Axis

august 13th

ON MOST OCCASIONS, I'M the early riser between the two of us. But this morning, Jasper has me beat.

"Mmm," I mumble in protest as he nudges me awake. "I'm tired."

"Well you better wake up, sleepyhead," Jasper says, a smile evident in his voice. "We got work in a couple hours."

"Nooo," I groan into the pillow.

His hands attack my ticklish zones and my body, unsurprisingly, chooses this moment to wake up. A mixture of yelps and laughs fly out of me involuntarily and I struggle to push him off.

"There's that cute Lexi laugh I love to hear," Jasper says gleefully, sitting back looking smug at his successful attempt to awaken me. My body feels heavy with the sleep I didn't get after last night's nightmare escapade, and my eyes feel swollen and bloodshot. I must look like an absolute train wreck. Almost as if sensing my insecurity, Jasper scoots closer and wraps an arm over my shoulders. "Did you sleep okay?" We both know he means post-dream, when he drifted off not too long after we both climbed into bed under our piles of sheets and thin blankets together.

"Uh," I fumble, not really wanting to lie, but not really wanting to worry him, either. I slant a look at the flap of window facing the bay, where the sun batters down on the water like a million spilled sea crystals. "Eventually, I did."

He expels a long breath through his nose, the telltale Jasper signal for disappointment. "Are you going to tell me what it was about?" he questions, his tone wary.

Stiffly, I shake my head. "It's in the past."

"Not if you're still dreaming about it."

I realize, then, that he knows. He knows my dream was more than just an odd nightmare—it was a memory. A memory of a terrible time with terrible people.

I lie back down under the covers and roll over onto my stomach, resting my head on my arms. Jasper moves close beside me, and his fingers start moving in circles around my back. My eyes flutter shut at the comfort of his touch. And then the rhythm of his movements change.

"Are you drawing a penis on my back?" I ask him, incredulous.

He bursts into laughter, such a jovial sound. "Maybe."

"Jasper!"

"I'm just messing around with you," he says. "Wanted to see if you'd pick up on it. Hey, guess what I sketch with my finger next."

"Easy," I say as I feel his finger connecting two hooks together. "A heart. Give me something harder."

He lowers his voice to imitate the solemn disposition of a documentary voice. "Lexi Marie, nothing is harder than a heart. It's the toughest organ of them all, because it endures the most."

"You're not funny," I say, though my laughter suggests otherwise.

His fingers trail over my back, and by the way he keeps picking up them up and replacing them, I can tell whatever he's writing next are words. However, my sensory skills aren't quite strong enough to distinguish the letters and depict what words he's writing.

"You're gonna have to tell me for this one," I say. "I got nothing."

I slant a look up at him, and he's got a blank look on his face, and remains quiet.

"Jasper?"

He contorts his expression into a smirk, but it looks slightly forced. "I wrote 'Lexi is a dork.'"

I'm not sure what words he finger-traced over the cotton fabric of my T-shirt, but it wasn't that. The way he refuses to meet my eyes confirms this. And just like that, I feel him drifting a little further away from me, getting sucked further out into a galactic vortex beyond my realm. In response, the world grows a little dimmer.