Where do you rest your vacant hand?

A STORY I WROTE FOR CLASS. PLEASE I HOPE YOU LIKE IT.

I remember the first time we ever stood in front of a mirror together. The air in his bathroom was sticky and thick, like someone had just showered. It wore our skin like bulky coats as we brushed our teeth there in the dark. The power had been out for about fifteen minutes, and Cole suggested that the bathroom might be the brightest room in the apartment. I assumed that he had forgotten it was dark outside, since his narrow bedroom walls were lined without windows. When the lights went out, my back was turned away from him, so that I could not see his face. I could feel the hairs on his chest press up against my back every few seconds when he would breath in—and then I felt them escape me as he shot the recycled bedroom air back through his nose. My eyes were closed when the lights went out, and without the disrupting sound of a power surge, I may have never noticed that the entire apartment was eerily black. Cole reached his arm over my shoulder and said,

“Ceclia? You awake? The power went out—I think I have a flashlight or something in here, but I’m not sure.”

I kept my eyes closed. I sat up and told him I’d help him look for the flashlight but he told me to lie back down. I felt him stand up from the bed—a mattress made for a six year old, covered in clammy sheets that he had clearly not washed in months. I could feel the empty space next to me on the mattress, and I extended my leg just a little bit, to touch the warm spot he left. I could hear him in the room—making as much noise as a marching band, and I thought to myself,

“How can someone so precious make so much noise?”

It only took around three minutes until he sat down on the edge of the bed, bouncing my leg back to its original spot on the antique store smelling sheets.

“Any luck?” I asked him.

“I can’t fucking see shit.” He sounded like a child who was having trouble finding their Easter basket. The disappointment in his voice rose up through his throat and released itself in the form of a large sigh.

“Stand up” he said. “Lets try the bathroom—maybe the light from the street will shine in through the window.”

I supposed that he must not have realized that streetlights also shut off during power outages, but I kept my thoughts to myself. He got up from the mattress first, and then brushed his hand across it to find mine. I grabbed onto his index finger and he pulled me up. His skin felt different in the dark. It felt creamy and pleasant. Sometimes, in the light, I would look at the calluses on his hands and make faces at them like I had eaten something sour like a lemon or added too much salt to my dinner. I liked his hands in the dark. I lifted my body up from the bed and followed wherever his index finger led me. I heard his bedroom door whine a high-pitched note and then I heard his hand brush up against the wall. He led me through the door and into the hallway. The cozy carpet of his bedroom against the bottoms of my feet turned into cold, firm wood. I liked the way his hallway looked in the dark. In the light sometimes, I would stare at scuffs in the hardwood floor and wonder why he never bothered to buffer them out. There was also a crooked painting of a woman in a white dress, laying in a sailboat, hung on the dirty white wall. He said his mother gave it to him as a house-warming gift, but I never thought that reason enough to hang such an awful picture on a wall—especially crooked like that.

We made it to the bathroom, and to Cole’s surprise, no light from the street shone in. I pressed my back up against the brisk wall and felt the damp air against my cheeks. A sensitive spot of skin on my left forearm started to tingle, so I rubbed it with my right hand, finally letting go of Cole’s leading index finger.

“So now what?” I asked.

“We’ll brush our teeth.” He replied.

At any other time on any other day, the idea of brushing our teeth together would have been painfully romantic to me—but the fact that we could not see the sink in front of us, let alone locate on our faces were our teeth were, it seemed to be a bit of a task.

“But I didn’t bring a toothbrush.” I said as a quick excuse to avoid the disaster of brushing in the humid, lightless room.

“I have an unopened one in the drawer to your left. See if you can find it.” He said.

I leaned forward and placed my palms at the edge of the marble countertop. I slid my hand down the side of the sink until I felt a thick handle that I imagined to be gold. I pulled it, hearing the deep bellowing sound of the drawer resonate throughout the room. I felt around for a moment, gliding my hands over objects that felt like porcupines and fish scales, until I felt my fingertips touch a long, somewhat thin box wrapped in plastic. I pulled it out of the drawer and raised it close to my face. I saw nothing. I could tell that Cole was leaning against the wall as I was before. I could hear him tapping his foot against the tile floor. I ripped the side of the box, and pulled the toothbrush from it’s packaging. I ran my finger over the firm bristles and turned back to where I imagined Cole to be.

“How do you want to make this work?” I asked him.

He leaned forward and grabbed onto my arm, while he slid his hands all over the countertop looking for his toothbrush. He picked it up, along with the toothpaste, and after a moment of searching, turned the faucet on. I knew that we were standing in front of the mirror, and for a second I felt sad that I could not see our reflection looking back at us. I imagined though that he looked tired, his hair pushed unnaturally to the left side of his forehead. I imagined that my collarbone stuck out like it always did, and that my makeup was smeared underneath my eyes like newspaper ink on fingertips. He grabbed my hand and took the toothbrush out of it. He ran it under the cold water and somehow managed to place the toothpaste perfectly on the bristles. He handed it back to me, and before I could lift my hand to my mouth I heard him, dragging the brush back and forth against his teeth, the sounds changing as he adjusted the shape of his mouth. I wanted so badly to be able to see him. I wanted to see if he widened his eyes like I did when I brushed my teeth, and I wanted to see where he put his vacant hand. I rested mine comfortably on my hip. I put the brush in my mouth and the strong mint taste of the toothpaste coated my tongue. I fumbled to find my hip with my hand and rested it there as I always did. Cole spat into the sink while I reached far back to clean the spaces where my wisdom teeth used to be. I felt his eyes fixed against my cheek. I turned to him, with the toothbrush still in my mouth and could make out only a black lump where his face must have been. He opened his mouth to speak and I could smell the dessert like scent of his freshly cleaned teeth,

“We look great in this lighting, don’t we?”