Time Slows in a World of Our Own

By Olivia Benson

Time feels irrelevant when compared to the minute ticking of our hearts. A beating love, a tired clock. Tomorrow I will leave again, and today is only a couple hours strong. We stay up to get drunk and watch each other laugh. I forget my responsibility to time, and you are bewildered by the veins in my hand. 

We’re alone on this mattress you dragged from your bunk. My limbs are heavy, and alcohol has taken my mind. I don’t want this to end, I think. Your fingers dance along my neck, playing with the necklace you bought for me. 

I’ve always wondered what my life would be like without you, you mumble. 

My lips are dry as I ask, and who would you be?

Your fingers still. You take a deep breath.

Pathetic, you say. Lonely and blind.  

I didn’t expect that. Although part of me feels like I should’ve. Another part of me is scolding for encouraging your depressive, drunken talk. But I’m also drunk, and the world has slowed down for us. 

Without you I would still believe lies I’ve been fed since childhood, you say. If anything, I would come to the same conclusions as now, but be too meek to ever change. 

Too meek? I can’t ever imagine you meek, I say. You’d be headstrong in any lifetime, in any circumstance, I’m certain of it. I think you’d still run. 

Your hands come to rest on my jaw. Your hair is tangled behind you, your head mussed up as you lie on your pillow. You look so beautiful in the lamplight, it’s unfair. Even with a somber face, your lips in a firm line and your eyebrows creased, you managed to make my heart flutter. 

Maybe, but it’s daunting to run with no one to run to, you say. It’s harder to go when you think the whole world is against you. Where could I hide from millions?

You see the confusion mixed with a dash of pity on my face. I cannot hide it well. I don’t think I want to hide it. Your lips quirk up, amused.

You grab my face and look me in my eyes. Your face is flushed, and your breath is hot. I wish we’d stop talking about this so I could kiss you. How disappointed you’d be if you could read my mind (not very).

Love is conditional to them. If you follow their rules they’ll accept you, you whisper. I’m sure I’d pretend to believe if it gave me connection. No one wants to be the outcast when belief is so easy to fake. 

I stay silent. I don’t know what to say, what to think. All I know is that I don’t need you to believe in anything for me. As long as you stay and laugh with me till the sun rises, I’ll cherish you forever.

But I think you’re right, you say, firmly. I don’t think I’d turn out meek. 

You are silent, for too long. 

And with me? Who are you when you’re with me? I ask. You down another shot with a haphazard swig before laying back down. I guide your head to lay on my chest, and your hand comes up to clutch the necklace you bought for me. You wrap your leg around mine. We fit perfectly. 

Free. You hum. With you I am free. 

Your eyes look out the window, to the skies and all its stars. You’ve never looked more melancholy, so I sing badly for you until your eyelids droop and your breathing slows. Time is irrelevant to us, and you sleep like you’ve always been safe. As I watch you doze off, I cup your dappled cheek in my palm. I don’t think I could ever live without you, just as you can’t without me. I listen to your breathing, steady and strong, and admire the timing of our hearts beating in sync. 

Olivia Benson is the managing editor and writer for Concordia University’s student newspaper The Sword and lives in Brooklyn Center, MN. She writes fiction and poetry in the time when she’s not doing homework or playing video games. Her creative work has never been published, only read by a select few loved ones.