THINGS YOU DO BUT I STILL LOVE YOU

Dresden Gibson

     Cas leaves post-its everywhere.

     At first, they're just reminders. He leaves one in the fridge that says oat yeah plz. He's working a double. It's Thursday overnight into Friday evening. Otherwise, he'd go to the grocery store with me. The post-its work, but leaving it inside the fridge is a bit of a gamble, so I set up a grocery list in my notes and share it with him. Cas loves it. Says it's a very tech-savvy move of mine. I only know about sharing notes because Amelia shared one with me with a growing list of birthday present ideas.

     It's not like it matters, anyway. Because it doesn't put an end to the post-its. I find one when I'm at the grocery store that night, stuffed into my wallet. It says what's happening hot stuff :) A Sixteen Candles reference no doubt from our John Hughes marathon the previous weekend.

     I like to refer to this point of my life as post-it Armageddon.

     Cas is not the most perfect housemate. Housemate feels like an awful term for what we are, but he is the perfect partner (perfect for me, but not necessarily perfect.) Which is to say, what he lacks in housemate he makes up for in partner. 

     Cas doesn't cap the toothpaste. Nearly always forgets to, but he almost always remembers a moment later and runs back into the bathroom to do it. Where other people may forget to lock a door or turn off a burner on the stove and run back to remedy it, Cas runs back to cap toothpaste.

     If I'm in the bathroom when he remembers, he still comes in to cap it. He'll give me this cheeky grin like sorry I forgot but I'm working on it, and then he'll kiss me and he'll say, "Paying the toll," before he runs out.

     Paying the toll is a new thing. I think it's also a sticking thing, like the post-its. Like the post-its, it, too, started off as a small thing. I was just standing in the kitchen one day, hunched over a recipe book, when Cas passed to get to the fridge, leaned over my shoulder and kissed my cheek. When I looked up at him wondering what he did or what he wanted, he'd already started to walk away. I asked him, "What was that for?"

     And he said, "Just paying the toll."

     So now if he passes me in the house, even if it's on the stairs or when I'm heading to the couch and he's heading out the door, I can expect a kiss. This is not me complaining. These are the kinds of habits you can only have when you're living with someone. I've never lived with anyone outside of my family before. I don't think it counts in the military when you're bunking with a bunch of men and it isn't really your home and it isn't really where you want to be. This is my home. This is where I want to be. He's who I want to be here with.

     When I get to work, and pull my phone out of my coat pocket and a folded post-it falls out, I am not just reminded of Cas but am reminded that Cas is completely mine. That he's who I go home to at the end of every day.

     Cas can't cook, which isn't news, but he insists that he's going to try. Cas is forgetful, puts bread in the toaster and then starts laundry. He doesn't remember the toast until its smoke has set off the fire alarm. At five in the morning. On a Saturday. Cas's sleep schedule is all over, which in turn makes my sleep schedule all over, because while Cas sleeps like the dead, I do not. Not that it would make a difference, anyway, because no matter how quiet Cas tries to be he is never actually quiet in the mornings. Tthe quieter he tries to be, the louder he actually gets.

     Cas leaves notes in the utensil drawers. Things like what's cooking good lookin and break me off a piece of that kitkat bar. The notes are not eloquent. More often than not they're just downright lewd. Those tend to be the ones he leaves at Weston's for me to find. He shows up on his break, likes to hide them when he thinks I'm not watching. I found one the other night that said when you get home drop your drawers at the door, I'll be waiting on my knees ;)

     Cas doesn't do the laundry, is actually Officially Forbidden. The one and only time he did do the laundry until I formally decreed Cas Cannot Do Laundry, he left a pen in his scrubs and inked all of our clothes in that load. Cas and I will clean together on Sunday afternoons, after the gym and the flea market and a late breakfast. Cas likes to swiffer, which I hate. I'm a traditional mop and bucket person. I think it's more effective. Cas uses too much bleach in the bathroom and he hates that I prefer Pine Sol over Fabuloso.

     Sometimes I think he's trying to prove something. Prove that he's important, or useful, or adds to our home. He'll say things like, "I know I can't really cook. And I'm forgetful. And I keep leaving socks on the floor. But I drove all the way into the city today and picked you up this huge ball of cheese from that place that's known for like having the best cheese. Anyway, it stinks so it must be good. Here, cook something magical."

     When we get into bed one night, I roll over so I'm looking at him. The moon's lighting the room because I forgot to close the blinds but its too late now and I'm not getting up. It feels like the coldest night of January, except in this bed where it's the warmest. "You know you're everything I want, right? More than I ever thought I'd have."

     His eyes search my face, looking for the lie, I think. He clears his throat and gives a shaky laugh like he's uncomfortable. "Where's that coming from?"

     "Someplace honest," I say and I reach out and I tip his chin upwards. It's a gesture I've done many times now. I think when I touch his chin like this I'm trying to say something that there are just no words for.

YOU DO EVERYTHING, HOW COULD I NOT LOVE YOU

Calvin Sumner

      Dres may, in fact, be the most perfect human to live with, ever.

     Seriously, my mom was all "bE rEaDy fOR hIS qUirKs" and to that I say, "What quirks, Olivia?" These quirks don't exist. Instead, I have a boyfriend who can cook, clean, do maintenance work, run two businesses, and still be down for hot steamy sex every night even after all of these aforementioned tasks.

     Dres packs me lunches. And he packs medinners. And, on occasion, delivers me breakfast before he heads to Weston's. I'm more well fed than I've ever been in my life. I meet Dres at the gym a couple nights of the week because it's necessary now. Before it was for fun, but now I'm at risk of building a double wide in the back with all of his cooking. If I show up to Weston's on my lunch break, there is a ninety-nine percent chance Dres will make us grilled cheeses and then we will make out on the couch in the break room like I am reliving my teenhood.

     On Fridays, Dres goes to the grocery store. He goes once a week, which I think is a bit excessive, especially since he gets a lot of fresh produce from Charles and goes to the flea market on Sundays. But every Friday he goes, so there's always things to eat in the house. If I say in passing that I'm craving burgers or I haven't had a Dr. Pepper in a minute, it magically appears. Except, not magic, just Dres. Dres who listens, who constantly hears me even when I'm not talking to him.

     Dres is meticulous when it comes to cleaning. He doesn't leave his things around the house, but he does pick up my keys and hang them by the door at the end of the night. I don't know how he finds them every night because I can never remember where I laid them down. He does the laundry, always (a rule), and folds clothes like he was professionally trained to do so. He was, he says. He used to work at the Gap in high school.

     He thinks about and takes care of everything. He'll say randomly one evening over dinner, "Maybe we should get you snow tires." And like, honestly, that's a great idea because my car floats in the rain but what even made him think of that? Dres isn't just proactive when it comes to me. He puts every one of my family member's birthdays in his calendar. He sends my grandmother a cake and flowers. He starts inviting my mom over on Sunday nights for dinner.

     Sometimes I have to take Dres by the shoulders and shove him into the couch. I have to tell him not to move, that he's done for the day, no more thinking. I'll put on something that requires minimal attention, Rick and Morty or Big Mouth. And Dres will say, "But I wanted to call Jack and offer to watch the kids this Friday."

     "Why, literally why?" I will ask even though I know it's just because that's who Dres is. He is constantly thinking about and putting other people before him. "Don't even tell me why," I'll say after a beat. "You're not doing that. You're done for the day. Just sit and watch." He listens, usually but it takes like three episodes before his shoulders drop, and the tension leaves his forehead, and he's actually laughing at the show instead of sitting in his head thinking about what he has to do for someone else.

     Dres doesn't always communicate where he is or what's going on in his head. I'll wake to an empty bed and it'll be four in the morning and Dres will be coming up the stairs, sweat drenching the sweatshirt he went running in. He won't notice I'm awake, too in his head, and he'll move so quietly into the bathroom to shower and get back into bed that if I wasn't already awake, I wouldn't hear him. I would never know he left.

     I can yell about this till I'm blue in the face and I do. I waste no time flipping over in bed to look at him and he makes this shocked face like what, how could I possibly be awake? He really is that quiet (and I really do sleep like the dead.) I'll say, "You can't just leave like that. What if something happens to you? What if you get hit by a car or fall or—." And he'll say he's sorry, and he is. He always is but he'll do it again, anyway. Because he gets into his head. I still don't really know what goes on in there. I prod but he does't get specific. He'll say something like just my insecurities and it'll honestly sound like it's anxiety but I don't know what's making him anxious.

     I enable Dres's location on his phone and share it with myself. It makes me feel a little bit better knowing I can find him if I need to. I buy him a reflector belt and hang it by the front door with a post-it that says for when the sun's not up, but you are.

     Anxiety is that voice in your head that's always trying to convince you that this thing that is real isn't real and the things that aren't real are real. Anxiety likes to turn reality on its head. So I leave post-its for Dres to remind him that I love him when I'm not there to say it. It's how I express the things I can't say, that words just don't encompass.