Tendrils and over-analytical tendencies

K. Ryan, 2008

Drinking, Prudence knows, is supposed to cause deep sleep. It’s one of the perks; a sad person’s reason. Why, then, her own dreams turn to the chaotic after half a glass, she has no idea. Still, it always happens, no matter how strong the drink or happy the circumstances. Prudence drifts, hand curled into another’s. Warm, slim and long. They are in clean, ice-blue yellow sheets. It has been a lovely evening. The morning that shall follow is both far away and hot and close and fizzing with a light, sparkling sort of anticipation. And still, despite all this loveliness, she dreams. Or remembers. It is an old argument.

“I mean, really. They’re so incestuous.”

Years bring words. Dead words, smothered by embarrassment, by shock, by shame, then left to fossilise. By the time they’re found, preserved-yet-useless, the memories that cling to them are so much dirt. Prudence is sure, damnit, that she could have said something clever, something cutting, in response to that, if only she’d been able to freeze time around her and it up. What she did (and memory, dirty or otherwise, was clear about this) was stare, in almost-amused horror. Horror and silence. And the argument had felt pretty stupid even then.

“So...” she had cleared her throat. Probably cleared her throat. “So incestuous that, Mila?”

This, Prudence remembers, had been around the time her girlfriend often looked at her like she was not an ex, yet, only through some sort of strange and worrying lapse of judgement. Then again, a weak jibe at spoken-grammar was never exactly top form. “So incestuous that they must have all slept together, obviously,” Mila had said. Something like that.

“They’re cousins. A few times. And...other things. All of them.”

A sniff. A pretty grin. Where was a joke? Had she missed it? Silly, boring girl. “The world’s declining, moral decay? I don’t know—you know them all, surely. They’re ridiculously close. My dad says...”

“Mila. You hate your dad. What your dad knows about anything could be engraved on the head of a pin, and there’d still be room for his rants about inbreeding and monkeys.” This, Prudence remembers, had been almost cowardly. Getting Mila to argue about her dad was a cheap trick, a good way of changing the subject. They’d spent almost an hour on this changed subject. On what other things the Lucas family might engrave on the heads of pins—their knowledge of basic relationship norms, appreciation of a few scruples—and Prudence had felt vividly relieved, almost, that her sense of why am I still HERE? had begun to surface through what had been a humiliating amount of hurt.

Still, there had been a slip, a segue. Inelegant and harsh and surprising.

“I hate that you live with Iolanthe! If you were in any way as fucking good as you think you are, Prudence, you wouldn’t have moved in with her!”

There had been nothing to say to that, either. “Stop being so fucking epic, sweetheart. I’ve never looked at her that way, and she hasn’t...”

“Yet.”

She had laughed, then, and left. There was no apology, no goodbye, no kiss. It was too stupid—too, as she had said, epic. They’d broken up the week later, both amazed they’d held out so long. At least, Prudence was. Hurts were more colourful that way; less deep. She didn’t bother telling anyone, it was the sort of situation everyone knew about, or guessed. Iolanthe may have engraved new designs for her in latte foam. It wasn’t even a hugging affair.

When Prudence wakes, more than fingers are entwined. The sheets, simply yellow now, other colours locked away, are all legs and arms and body-to-back and warmth. Soft, light hair brushes her face. It is different from the sheets, probably with a whole new other colour of its own. They are clothed, warm, safe, and...what, exactly? Prudence doesn’t know, and doesn’t really mind. It is too early in the morning to be epic. She shifts, a little frightened, suddenly, by the burst of happiness inside her. She should be thinking about her dream. Worrying about it. Getting up, dressed. She should at least write that assignment...no. Closing her eyes, body adjusting itself slowly, happily, to the other’s soft, sleeping breathing, Prudence suddenly can’t be bothered about that. Besides, dream Mila had been right, and Prudence, it seems, had been wrong. Iolanthe Jensen St. James did look at her ‘that way’—and she felt wonderfully, ridiculously giddy about that, and being able to look back, whatever that meant. There is nothing epic about this. It is small, and, in a large-scale sort of sense, probably inconsequential, and absolutely lovely.

Prudence shifts her head a little and kisses Iolanthe’s shoulder. They are best friends. Whatever happens afterwards is simply a new, strange, happy offshoot from that.

“Lovely girl.”

It is time for different dreams.