download this issue as a PDF

I spooned Lauren while rubbing her back. She told me that she had dreamed that she had been deaf, but then
was trying to convince a guy that she could actually hear. I thought that her dream was about us.
At her front door, I turned around to Lauren and we kissed, tasting the coffee off each other’s tongues. I sat in
my car—lingering—thinking how grown up all of that was.
When I got home my father asked me, “So, your lights aren’t working?” I said, “Yeah,” and showed my father the
switch that didn’t work. I felt the need to prove it to him. He said I should get it fixed so I would be safe. And
that was it.
He hadn’t ever asked me what was happening: how Lauren and I were doing when we first got together, or how
I was after it fell apart, or anything about me and her trying again. And I almost wished my father had asked me
what happened, because I thought that if he wasn’t going to ask then, he wasn’t going to ask me ever. I believed
that could have been the opening to talk about the thrill of sleeping with someone you love, of waking up next
to someone with the confusion of the morning sun, and realizing you are still there with them, and wanting to
stay with them for just five more minutes, always just a little longer.
12