Adventuring Partners [Short Story]

There are invisible guards inside of everyones mouths who dutifully ensure that the words we say are appropriate. But if you stay up past midnight these guards start to get a little lazy, and that gives an opportunity for our real feelings and thoughts to slip out. This is why the most meaningful conversations happen at around 3:00am.

Evan was laying in Stella's bed, under her blankets. She was changing into her pyjamas in the bathroom. Evan could still taste the liquorice tea with honey in it that Stella had made him earlier, and he mindfully abided on that sweet sensation in order to get as much enjoyment out of it as possible. He had gone on earlier about how honey and liquorice tea together were the best combination of flavours conceivable. But, of course, that's exactly the kind of thing that he would say since he has a strong penchant for sweet things.

When the sensation of the honey-liquorice tea passed Evan's thoughts went to the person who generously made him the tea. His nostrils caught the subtle leftovers of her scent on the bedsheets and he smiled. It made him think of how pure hearted she was. He likened her in his imagination to an angel.

Evan excitedly awaited Stella's return. When she came out in her polk-a-dotted pyjamas she made a childlike noise that sounded like "meep" or "mawh", as she often did. She slipped underneath the blankets and curled up against Evan, placing her head on his chest. Evan wrapped his arms around her.

Stella, who was almost twenty, had never laid in another bed with a guy before meeting Evan. She loved to cuddle, and her favourite person to cuddle used to be her older sister. But Evan had changed that. As she laid there she was thinking about how much she trusted Evan. This thought filled her with delight, so she hugged Evan as tightly as she could. As soon as she stopped Evan immediately repeated the hug.

They laid there for almost an hour, as content as lazing puppies.  Evans hands gently went up and down her hips. He was happily surprised at how deep the curve of her hips were. Stella relished in the caress of his hands. Her fingers were soothingly playing with his hair. They were not talking, but their senses of touch were engaged in a silent conversation. 

Evan moved his head and looked into Stella's eyes. Her face was lit up with attraction.  She was strikingly beautiful, but to him she was also very mysterious. He wanted to have a conversation with her soul, which he felt he didn't know nearly as well enough as he wanted to. Evan thought about how one cannot truly love what one does not know, so the more we let other people know about us the more we are allowing them to love us.

Evan wished he could lay his soul bare for her, but he knew that would be unwise. The soul is too vast a thing for anyone to behold all at once, even oneself. Instead, Evan thought, we must give glimpses into our unlit, arcane depths to those we are compelled to to love and know.

Stella had a curious look on her face, because she knew that he was about to say something, but he was taking a while to say it. The reason, of course, is that Evan realized that in order to get her to reveal some of her soul to him he would have to begin, and that would make Stella reciprocate.

It is true that one can only love someone as much as they have revealed themselves to you. The more we show of our true selves to someone the more that self can be loved. However, in order to reveal yourself to someone you first have to know yourself. We are all abysses - dark, enigmatic, with great depth. And we are enigmatic first of all to ourselves. Somehow we can spend all day with ourselves and yet never really know who it is that sees out of the eyes we gaze out of. When we dive into our inner oceans and shed the light of introspection upon that abyss within we never know what we might pull out.

Evan had dived many, many times. Sometimes when he dived he was terrified by the monsters that dwelt within the shadows of the soul. Other times he was amazed by the pearls and treasures that lay hidden deep within.  He had collected every insight he had about himself and mentally recorded them. For him it was not an issue of knowing nothing about himself, it was an issue of which page from his mental records to share. There were things in those records, after all, that were terribly embarrassing. Some of them were shameful. He was cautiously looking for a page that would let Stella know more about him and entice her to share more about herself as well, but that wouldn't lower what he imagined to be her opinion of him.

"What are you thinking about?"
Stella abruptly asked, interrupting Evan's thought process, which was all for the better because he would never really have come to a conclusion about what to say unless he was put on the spot.
"I was just thinking....I've always had a great yearning to travel and see the world. I want to visit every continent. Every single one. Even Antarctica. Whenever I say that people are always like, 'Oh? Do you want to visit Antarctica too?' and I'm like, Yes goddammit I also want to see Antarctica. I am fully aware that I said  'I want to visit every continent', and that Antarctica is one of them. But of the seven I want to go to Europe the most".

Stella piqued up,
"I visited France once".

Evan's face lit up.
"Oh my god! That's amazing!"

"I was in the south of France, and I was staying with a home stay family. I visited this forest that was so magical, like it came right out of a story book. I was in a cave once, too, and I was reading in there for a little bit. It was so much fun to just wander around the town I was in, just by myself. I felt so free and independent..." she longingly sighed, wishing she could go back.

With every word she said about it she got more and more excited. This is precisely the kind of thing he wanted to know about Stella. Within the both of them there dwelt an adventurous soul that longed to see the world. She could see that he was paying attention to her. That was one of the things she liked about him, he was a great listener.

"I have some pictures of France. Would you like to see them?”

Evan almost leapt out of the bed.
"I'd love to!"

The two of them untwined and got out of the bed. Stella sat on the chair in front of her desk and opened up her laptop. Evan wrapped his arms around her as he stood behind the chair, unable to keep his hands off of her. Stella clicked on a picture that was tucked away in a folder on her computer. 
"Is that the magical forest you were in?" Evan asked.
"Yup!"
Of course it must be, Evan thought. On the desktop was a picture of a complex web of gnarled trees with dark-green leaves. 
Stella opened another one, “This is the town I was in.”

Evan’s jaw dropped. It was a photo of a quaint medieval village. The picture was so enticing to the adventurous spirit that it looked as though it belonged in a travel magazine, but it was even more enticing since it was a real photograph taken of a real town with nothing staged. 

“You’ll get to travel one day” Stella said to Evan in a tone of optimistic certainty that filled him with hope. This hope revitalized his fantasies so that they became more alive. He held her tight and kissed the top of her head from behind the chair. She smiled and tilted her head up, and they shared a kiss on each others lips. They both felt elated and grateful for each other, each of them unable to understand how they could be so lucky.

“I want to see the world with you. You would be the best adventuring partner ever” said Evan, his head so far up in the clouds that he was bringing Stella up there with him.
“Ditto”