“and I wish I could know you much more sometimes, wish I could do nothing with you.”

https://open.spotify.com/track/6pk6E0SZxILzfaAGFngxEs?si=LN4NQBVIS_W2ucJMT3Zeiw

Alexa had always been fond of stained glass.

She had this one piece in her apartment; it was a rose in the middle, surrounded by different shards of glass. She hung it near the window so when the sun rays hit, a blast of bursting colors spread across her whole room, painted her dull world in endless splash of colors. For a moment there she was transported someplace else—a place that knew no pain, a place where happiness cost her nothing. A place that said no heart got broken here.

As the colors danced above her, she was laying above the bed, her head rested on Atlas’ chest. They were both staring at the collision of colors on her ceiling as they tried to name each one of them. Alexa was sure the yellow one was called amber, but Atlas begged to differ and he bet his whole yearly bonus on the color being named golden. However, being with Atlas was easy, so they agreed to disagree.

Amber and golden could exist at the same time, it didn’t change the fact that they’re both beautiful.

“You haven’t told me about your father, Lex.”

So she relived the story for him, however painful, because she wanted him to know. Atlas never let go of his gaze at her throughout the telling, and when she arrived at the last chapter, he held her hand tight. He apologized, and Alexa asked “for what?” for not finding her sooner on that bar. For fate to be so cruel without a promise that it would get better.

She shrugged, saying that maybe she was paying for a crime she did in her previous lifetime.

Atlas had brought her a stack of comics he used to read when he was in middle school. The comics were dusty, some got holes in them, but they spent their whole afternoon reading it. Occasionally, she asked about a term she didn’t understand, or an origin story she missed. Through those stories Alexa learned that Atlas was fond of sad endings, he cried easily over a farewell scene and yet he still wanted to read it from the beginning just to cry again at the same ending he explained to Alexa few hours ago.

Atlas also learned that Alexa moved a lot in her sleep, as though she always dreamed the same nightmare. And yet the moment he pulled her in, closer to his heartbeat, she calmed down and continued to sleep like a baby until morning seeped in through the curtain. When Atlas asked about her dream, she told him she forgot—but she remembered the part where it suddenly got warm and peaceful.

They didn’t talk of what happened; as though they had developed some kind of telepathic understanding that neither of them were on the winning side. They were just learning about each other’s little habit, trying to commit each existence into memory.

There would be plenty of time in the future when they could finally talk about the battle they lost without feeling like being hit with a goddamn sledgehammer each time, and the wound would heal with time. For now, it felt enough to just sit side by side on Alexa’s oversized couch while she took him on a journey through the printed photos she had taken over the years.

Almaty. Luang Prabang. Istanbul. Auckland. Alexa had traveled to a lot of places Atlas had only heard of, and now as she told her story, it felt as though he was there with her. He could imagine the taste of croissant she tried in front of her hotel in Luang Prabang, the cat that ate half of her sandwich in Istanbul, the coldness from the snow in Almaty.

“You could display these pictures in a exhibition and people will pay good money to put these pictures on the wall of their home, Lex.”

Alexa shrugged. “Someone did buy my pictures back then, but I didn’t bother to keep their personal information so I kinda lost track.”

“See? It’s that good. Why did you stop?”

The thing about letting people in was the need to relive some scenes in the past that Alexa had tried so hard to bury at the back of her mind. Sometimes it didn’t hurt as much, but when it came to Atlas, the pain resurfaced somehow; maybe because he was the first one who was truly, genuinely, care about her. She also had this realization that the wound had yet to heal, that nobody had taken out the thorns, and it was still as raw as the first time it happened.

However, the person in front of her was not here to judge her or to force her to heal; he was just there, ever present in her reality, dressed in similar scars.