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“Um,” says Grace.
After a few moments I look over at him where he sits on the couch next to me. He’s staring into the middle distance with some series of unreadable emotions crossing his face. He glows softly in the light of the floor lamp behind me. The rush of waves from the open window next to him fills the silence.
“Yeah?” I prompt quietly when he still says nothing.
He’s struggling to speak. I’m a little worried about what he might be trying to say. Is he about to reveal some past trauma or something that I didn’t know about?
In the smallest voice I’ve heard him use he says, “....can I lay my head in your lap?”
I can’t speak. I nod.
Carefully, as if not to spook me, he shifts around and lays down lengthwise on the couch. He props a pillow on my legs and slowly eases his head down onto it. Immediately he looks stricken.
“How--how do you feel?” I ask cautiously. My voice is a raspy whisper.
He starts to cry and buries his face in his hands. I tense. I’ve upset him and I don’t know what to do. I watch helplessly as he cries harder, gasping and whimpering and pressing his hands harder into his eyes. Self-loathing edges into my heart. This sweet kind man can’t even be too close to me without being hurt and I have no idea why. I want to comfort him but I’m afraid to touch him. I want to leave, to hide, but he’s still lying on my legs and I don’t want to make it worse so I don’t move. Time stretches and all I can do is watch him cry.
“Umm,” I manage finally. “Grace?” My voice cracks and I swallow. “....are you okay?”
He looks even more pained behind his hands and sobs even harder. However, he nods. I sit, still scared, and wait for him to be able to speak.
Finally he takes some deep breaths and pulls his hands away from his face. He still looks distressed and is struggling to speak. “I…..I just…….I feel…….”
He starts sobbing again. I wait. I feel stupid. The need to Do Something pounds at me and I’m completely useless. I’m such a worthless--
“....safe,” whispers Grace.
I freeze.
The soft sea air eases in the window and the waves breathe.
“You, you,” I rasp. “You’re not….scared of me?” Disgusted with me, disappointed in me--
He frowns and tilts his head back to look up at me for the first time since he lay down. I look away.
“Simon,” he says softly. I force myself to look down at him. His sea blue eyes are wide as they meet mine. He doesn’t usually make eye contact, it’s not comfortable for him, and I can tell he needs to say something important and he really wants me to believe him. I steel myself. Whatever awful thing he has to tell me, I can accept it.
Softly but clearly, as though it’s obvious, he says, “I’m not afraid of you.”
It’s so different from anything I expected him to say that my mind goes blank. I stare dumbly down at him. He holds his eyes on mine. Slowly I turn what he said over in my mind, like a rock from the beach that I thought was dull but now new flecks of color appear each time I turn it in my hand. As if from outside myself I see Grace, in his soft well worn shirt and fleece pants, his body stretched full length on the couch and his face looking up from my lap. I can see the heart beat gently in his neck in the soft glow from the lamp. The thought begins to bleed into my awareness that he chose to move his body into just this position and he could hardly have chosen a more vulnerable one. These past months since I woke up, somehow alive, I have been under the assumption that my presence was tolerated, not wanted. Grace is a kind person and he says over and over that he wants me to feel at home here. Whatever that means.
“Are you okay?” he says softly, still looking up at me. I swallow. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in stunned silence. I try to speak and nothing comes out.
I nod.
“I trust you,” he says simply.
I feel as if I’m expanding, like a bubble, growing big enough to contain stars, galaxies. Tears come into my eyes and I squeeze them shut. Other than those first confused hours after I woke up, barely able to believe that I was alive and not sure that I wanted to be, I haven’t cried in front of Grace. It feels wrong. I don’t want to burden him with my emotions. I’m alive and I should be happy with that. It’s more than I deserve. He’s already shown me so much kindness.
“It’s okay to cry,” he says quietly, as if he’s reading my mind. I think he’s wrong but it doesn’t matter, I can’t contain the huge sob that rises up in me. I need to stop right now but I can’t. All the self loathing inside of me is rising up in a wave and I want to scream. I hear myself gasp and moan through gritted teeth as I try to contain the sobs. I feel almost angry. There is no way I can exist around this man and not hurt him eventually. It’s ridiculous for him to be like this around me. I don’t understand and I can’t stop crying. My cheeks itch with tears and my throat is going to explode with aching and I need to make him understand right now.
I take a deep shuddering breath. With all my willpower I control my voice enough to say, “How can you…be like this around me?”
He tilts his head back again to look up at me. “Be like….what?”
I grit my teeth. I don’t know what to say. I gesture with my prosthetic left arm, a little wildly. “This! How can you….Why do you want….” I’m shaking my head as I try to be coherent, my eyes darting around the room as if for inspiration. Tears are still trickling down my cheeks. “I’m not….” The more I try to speak the more frustrated I’m getting. I need him to understand this. I take another shaky breath and say through gritted teeth, “I could….hurt you.” I hear the despair in my voice. Tears obscure my vision as I stare out the open window into the dark.
I can feel him still looking calmly up at me.
“I trust you,” he says again.
“You don’t even know me,” I whisper, still staring out into the darkness.
Gently and clearly he repeats, “I trust you, Simon.”
Something deep inside of me, stretched taut for as long as I can remember, melts away. Still gasping and hiccupping, I try to consider the idea that Grace might be telling me the truth. That his cheerful easy way around me might not be foolish and naïve. For the first time I start to crack my heart open to the possibility that my presence here might have some kind of value. I’ve been told so many times that I’m unworthy, that I must always work to earn the precious resources I take up by existing. I haven’t been able to do that here and it’s been tearing me up inside. Every day my mind tells me a hundred times that I don’t deserve this kindness. It has built and built and built into an unfathomable weight that presses on me at every moment. I didn’t realize the extent of it until now that it’s starting to lighten.
I look down and meet his eyes. I nod.
He reaches over his head to where my right hand is clenched into a fist and pressing into the arm of the couch. Gently he slides his hand under mine and eases his fingertips under the edge of mine. I feel my hand start to uncurl. My fingers feel sweaty and cramped. He eases his fingers in between mine and firmly clasps my hand in his smaller one. He settles into the pillow, facing toward the open window, where the waves breathe eternally, and closes his eyes.
I take a deep breath of the soft briny air.
We stay like that for a long time.
***
There is a formless singing in the back of my mind, blending with the rush of the waves. It weaves in and out of my awareness. I ignore it. My soul feels cracked open, ever so slightly, and yet the difference between how I felt before Grace lay down and how I feel now is a vast gulf, an ocean. I stare out into the dark. I feel vast, as if--
The singing is suddenly much louder and I realize Rocky is right in front of me. With massive effort I heave my mind into translating mode.
“Grace! Simon! Hellooooo!” he is saying, stamping one of his feet over and over. His claws clack loudly on the floor, muffled a little by the xenonite suit. His sweater today is a patchy gray.
Grace stirs, giving a tiny moan and slowly turning his head to the side to look towards Rocky. I realize that he must have fallen asleep.
“Hey, Rock!” he mumbles, with such genuine warmth and joy that I’m astonished all over again. A hundred times a day I see them interact and I’m struck dumb every time by their easy, open affection. He takes his hand out of mine to reach out to Rocky, who takes Grace’s hand in his claw and holds it for a moment. I feel a slight disappointment at how my own hand feels suddenly empty.
“Grace and Simon okay, question?” says Rocky. “Rocky speak long time and Simon not hear.” He speaks as simply as he can when I’m around, so I can understand with my limited vocabulary. He tries to speak slowly too although sometimes he doesn’t have the patience.
“I was asleep,” says Grace, smiling at him.
“Yes. Simon watch. But Simon [???]. ”
My brain is still sluggish, a beat behind. I don’t know the last word. At church services, when I was growing up in Eden, a woman would sometimes play a flute made from a metal pipe with holes drilled in it. The holes were not evenly spaced; their arrangement was dictated by the math of the way the sound moved within the pipe. I remember holding the instrument in my hands, my fingers not big enough yet to cover the holes, as she told me about how music and math were one and the same. Rocky kind of sounds like that flute.
“What?” My voice cracks as if I haven’t spoken in hours.
“He can watch me sleep and be distracted too,” Grace says, mock-defensive. “You’re always working on a project or something while you watch me sleep.”
“Simon not work. Only sit.”
“Get up here,” Grace says, pulling his right foot in close so there’s space on the couch alongside his left leg. Rocky steps up onto the couch, precise and delicate as a cat, and folds his arms under him as he settles down.
“Grace Simon okay question? Face skin swell.”
“...oh, like my eyelids are swollen up?” Grace says. “Yeah, I was crying earlier. I’m okay though. It was good tears.”
“Why leak question?”
“Hmm,” Grace says thoughtfully. I can tell he’s actually thinking it through, wanting to understand. If things can’t be explained and put into words, they can’t make sense, and when things don’t make sense, Grace gets annoyed and frustrated until they do. “Well, when I lay down like this, I felt…big feelings. I felt overwhelmed and I couldn’t tell why. I think…I think it’s because this is new to me.”
“What is new question? Grace lie down every day to sleep.”
He smiles. “I know. It’s….” He thinks it over for a minute. “Like….When I lay down, I realized that I felt….safe. But like, in a deep way. That I just hadn’t felt before. I don’t know. I’m still trying to understand why I got so emotional.”
“Simon never watch Grace sleep before question?”
“....No,” he says, like he’s just realizing something important.
“Obvious Grace feel new way. Grace let new person watch sleep.”
“....Huh,” he says, seemingly to himself. I look down at his face. I can’t read the emotions crossing it.
I realize Rocky has said my name several times. When we were figuring out what he could call me in his language, Grace suggested “seed” because of my pendant from Eden. Rocky’s world doesn’t have trees, but he chose a word that has a similar meaning. A word for something that contains potential, nurtures a powerful hope.
“Simon leak too question? Simon face skin swell too.”
I look over at him. I have no idea how to answer that. I have never met anyone who speaks as bluntly as Rocky. As I’ve gotten to know him, his utter frankness has gradually gone from seeming aggressive or disconcerting, to just…baffling.
“Simon might not be ready to share about his feelings yet,” Grace says mildly, as if Rocky and I are children. This is also something that at first felt aggressive to me but that I’ve learned to take at face value.
“Grace let Simon watch sleep. Big occasion,” chimes Rocky.
“Yeah,” he says softly.
“Big big big occasion,” Rocky repeats. “When Adrian first let Rocky watch sleep, Rocky feel [???]. Rocky think [?????????] and Adrian [????????]....” In his excitement he’s speaking fluidly and naturally, forgetting to dumb down his words for me. I stop trying to translate and just let the notes wash over me. Grace’s head is still in my lap. His face is tilted towards Rocky, smiling lightly as they chatter back and forth. He let me watch him sleep. My mind sticks on this. It’s clearly a big deal to both of them. Like everything else since I….almost died, this is totally new to me. I’d never slept in a room alone, there was always either my mother at home in our one room apartment on Mars, or my “brothers” in our bunk rooms in Eden. Here I have my own bedroom in Grace’s house. Our house, he keeps saying. A lot of nights I just lie awake, listening to the strange breathing of the waves, which is yet another thing I’d never heard or seen before. Sometimes my mom and I would watch old movies from Earth when I was little, before Eden, and sometimes there were beaches in those. It always seemed so bizarre, literally otherworldly, to be in such a huge open space, to see water spreading infinitely away beyond a horizon, and a real sky instead of the inside of a dome. Of course, we’re in a dome here too, but it’s nothing like the blank, claustrophobic walls I grew up bounded by. The Eridians do anything they can to make Grace happy and they worked so hard make his home feel as free as possible and like his favorite place back on Earth. He talks all the time about the beaches he used to go to and how much he loved to walk along the sand, the fog like a comforting blanket, muffling and safe.
Safe. He said he felt safe with me. I’m trying to examine this truth, looking at it sideways like it’s a timid animal I’m trying not to spook.
“....Simon. Simon. Simon,” Rocky is chiming the chord that is now my name over and over, cheerfully. I pull my mind back to myself and look over at him.
“Adrian ask if you want to look at plants with them tomorrow.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I hear myself say. Hearing the meaning of my Eridian name, and Rocky’s mention that I used to worship a tree, Adrian has the idea firmly in their mind that I need to take up gardening. We’re going to work on potting some of the plants from Grace’s ship. It’s kind of ridiculous but also gives me a small warm glow inside that I’m afraid to examine closely.
Grace does a big loud yawn. I can tell he’s exaggerating it to annoy Rocky, who cringes away with disgust.
“Haaaahhhh,” Grace sighs theatrically, pretending not to notice.
“Grace need sleep more, question?”
“Yeah, I’m ready for bed,” he sighs, pushing himself up to sitting. I feel a sudden emptiness where his warm presence was a moment before.
“Rocky watch. Adrian just wake up before Rocky come over. Rocky can stay.”
“Thanks, buddy,” he says, raising his arms in a big stretch, still facing away from me. I stare at his mussed golden hair sticking out in all directions, at his muscular shoulders. I look away. I’m surprised all over again at how casual they act around me. I can’t remember the last time I just sat with my back to someone like that and felt okay about it. Probably not since before Eden.
Grace and Rocky stand up, still chattering, and Grace looks back at me. “Goodnight, Simon,” he says, smiling at me, and turns back to walk into his bedroom.
“....Wait,” I hear my cracked voice say. It’s far too quiet for Grace to hear, and he’s talking anyway, but Rocky hears and stops, tilting his body towards me slightly, which makes Grace stop and look back at me too.
“Can I….sleep with you tonight? I mean, just sleep, not….” I interrupt myself quickly, looking down, my face getting hot, “I….sometimes it’s hard to sleep alone. I mean, I appreciate having my own room,” I continue quickly, “I’m not complaining, I just….I have trouble sleeping….sometimes,” I don’t want to admit that I lie awake most of every night, “….and maybe…”
“Of course,” Grace says softly. I make myself look at him. I’m afraid to see--what? Judgement, pity, offense at my ingratitude, I don’t know. But of course that doesn’t happen. I see….understanding in his eyes.
“Rocky watch Grace and Simon sleep,” Rocky says. His voice sounds matter of fact, as though I said something perfectly normal. “Simon have bad crazy sleep like Grace, question?”
“Bad dreams,” Grace mutters, translating for me. As a teacher he is used to patiently explaining things and making sure everyone understands, and I think he does it without thinking sometimes. He looks down, his face flushing slightly. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.”
It has never occurred to me that Grace might have nightmares too.
“Well….come on in,” he says awkwardly, gesturing for me to follow. The tiles feel clean and cool under my bare feet. I pause in the doorway, uncomfortable. Suddenly I don’t know what to do with my hands. I settle for putting them on the doorframe. I breathe deeply in through my nose, trying to smell myself without them noticing. I don’t think I smell bad.
“Simon come in, question?” says Rocky, already curled in a loaf on the bottom corner of the bed. Grace is pulling himself into bed and under the covers without looking at me. He lays down on his back on the side of the bed Rocky is on, leaving half the bed empty. With a small shock I realize he’s left space for me.
“I, uh, I can sleep on the floor,” I mutter.
“What?” Grace says. “No, of course not. There’s plenty of room. The floor would be so uncomfortable. This is like a king size bed. Well, it’s not exactly the size--I don’t know how big--because the Eridians just made it for me but I asked for a big bed I could stretch out in and then also there needs to be room for Rocky because sometimes he comes over to watch me sleep--like tonight for example--and then sometimes Adrian comes over to watch--and they’re bigger than Rocky, well obviously you know that, and a lot of times they don’t come over and I just sleep by myself, but when they do, there’s room--and I’m rambling,” he says, putting a hand over his eyes. He sighs and takes his hand away from his face and puts it over on the empty side of the bed. His eyes are closed. “Please,” he says simply.
I shuffle over to the bed, sit down, swing my legs up, pull the covers up to my chin. We lie side by side, looking at the ceiling. I’m frozen with discomfort. This is ridiculous. I never should have asked for this. I’m fine sleeping by myself. I’m already trying to think of a way to apologize and leave without making it even more awkward.
“I have nightmares too sometimes,” Grace says. He’s going for a casual conversational tone but I hear the strain under it. I’m still looking straight up at the ceiling and I can tell he is too. “I mean, I don’t know if you do or not. I didn’t mean to assume--it doesn’t matter. I just mean--” he takes another deep breath and lets it out slowly through his nose. He does this when he’s trying to calm himself down, closing the back of his throat slightly to give the breath a sound like the whisper of the waves. It’s called an ujjayi breath. I remember him explaining how to do it by pretending you’re fogging up glass. That was soon after I got here. I think I just stared at him, having no idea how to respond. That was what I did most of the time back then. I don’t know why I remember this one little thing he said months ago when I can’t even remember a lot of the days and weeks from that time.
Grace is still talking. “I just mean--if you do have nightmares--if you did--then….it’s okay. I get it. I mean, I can’t really get it, I don’t know what it’s like inside your mind, I can only speak to my experience, but--”
“Grace,” I say quietly, cutting off his ramble. Somehow his obvious anxiousness is making me braver. “It’s okay.”
“Hah,” he lets out a nervous laugh. I think I can hear relief in his voice. He turns his head towards me on the pillow. I turn my head to look into his face. He holds his eyes on mine for a few seconds. He rarely makes eye contact at all, and if so it’s usually a quick glance. But now he holds my gaze with such direct openness, as if he’s offering up his emotions to me in outstretched hands. As if he’s truly seeing me for the first time. I feel a little shock in the bottom of my stomach, like a tiny firework. Up close his eyes are a multitude of blues, sky and water.
He smiles slightly, and I do too.
“I uh, I hope you don’t mind,” he says, turning away again, “I sleep with the light on. I just--I prefer it,” he trails off, sounding embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” I say again.
“Oh. Okay. Uhh….goodnight,” he mumbles, and turns onto his side with his back to me.
I turn onto my other side so that we’re back to back. We’re not touching but I can feel the warmth of his body a few inches away.
“Sleep safe,” chimes Rocky, already fiddling with some little project with two of his hands. The other three arms are still folded under him.
“Sleep safe,” I whisper.