Electric Blue

It was twelve after midnight. She knew he would still be up. She told herself that going through that door meant telling him about it all. She grasped the doorknob, felt the metal in her palm, and lingered in that moment as if trying to memorize the entirety of that sensation, the cold, the smoothness, the tension and click as it turned, and she thought, this is it.

He knew it was her. She hesitated in her first steps, and he said nothing. She sat next to him on the sofa. She said hey, and he mumbled something. There was music playing. The TV was on mute.

It was the only source of light.

He took a bong rip, and she looked at her phone for something to do. He exhaled and gave her a nervous smile because all he could think of was how they’d known each other for six months and had known each other like this for at least two and still hadn’t fucked.

She took her turn, almost burned herself with the lighter, and thought that maybe this wasn’t the right time to tell him. He began telling her that this was his favorite album: Rubber Soul. Because it had a thick layer of enchantment over a deep sea of bitterness. This is not the right time, she thought, and asked what he meant. It was the thing most people didn’t get about this album but what made it so great. This song was the best example. I’m Looking Through You, he said.

He replayed it from the beginning. The instrumentals are light and uplifting. A bad listener can easily be mistaken and think it's about someone in love. But the lyrics are bitter. They reveal a disenchantment. It’s really a break up song. It’s about discovering a deception. Each verse is carried through by the cheerful acoustic guitar but ends in the harsh electric. Most people are bad listeners.

She had always preferred Abbey Road.

Next: Girl—a song about a girl who embarrasses a guy in front of his friends.

Next: Run for Your Life—a song about a girl who's threatened with her life not to leave.

Next: Norwegian Wood—a song about a guy who sets fire to a girl's apartment the morning after she withholds sex.

She held back tears, but he said nothing about them.

I was ——— when I was ———. That’s why this is so hard for me. I want to tell you but you just sit there with that face as if you’ve been wronged and I’m the one who has come here to apologize. Fuck your fucking resentment. How can you not fucking get it? I am not being cold to you. I am suffering. I think you know and I still can't fucking say it.

He kept talking in Beatles trivia. She pretended to listen.

And they sat there, for a long time in the dark, with a fire of images as their only warmth, and no matter what colors flickered through the glow, their faces stayed blue.