Glass Half Full

by Rose, Katia

  I grab us towels, and we dry off before making our way to my bed. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but I’m exhausted. Dylan pulls the fluffy blanket at the foot of the mattress over us, and I flip over to face him, our heads just inches apart on my pillows.

  “I could fall asleep.” A yawn escapes me after I say it.

  Dylan smiles. “I’d be down for a nap.”

  “Turns out being choked really takes it out of you. Who knew?”

  He doesn’t laugh. Instead, he reaches to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and then cup my cheek.

  “I’m honored that you trust me that much,” he says solemnly. “That was one of the most intense experiences of my life. The way you moved, the feel of your pulse under my hand, I just...I’ve never felt like this with anyone before.”

  I lean my head into his touch. “I trust you so much. I’ve never felt like this either. I want a future with you, Dylan. I want to take it on together.”

  “Hell yeah.” Some of his usual lightness comes back. “You’re gonna call me cheesy, but...everything is better with you by my side.”

  We’ve been by each other’s sides ever since the night of the slam back in November. Maybe not physically—Dylan moved in December, and though we visit each other regularly, we still spend weeks at a time apart—but I know no matter where he is, for every step we take, he’s got my back and I’ve got his. I’ve been there to see him work through his first-day-of-class nerves to flourishing at college within just a few weeks. When and if I go back to school in the fall, I know he’ll be there to see me do the same.

  “Not cheesy.” I shake my head against the pillow and then pretend to reconsider. “Well, maybe a little, but I guess I’m cheesy too, because Dylan?”

  “Yeah?”

  I scooch myself even closer and let him tuck me under his arm. “There’s no one I’d rather face life with than you.”

  Twenty-Four

  Dylan

  NEGATIVE CAPABILITY: A poet or writer’s ability to access beauty, truth, and understanding without the need for logical certainty or proof

  The bar isn’t nearly as packed as it was for the slam back in November, but the crowd is still a big one for a poetry night. Renee’s got a whole army of supporters in here, so I’m guessing a good portion of the folding chairs are taken up by her fans.

  I’m damn lucky to be one of them. I still catch myself wondering if I’m enough for her sometimes, if being with me really is the best thing for her, but now I know what to do about it.

  If I don’t feel like I’m enough for her, I put in the work until I do. If I think she could do better, I step up and start being better. I may be working to get there forever, but she’s worth the fight, and I’m ready for battle. Never again will I let my past determine how far I allow myself to reach, and every day, I’m grateful to Renee for helping me learn that lesson.

  I’m grateful for everyone who helped me put it into action: my mom, Monroe, the support group I went to in Montreal and now the one I help manage in Ottawa. This might be a battle, but I’m not fighting alone.

  “Dylan.”

  A hand claps me on the shoulder where I’m standing by the bar, waiting for DeeDee to pass me some water. I turn to find Renee’s dad standing beside me.

  “Mr. Nyobé.” I reach out for a handshake, and he returns it with a firm grip.

  His handshake was extra firm on the night he met me—me, the guy seven years older than his daughter who used to be her boss. I might even go so far as to say it was bone crushing, but he’s softened up over time.

  Marginally.

  “How were things at the museum today?” I ask, doing my best not to sound like I’m scared shitless.

  He’s dressed in black slacks and a deep red dress shirt, looking like he just came straight from work. I think my interest in his job is what gained me a shot at earning his approval one day. As soon as he mentioned the art museum on the first night I went over for dinner at Renee’s house, I couldn’t stop myself from asking a dozen questions. Being surrounded by art all day, of any kind, must be fucking incredible. I used check out the museum with Stella on a regular basis, and we’d always leave with poems just itching to get out from under our skin.

  “We were robbed.”

  I do a double-take. “You what?”

  Mr. Nyobé assesses the shock on my face and then bursts out laughing, all his sternness disappearing for a moment as he throws his head back and lets his mouth split wide into a grin. For a second, he looks so much like Renee it’s startling.

  “Dylan, I’m kidding,” he assures me once he’s pulled himself together. “You need to loosen up, boy. I know you make my daughter happy, truly happy, happier than I ever thought I’d see her again. For that, you have my trust.”

  He was laughing a second ago, but now we’re both the picture of solemnity.

  “Thank you,” I answer with a nod.

  “You can thank me by treating Renee like the queen she is. I may trust you now, but she will always be my daughter, which means you will always need to watch your back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I have to restrain myself from giving him a salute. DeeDee finally appears with my water, and Mr. Nyobé heads off to sit with his wife.

  Oh, I will be watching my back all right.

  That dude can be damn scary when he wants to be.

  “Here you go.” I slide into my seat next to Renee and hand her the drink. She turns from where she’s talking to her sister and Tahseen to take it from me.

  “Oh, thanks.” She glances down at the water and frowns. “Dylan, this is half empty. Did you drink some?”

  I wink at her. “Is it half empty...or half full?”

  I expect her to shake her head or roll her eyes in exasperation—I have a habit of taking ‘just a sip’ of her drink—but instead she lets out a chuckle and gives me a mysterious smile.

  “What?” I demand. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” she assures me, though I’m anything but assured.

  “Fine then. Keep your secrets. I’ll have you know your father came over and scared the shit out of me when I was at the bar. I needed that water to recover.”

  Renee groans. “Ugh, what did he say? I told him to lay off you.”

  “It was actually a pretty positive interaction,” I admit. “He, uh, he said he trusted me.”

  She gasps. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow,” I agree.

  She nods after recovering from her surprise. “I’m glad he’s seeing sense.” Her lips move to my ear so only I can hear her next words. “Because I trust you with my whole heart.”

  Her fingers close around my wrist, and I know that as much as she meant it be sweet, we’re both having flashbacks to last night.

  She trusted me with everything, with her very life in my hands. I’d never felt so powerful and so simultaneously at someone else’s mercy. As I watched her eyes get hazy while they stared into mine, watched her gasp for breath, watched her give herself to me like no one ever had before, I knew she was my be all and end all. My miracle. She’s a cosmic phenomenon, and there’s never going to be anyone else like her.

  “Welcome, ladies and genderfolk!” Stella calls everyone’s attention as she steps behind the mic on stage. “Are you ready to get this slam started?”

  We all laugh and cheer and clap through the introduction and explanation of the slam rules. By the time they’re drawing names for the first round, Renee’s leg is bouncing with nerves next to mine.

  I lay a hand on her thigh. “You okay?”

  She nods. “Yeah. I’m excited.”

  “Oh friends, you are in for a treat!” Stella calls from onstage. “The first poet performing for you in round one of our slam tonight has been long awaited back up on this stage. Please stomp, clap, and throw your underwear for Renee!”

  Renee blows out a breath beside me and squeezes my hand before she gets up out of her seat. No underwear is thrown, but the noise is dea
fening as she climbs onstage.

  She positions herself behind the microphone, blinks at the audience, and then steps in front of the mic stand instead.

  My girl don’t need no microphone.

  I let out a whoop and keep the applause going. She looks fucking radiant up there. I know she feared she’d never find her words again, but I didn’t doubt her. Not for a second. This is her gift, and I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world just to be here to witness it.

  “This one’s called ‘Glass Half Full.’”

  She smiles straight at me as she says it, and my heart roars to life in my chest, thumping out all its pride and gratitude and awe in a steady, rapid beat.

  Renee raises her eyes to the sky for one brief second and then begins, her voice pure and resonant as it swells to fill the room.

  “I wasn’t old enough for a real glass

  So they gave me a plastic cup.

  I knocked it against beer bottles and wine coolers.

  I listened to the ring of the clinking sound.

  I shouted ‘Cheers!’ at the top of my lungs

  And wriggled in my dad’s grip

  Where he held me on his lap at the grownups’ table.

  I tie-dyed our best white linens

  With stains from my dark red grape juice

  As it sloshed over the rim of my cup.

  Everyone clapped.

  Everyone seemed thrilled.

  So for the first few years of my life

  I though the point of raising a toast

  Was to spill everything out of your glass.”

  The audience chuckles as she mimes tipping a glass over and dumping liquid all over the floor. I track her every movement, every shift in the expression on her face. I want to commit this moment to memory—a scene I can play back for the rest of my life.

  “At my fourth birthday party

  I stood on a chair with balloons tied to the back

  And dumped an entire paper cup of fruit punch

  On the kitchen floor.

  I’d shout ‘Cheers!’ during snack time in kindergarten

  And fling my water bottle in an arc over my head

  Spraying liquid all over the walls.

  When the parent-teacher intervention came about

  I didn’t have the words to explain my actions

  To let the grownups know my messes were really an offering

  A celebration

  A moment of recognition.

  I had so much my cup overflowed.

  Everything I had poured through my fingers

  And streamed down my forearms

  Leaving sticky trails of orange juice residue

  To remind me there would always be more:

  More to sip

  More to savour

  More to share.

  Why not pour some of it out?

  Throw it to the sky and laugh when it drip-dropped onto the floor?”

  She pauses, staring over the crowd into a memory only she can see, and a shadow shifts over her face, the darkness creeping into her tone as she continues.

  “When I was a teenager, they gave me a champagne glass at a wedding

  Filled it halfway up and said ‘Enjoy it! That’s all you get.’

  I thought about pouring it onto the ground.

  I thought about tasting one bubbling sip at a time, making it last as long as I could.

  I thought about downing the whole thing in one go

  Feeling its warmth bloom in my chest

  Leaving me thirsty for the rest of the night.

  For the first time in my life, I understood the question

  ‘Is the glass half empty or half full?’

  When I left home a few years later, they threw me a party

  And put a glass of red wine in my hands.

  I tapped it ever so slightly against the drinks of my family and friends.

  I whispered ‘Cheers’ and took one small sip.

  I had learned by then that sometimes one glass is all you get.

  Life doesn’t come with free refills

  And the bottle is usually too expensive for you to afford.

  So I took what was handed to me

  And balanced my glass even as my arms started to shake

  Even as my palms started to sweat

  And the drink got harder and harder to hold.

  I was jostled by the crowd

  Jostled by the voices and sounds

  Jostled by advice and opinions and doubts served up with a smile.

  I squeezed even tighter.

  I stood very, very still

  But the shaking didn’t stop and the glass was too smooth.

  I painted the floor with merlot

  And crystal shards glinting in the light.

  I clawed at the pooling liquid.

  I tried to lap it up before it seeped through the gaps in the tiles.

  I cut my tongue on sharp glass and sharp words.

  I felt the fragments pierce my fingertips

  Crunch under my bent knees and rip my shins to shreds.

  My heart pumped terror and fury and chaos through the gouges in my skin

  And I bled red as the wine on the floor.

  I laid my head in a puddle

  With an aroma of cherries and a hint of cedar on the nose.

  I wiped my red palms on my white skirt

  And murmured ‘Cheers.’

  I said it louder

  ‘Cheers!’

  As I emptied myself on the floor.”

  The room has gone so silent it feels like everyone is holding their breath. Renee stares out into the crowd with haunted eyes, hands bunched around the skirt of the white dress she’s wearing tonight, and her words seem almost pained enough to paint the fabric as scarlet as her poem.

  “I didn’t ask for a new glass.

  I didn’t ask for more wine.

  I didn’t trust myself with more.

  I was less than half empty.

  I was completely, totally void

  And I told myself I wasn’t thirsty

  As every hour drained me dry.

  Then one day I felt it.

  It was just a drop at first.

  It landed on my cracked lips

  And I reached for it with my parched tongue.

  It didn’t come from a jug or a bottle.

  It was water that fell from the sky.

  It dotted my jacket and dried in my hair

  As we rushed into the coffee shop side by side.

  We stuck to lattes and paper cups.

  I wasn’t ready for glasses of wine.

  The rain traced our reflections in the window

  Trailed our cheeks and tapping fingers

  As they danced with impatience

  Waiting to reach for each other across the wooden table top.”

  She looks at me then, her gaze finding mine like a magnet, and it’s all I can do not to jump up onstage beside her. My chest feels tight, too small to hold the emotion swelling inside it. My arms ache to fold her into them, but this is her moment. She doesn’t need me to stand, and my love for her roars all the fiercer because of it.

  “As the steam from our drinks clouded the air between us

  I wanted to be like the rain

  Tracing the shape of his face on the window glass.

  I wanted to know the swoop of his eyelashes

  The angle of his jaw.

  I wanted to catch every one of those raindrops

  And keep them in my cup.

  I wanted to spill them in the street

  And let the city have my secrets

  Because as long as the rain keeps falling

  I can always collect more.

  I am not waiting for other hands to fill my glass.

  I am not lusting after bottles I can’t afford.

  I am facing this life with a crumpled cardboard coffee cup

  And I am letting it catch what it will:

  The tears from nights I sleep curled
on the bathroom floor

  Lungs heavy with the exhaustion of keeping me alive

  The tears from the days all that is good in my life

  Shines so bright my eyes can’t help but water at the sight

  The drops spilled over the rims of glasses

  From toasts made in my name

  And the names of those I love.

  Whatever the world pours into my cup, I will take it.

  I will let myself overflow

  And then I’ll turn that cup upside down and pour everything on the kitchen floor

  Because some days, I’ll be half empty.

  I will feel nothing but an aching, clawing sense of lack.

  Some days, I’ll be half full.

  I will look at his face and forget what it feels like to go without

  But I will always step outside to catch the rain

  To feel it on my skin

  To taste it on my tongue

  To look at the sky and whisper ‘Cheers’

  And know there’s more where that came from.”

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