Today (Morning)

The moon was a faint watermark against the hazy indigo sky as the horizon lightened, the stars faded, and the black night became gray twilight. The end of his cigarette crackled as Theo inhaled. The cherry was hot against his knuckles, glowing red like the neon vacancy sign across the street, two spots of bright color in the pre-dawn haze. Everyone was still asleep. Cars lined up in front of the motel rooms, a cat curled beneath one of them, and the roads were untraversed yet except by a scattering of leaves blown by the breeze.

Theo always woke early like this if he could help it. Before the sun came up, between day and night when he felt like the only person in the world. Like yesterday did not exist and tomorrow would not come. Like maybe he was a ghost and could remain in the in-between place while the rest of the world climbed out of bed, poured coffee, and started their cars—water vapor billowing from their tailpipes, lit up by the rising sun, whose warmth would never touch Theo because he was stuck in the veil.

The door handle by his shoulder rattled, and the door swung open. Abel stepped out, bedraggled. His eyes, still swollen with sleep, landed on Theo and narrowed even further. The cherry on the end of the cigarette burned Theo’s knuckles as he took a final drag.

“I didn’t know you smoked.” Abel’s voice was deep and cracked. Theo wanted to crawl inside its timbre, to crawl inside his chest, another place where he could feel safe from the world. Although with Abel, he would not be a lonely, wandering ghost. He stubbed out the cigarette.

“I don’t.”

“Oh.”

Abel scratched his belly beneath the hem of his shirt and yawned. He held out his hand. The pack of cigarettes lay with the lighter on a small glass table. Between every motel room door, there was one of those small glass tables with an ashtray on top and a chair to the side. Theo had curled up in their room’s chair, knees to his chest and heels digging into the flat cushion. He handed the cigarettes and lighter to Abel, who stuck one between his lips and cupped his hand around the lighter, the flash of the flame illuminating his face.

Theo looked away. The cat had woken up and was now licking itself beneath the car.

“Sorry for taking one. I just wanted to try.”

“I don’t mind,” Abel plucked the cigarette from his lips and exhaled a stream of smoke. Then, in a disbelieving tone, he said, “You’ve never had a cigarette?”

The cat shook itself and got up on all fours to stretch and scamper away.

“I have, just not since…”

Theo let the thought trail off. 

Abel’s eyes were on him, darker than usual in the gray early morning. “Well, don’t start now,” he said. “It’s a terrible habit.” Then he took another drag.

Theo smiled up at him, and Abel frowned back. His eyes were so dark this morning that Theo couldn’t tell his pupils apart from his irises, and they looked like mirrors. He liked that.

“What are you doing awake so early?” Abel asked.

“Communing with the veil.” Theo gestured around them to the neon red glow, the faint blush of light on the horizon, the crescent moon hanging in the sky. Abel looked around, took all this in, and then nodded slowly like he always did when Theo said something he did not understand. He could try to explain, but then a car drove past, and the spell broke anyway. 

“Well, we can get an early start.” Abel bent to tap his cigarette in their neighbor’s ashtray. As he did so, his shirt rode up around where he still had one hand beneath the hem, resting over his flexing torso. Theo felt certain that exposed skin would still be soft and sleep warm. “If we make good time, we’ll be there by early afternoon.”

Theo squished his cheek against his knees and peered up through his eyelashes. “Or we could get back in bed.”

Two doors down, someone came out of their room and unlocked their car. Theo was not ready yet to watch the plumes of vapor rising from the cars as they readied themselves to merge onto the road with the rest of the morning commute. He wanted to crawl back into the safe bubble of pre-dawn. He wanted to crawl back between the sheets and into Abel’s warm embrace. A stroke of pink now lay across the horizon like a splash of watercolor that would quickly seep into the rest of the canvas. He was not ready yet.

Abel smoked and looked at the light bleeding into the dark sky. “Or we could do that.”