I hallucinated it, maybe it was a trick of the light, maybe I’ve finally lost my mind. Maybe, maybe, maybe...
But the more I think about it, the more the fear wanes. If it was real, and I wasn’t imagining it, then he’s arguably dangerous— and yet, here I am, held gently in his arms against his chest as I feign sleep, perfectly safe. And it’s where I’ve been content to be since we started dating, since we moved into a new apartment together.
The fear gives way to a new emotion, one that’s equally as confusing to attribute to my loving, doting boyfriend.
The gnawing worm of anxiety.
Self doubt comes in, a familiar embrace of writhing and wriggling within every thought of my mind. It threatens to hollow me out, to leave me a shell. And, for the first time in a long time, I fall readily into that doubt— because it’s honest, isn’t it? Surely, if nothing else, it’s based on something solid.
Because why would this creature, this supposed alien— some kind of apex predator from the stars, choose someone like me? What made me so special?
Was I actually special in some way, or was I just an easy target? My stomach churns at the question, so in that regard, I feel as though I already know the truth. There’s nothing special about me, not really. I have average looks, and I lack any type of outgoing personality. My family isn’t rich, and there’s no connection to be made through them, or me— so now, I wonder if it’s because I’m disposable.
The thought sits uncomfortably in my stomach, a heavy stone. The nausea I had lied about now has some merit, as my gut churns. And despite it, I’m so very aware of how incredibly ridiculous it is.
I’m feeling self-conscious and insecure because my boyfriend might be an alien.
Because my boyfriend, who I have known and loved for years, might not be human, and still chose to settle for me.
The more the thought repeats in my mind, the less believable it seems. It’s not possible, not feasible— I had to have seen something else. It has to have been a trick of the light, or weird depth perception. His breathing is normal, his heartbeat is so human. I’m not sure I can believe my own mind. How can I, when it’s something so insane?
My eyes burn. I want to cry, to binge eat ice cream and forget about my problems, with only the comfort of my favorite person.
But what am I supposed to do if he’s the reason I feel insane?
It’s almost laughable. I don’t actually laugh, of course. I don’t know if he’s actually sleeping, or faking it, but if he is awake then I want him to believe that I’m asleep. So I keep my eyes closed, and I don’t let any part of my thoughts show on my face, and I fake being asleep, sprawled comfortably across him.
Of course, faking being asleep is a very steep and slippery slope. The familiar rhythm of each inhale, his warmth soaking into my bones— despite what I think I saw, it’s relaxing. It’s comforting.
Sleep finds me quickly.
☆