A few months passed. Waldin and Avalyn spent more and more time together, but still communicated by the occasional letter. There were no labels or further promises, only raw emotions and unfiltered expressions of them. Sometimes she’d retreat and Waldin would lose focus and faith, but they’d always write and they’d always find each other again. I saw Waldin less and less—granted I was back in school and at the library less myself anyways—but when I did see him, he was usually somewhere else. For the first time since I had known him, I felt like he was holding things back. He seemed more guarded and calculated when he spoke. Just when I decided I ought to ask if everything was all right, he invited me to his apartment to have dinner and meet Avalyn for the first time.
Waldin’s loft was far more lavish than I’d expected. I often forgot he was once a lawyer. Upscale as it was, it was rather out of order and disheveled for a guy who treated the Dewey decimal system like sacred dogma. Though most of the furniture and style screamed Waldin, Avalyn was strewn all over the apartment—the elaborate, hand-made “Happy Thursday!” card on the fridge, a subscription to The New Yorker, a patched picnic blanket by the door, a copy of The Second Sex on the coffee table. She was just as described, kind and warm, but with a sublime nuance in her nature that was nearly frightening. I knew I’d never be able to see her as Waldin did. I guess she appeared less attractive, but more captivating, than I had imagined her.
“Though she certainly was not, her beauty was subtle. It was soft-spoken, required focus, didn’t pop out at you or force you to recognize it. Her beauty was not a male peacock or the peak of Mount Roraima. It was an English countryside or a dandelion caught in the wind. You could overlook it as ordinary without even trying.” - W
Most people would miss it, but not Waldin, not by a long shot.
“So I’ve heard a lot about you, Leon. Waldin won’t shut up about your music.”
“I’m decent. There’s kids half my age playing stuff twice as hard.”
“Well, I’m sure there’s people twice your age with half your ability, who make three times as much as me or Waldin off of it. Remember that.”
We all sat down to eat, Waldin still clinging on to his smile.
Both considering ourselves rather close to Waldin, we nearly unconsciously went into bullshit test mode. He mostly just observed, as we picked each other’s brains, occasionally adding an inconsequential remark. Much to my surprise, Waldin had checked his phone that evening more than he had throughout the entire time I had known him. Avalyn evidently took notice, but waited until we all finished eating to bring it up. “Expecting something?”
“Ava please, not now.”
“Not now? Not ever? I didn’t know this was part of the deal.”
“Ava…” He took a quick glance in my direction.
She ran her hand through her hair, dislodging four or five hairs, which she quickly dismissed under the table.
Waldin practically flinched as she sprung up from her seat, reaching across him. “Wine?”
She looked at me reassuringly. I accepted casually, hiding my skepticism. The only time I’d tasted wine was when Jordan and I got awkwardly caught in a Catholic mass after we’d snuck in to get warm. At that age, drinking alcohol as nonchalantly as possible was an art form. My first gulp was a rather sizable one. I figured I might need it to make it through the evening; an evening that bore a significance I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but surely could feel in an uncomfortable proximity to my hand. Only after Waldin restlessly stood up to clear the table did I first notice the aberrant darkness under his eyes.
Avalyn left the room without a word.
I asked him about it as subtly as I could. He said he was fine. Waldin had always been fine.
“I still stand firmly alongside my promise. I often wonder why. Silence grows. She stands firm too, I think. But her truth is pure, though intricate and sometimes even delicate, never ill in nature. It tries me, possesses me at times, but does not hurt me. My truth makes her feel small, like she is weak for letting it eat away at her. I can only hide behind the silence, or risk losing what I … we have become. Often the silence is more revealing. I always break it in time, but it seems we are nearly beyond all of the truths that bring comfort.” - W
Waldin had nearly forgotten how vividly he once dreamed when deep, truly peaceful sleep was customary. He dreamed then more than ever, but never more than with Avalyn by his side. There was one dream in particular, about which he seemingly never ceased to speak. He swore he had it each night, whether he was able to remember it or not. An estranged ambience, which he always failed to explain, consumed him the morning after any night in which he awoke during the sacred dream.
He found himself walking deliberately slowly, on a stone-less beach. The ghost crabs pestered his ankles, but he paid them no mind. He walked with a purpose not yet revealed to him, until, of course, he found the tree. A grand blossom tree came into shape before him and he paused to examine the unavoidable phenomenon. He took a seat beneath its endearing shade and stared in awe at the infinite ocean. Avalyn sat closely behind him, just far enough away that he couldn’t see her without losing sight of what lay before him. Though he fully felt her presence, he never once altered his gaze to get a glimpse of her. He was no Thomas. A sadist dragon approached with the tide, flaring its immense, lilac wings. The sun crashed into the horizon, shattering like an egg, and spilled its contents across the ocean, losing its identity to the sea foam.
A roaring Viking ship came ashore. They stormed the beach, ready to mix the dried blood on their blades with the fresh blood in his veins. But he was deaf to their cries of war. It all drew his eye for only a moment. Such a demanding spectacle yielded only indifference from him. He saw the absurd, he saw the breathtaking, he saw the whole world; more than anything he saw the tree and the water, but only felt her. After a while he wanted to feel the warmth of the sun again and so they walked. In the same way they walked for quite some time, and came upon the very same tree. He sat down in the same fashion and a light grew in him from the depths of his core. By the time it reached his face, the light pushed to escape through his mouth, but he gently bit his lower lip, trapping it within, and smiled.
Waldin awoke from this dream, which came most nights, quietly cursing the darkness he thought he’d been freed from. There was rarely a moment in which he didn’t retreat to or reach for a metaphor or symbol to explain his condition. So easily he detached himself from the tangible, from reality. It was not simply dark in his room because it was night and no lights were on. The darkness consumed him; noticing that he might be close to escaping, it tightened its vice grip even more. And so he went on, as he always did, desperately grabbing for obscure meaning from everything. Even though he slept much more then, there seemed to be no escape from the odd stain on his ceiling that always drew his gaze during sleepless bouts with himself. Many times he’d wish to roll over and wake up Avalyn, but how could she help him? How could she stop his mind from turning every fucking happenstance into an existential crisis? She’d try. So valiantly she would try. She’d take him out in the middle of the night down to the shipyard. They’d unhitch a modest fishing boat and head out to sea, nearing capsizing to get over waves. The boat would toss and turn, nearly throwing them off to probable death in the freezing, dark water and she’d laugh through it all. He would marvel at her spontaneous, fearless soul, and in those moments he forgot. He forgot that it was just a rather pathetic and irresponsible attempt to detach from reality and give the illusion of freedom, which would only increase his anguish tenfold once the moment had passed. He forgot that, no matter what life presented him with, he always seemed to find a way to flip it on its head until he felt nauseous.
Later they’d lie, soaking wet, on the rug in the middle of the living room, as though if they stared at the ceiling fan intently enough it would stop spinning. Together they’d wait for the herbal tea Avalyn always bought to cool; the one Waldin admittedly hated at first, but had developed a taste for. He’d start
to decompress and by then she had learned to notice. Her last resort was always to seize his mind by force. But in the end he was inside of her, and she wanted so badly for the inverse to be true.
“I often spent nights or early mornings on the rug in my living room. It was, what I originally perceived to be, a terrible Christmas gift from a co-worker. Interior design was never my forte, but I still think it looks downright awful. Regardless, I wouldn’t dream of getting rid of it now. On nights when I am a particular kind of unsettled, my bed is no place for me. The stain doesn’t seem right. Whether I actually don’t want to sleep or have convinced myself I don’t deserve to, the rug serves its purpose. It’s just comfortable enough to be tolerable, but far too thin and coarse to ever fall asleep on. I’ll lay there on my back for hours, the whole night sometimes, decided on figuring out whatever is bothering me or tearing myself apart in the process. I’ve come to some of my most profound realizations there, but also done some of my most irreparable damage. I hope, in the end, these realizations outweigh their coinciding demons. I wonder if she’ll like my rug.” - W
Chapter 9