Two Fish

forty one || alaska

Alaska was lying on her bed with her earphones in, staring at the ceiling when the sun rose outside. She hadn’t realised it was morning: she hadn’t slept all night, her stomach still fluttering from the evening with Elver. Many of the darkened hours had been spent in front of Gordon’s tank, watching him float from one end to the other without a care in the world. Her reflection had rippled in the glass, revealing bright, glassy eyes that showed no side effect of her all-nighter and puffy hair that hadn’t lost its volume over the course of the evening, much to her disappointment.

When she noticed the stunning orange glow spreading across the pink morning sky, a wave of madness crashed over her. She had long ago lost track of the time, delerious from the lack of sleep and the hours of staring into the fish tank with her mind in neutral. Her eyes were swimming and her insides churning, burning from exhaustion that was melting her lungs. Without pausing to think twice, she reached for her phone and rang Elver. He picked up after seven rings. She counted each one while she clenched and unclenched for free hand. One for every day of the week, she thought. Her mind was constantly hopping from one thing to the next and she was soon thinking about prime numbers, reciting the ones she knew in her head.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice groggy and thick with whispered sleep.

“Nothing,” she said, her tone as chirpy and rhythmic as the birds outside her window. “The birds are singing.”

“Yeah, they do that in the morning.”

“It’s nice.” Alaska could see a nest of small, brown birds in the tree near her window.

“Alaska?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

She heard him rustle his duvet and climb out, shuffling into his worn slippers. Then she heard him go downstairs and close the front door behind him, a short gust of wind crackling down the line.

“Alaska? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Were you asleep?” She didn’t think to whisper as she dipped her fingers in Gordon’s tank, fondling a sliver of plastic seaweed.

“Uh, yeah. It’s five in the morning. Weren’t you?”

“No. I couldn’t sleep.”

“You haven’t slept? But it’s five in the morning,” Elver repeated. Alaska pictured him in his pyjamas, standing on the dewy lawn.

“Is it five already? Time flies, you know,” she said, flinging herself onto her bed. The wooden slats creaked and the springs squeaked. She sighed. The light from outside had painted her white ceiling a pale pink, streaked with orange that melded into blue. It was mesmerising, how the colours flickered whenever the breeze caught her thin, lacy curtain.

“Why’d you ring?” Elver asked.

“Sorry. I was looking at Gordon and then I watched the sun rise and I realised something,” she said, staring out of the window at the mixing pot of pastel colours in the sky.

“That it’s time to go to bed?” Elver was not an early riser. If he had his own way, he would never wake before at least eleven o’clock.

“No.” She stood up and pushed open her window, leaning out into the fresh morning. There were few things better than the cleanliness of an early day as the sun rises and everything is new. “It’s far too late to go to bed now.” She laughed.

“Alaska. Come on, this is getting weird,” Elver said. His tone was heavy, sincere. “Are you on something?”

“Sorry. I think I’m going crazy.”

“You sound like you’re high.”

“I’m not,” Alaska said, though she wondered if something had been slipped into her fish and chips. The man had seemed like the type to hold a grudge.

“You’re just tired. What’d you realise? You tell me that, then you need to go to bed.”

“Ok. Are your ears open?” She twirled around her room, her heart thudding.

“Yes.”

“I, well, I think I…” she trailed off, at a sudden loss for words. She came to her senses. “Oh, this was a bad idea,” she mumbled to herself. “Sorry.”

“No, go on.”

“I’m an idiot,” she said.

“Please. You’ve woken me up, and I was very comfortable, so you owe me an explanation.”

Alaska laughed, a quiet bell. A tingle raced from her shoulders to her hips. “I love you.” Her feet tapped as she said it, energy firing out of every limb. She didn’t know whether Elver’s silence meant anything or not, and she was too scared to ask so she waited for him to speak.

“You love me?”

“I … yeah. I love you.”

“I love you too, Alaska,” he said at last.

“You do?”

“I do.”

A short squeal erupted from her and she stubbed her toe on the end of her bed in her fizzing, five am excitement.                                       

“But now you need to sleep and I’m going back to bed.”

“Ok.”

“I mean it. Go to bed.”

“Ok. I promise, I’m in bed. I love you,” Alaska said again, giddy with the words. She lay on her front, kicking her heels.

“I love you too. Goodnight. And sleep well.”

“Night, Elver.” She hung up and squeaked, ignoring her throbbing toe. “Did you hear that, Gordon?” She rolled off her bed and bent over his tank, dropping in a couple of flakes. She was sure she overfed the poor fish, scattering his food in the water every time she passed his tank, but she didn’t ease up. “He loves me.”

When she finally climbed back into her bed at half past five, she still couldn’t sleep. Now her mind was alive, buzzing with the excitement of hearing Elver repeat those three words back to her. As they had left her mouth, she had immediately regretted it in case he had hung up, but he hadn’t. He had said exactly what she had wanted to hear, and she never wanted to forget how those words had sounded coming out of his mouth, how there hadn’t been a stutter or a stumble to ruin the moment.