When I tap her name on the screen, 1 am, under the influence, still feel sick.

It’s the alcohol raving in my stomach, tequila mixed with sugar. Wynn is sleeping in the living room on an air mattress, half-conscious. Anne’s light is off, she has an interview in a week and has been burying herself in it.

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Patricia picks up. 

Yeah? Her voice reaches from the other side of my iphone, I can tell that she is asleep.

Hey, sorry. I say, Sorry that I woke you up.  

It’s ok. What’s up? She sounds soft and almost a little happy.

Nothing. Just want to hear your voice. I flip my damp body to lie on top of the blanket.

She laughs.

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I laugh too, giggling. like a child who just did something stupid, hiding a piece of gum on the sofa, waiting for the uninvited neighbor to sit on it.

There's silence for a moment -  in the air, on this chilly and calm April night.

The rest of the world has quieted down.

The sky and clouds, tiptoe on a mission, only speak to those who want to listen. Those who are awake, those who aren’t afraid to look loneliness in the eye.

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I used to think about home when I couldn’t sleep, how I wanted to tear a piece of it and just stay with it for a while. But I had no one to call. My parents would be at work. They would worry about my well-being, and ask me to drink milk.

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I would have just lied on my back for hours and hours, staring at the ceiling, allowing my brain to go to strange places. Things I wish I did, or am glad I didn’t. Things I want to do. Or every little step that led me to this specific moment, this sleepless night that I am looking back from. I don’t hate nights like that, I just wish I had someone to talk to.

You there? A voice comes from the phone. 

Yeah, sorry. 

What are you thinking? 

I don't know,  just can’t sleep.

How was the party?

You have no idea,  wish you were there. 

She laughs again. I can hear her breath, softly, steaming the signal somewhere in this universe. 

I’m glad. It sounds fun.

Yeah, Wynn is sleeping in the living room.

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There is laughter,  then silence again.

Go to bed now. Sorry that I woke you.

That’s ok. You know you can always call me.

I pause for a couple of seconds. Those words come from her so naturally.  like it should be taken for granted.

And you can always call me.

I know. She says.

My heart feels full, like my stomach. Different liquid, but on a competitive level.

Ok. I’m gonna go back to sleep. 

Wait.

Yeah?

There's silence again, longer this time.

I guess, I want to tell you.

that. I am glad you are in my life.

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The wind blows on my curtains, the ones that came from the last tenant. They are tiny tainted red roses printed on light yellow fabrics.  The wind travels through window screens, making a sound like ladybugs landing on a spring branch. On this April night, I am showered in foreign moonlight, stumbling upon a foreign feeling, in a foreign form that I don’t recognize. 

We hung up after she said something.

She said, I feel the same.

After years, who would have imagined, someone in this world gets you.

Someone would pick up your call when the rest of the world has entered a different state. A connection that’s so rare, fragile, unnoticed. Someone like me, with someone like her. A connection I could have never seen coming. One that wraps me in a foreign gravity, giving my life layers of meaning like mille-feuille, ones that I didn’t know existed.

Where my being extended.

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As if in another life, I am a man, a bird, a star, a drop of water.

--- someplace where time won’t apply. 

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