Chapter 6

The bathroom is large and luxurious, and decorated opulently, including a winged cupid sculpture outside the shower, which is large enough to hold five people. A stand-alone tub sits in the center of the room, like a guest of honor. Charlotte wonders quietly about the tub. She hasn’t had a bath in ages. She imagines herself submerging, relaxing, escaping every uncertainty hanging over her. Maybe some time before they leave. But tonight isn’t for her; it’s for him. Mostly.

She turns on the shower and notices how long the water is taking to warm up. She removes her clothes and looks in the large mirror that dominates a far wall. She can see her whole self. She’s skinny and pale, and she notes it as she runs a hand over her stomach. Her knees are knobby. Her thumbs bend awkwardly. Alex seems to like her body, although she wonders if he simply says that to convince her of it. Thank goodness she’s so good at feeding his interests. There’s a level on which she understands him, and she often wonders if he can actually see her. If he can see what she’s looking at right now. The bony shoulder blades. The angular feet.

The window looks out over the ocean. It sticks, but she’s able to open it after a moment, and she sticks her head out. The air is cool, salty, and peaceful. She’s never seen the ocean like this, massive and dark. Boston is lit by the urban skyline, and Minnesota is landlocked. She looks down, to the boulders below where the waves crash. No beach, not in the sense that Mel meant earlier. The moon is nearly full, just a sliver missing in its phase, and the ocean glitters with its light. It’s a dynamic, moving glitter, unlike the star-dotted sky, something Charlotte hasn’t seen since she left the Midwest. It isn’t quiet out here - the crash of waves and the wind loudly declare their presence - but there is a solitude. A peace. As if she and Alex are truly alone, with nothing but darkness and the universe looking in on them. Something she has never once felt in Boston. It invigorates her, and she imagines their bodies tangled together in a moment, the whole of the cosmos, and yet nobody at all, present with them. She longs for this with him, and wonders how often she’ll get it when they move to New York.