Firsts: A Transcendence Short

Free-Jones Apartment

New York City

United States of America

June 2121

I.

The first time Ansel bares his symptoms to Elena, he’s crouched over his desk at an ungodly hour, fingers shaking as he attempts to get through more than half of his current project a higher-up had assigned him to.

The office smells of dull caffeine; the trashcan underneath the desk filled with small bottles of the coffee he purchased at the nearby store just hours ago. At that point, the slightest rays of sunshine peek from behind the heavy blinds. Something rings in his head; an annoying throb that makes him swallow. “Fucking shit,” he mutters, attempting to block out the throb with yet another play of the video so far.

There is scenery over the sound of a light piano in the background. He keeps his mind on the screen but his thoughts gloss over, the throb ebbing stronger and stronger to the point of him pausing the video and running his fingers through his hair. Ansel attempts to calm his breathing, attempts to remove the headset with shaky fingers and shakier hands. The caffeine in his system rejects the work done and his body feels on the verge of collapsing—

He hardly notices his shaking until the lights flicker on, and a pair of hands cups his cheeks, jolting him back. His vision sharpens immediately from the blurred mess it was. He sees Elena staring at him, her eyes a pool of worried blue and suddenly feels everything from the cold air on his skin to the warmth of her hands. He opens his mouth, tries to speak, but nothing comes out.

Her voice. “Shh,” she whispers, soothes, and before he knows it, she’s helping him up and leading him back to the bedroom. Ansel isn’t quite sure; his vision has returned but his head feels hazy, the contents scattered.

The mattress feels soft beneath him and instinctively, he curls on his side, making himself smaller. Elena pulls up the blanket, covers him, presses a kiss to his forehead and promises that she’ll save the file and that he’ll be okay. “You need to sleep,” she continues, and he wants to protest no but even thinking of the word weighs his mind down. The pillows are soft. The mattress is soft. The comforter is soft.

Her lips are soft, pressing against his head once more.

Ansel lets himself sleep. Elena leaves the room with a weird pang in her stomach and a sinking feeling that he isn’t as okay as he seems.

II.

The first time Ansel attempts to tell Elena, he ends up chickening out.

Marion persuades him over the phone, during work, while they eat. She persuades and constantly reminds him, saying that she deserves to know, too and that she can help you, believe me. Ansel wants to believe Marion, wants to believe in her words and open up to Elena soon so that she can understand what’s been going on with him.

But the fear remains, and each time he considers opening his mouth to ask her to talk about something else, his bravery is squashed down. Ansel makes an excuse on the fly; “I want to watch something with you” or “I want take out, are you in the mood for pizza”. Elena blinks, fazed at his serious tone shifting to one asking for pizza, but to his credit, she doesn’t think much of it and answers his questions as if not catching the initial want in his voice.

The fear register, settles. The paranoia sends whispers down his spine and reminds him of what happened the last time he tried to confide back in high school. It’s enough to shut him up, make him plaster yet another tired smile and change the topic.

Marion grows frustrated with his unwillingness to tell. Ansel tries to ignore it.

III.

The first time Elena asks, Ansel dodges the question. And he dodges the succeeding times, sometimes twisting his way around and managing to make her talk in such a way that she ends up too deep into the conversation to steer it back to him.

“Are you alright?”

“It’s just work, sweetheart.”

“Do you need to talk?”

“Sure, Lena – what’s happened with you?

She notices and prods, asks, but Ansel keeps his secrets and insists that the talk be about her. So she tries something else; she tries asking about his younger years one night on the miraculous occurrence that he’s in bed with her. She’s running her fingers through his hair and the two of them are tangled, his lips on her forehead. “Ansel?”

“Mm?”

“How were you when you were younger?” A beat, a pause. He tenses slightly and Elena waits for him to answer. He eventually exhales.

“I was an alright kid. Not that special. Nothing too special.”

And nothing much grows from there.

IV.

The first time Elena witnesses Ansel’s breakdown, she feels like all the pieces had suddenly been put together.

It was a sudden thing. They were in their own spaces, doing their own thing – Elena was painting and testing out this new set of watercolors she had bought while Ansel was in their office, working on yet another video with his eyes staring intently at the screen. No coffee was on the table this time; she had made that he stayed away from the stuff.

She noticed: she noticed how shaky he’d be after an intense amount of caffeine, would notice how considerably less he had been eating. Ansel got less sleep, less food, more caffeine, more stress. And if she had to be honest, all of it was close to freaking her out. Elena nearly broke her I-respect-your-boundaries stance and was so, so close to caring for Ansel herself if he couldn’t even manage to feed himself at the right times of the day.

But when she heard something crash in the office, when she ran into the room and saw Ansel on the floor and staring at the broken shelf with a different look in his eyes, she knew something was very, very wrong.

She knew that something was wrong when he grabbed the pillow from the chair and screamed into it, started punching it and cursing and everything while at the same time already crying like she had never seen him cry. She knew that something was wrong when she attempted to comfort him but all he could muster was a defeated-sounding “please call Marion”, knew that something was wrong when she realized that even she wasn’t enough for him to get through whatever he was going through.

So she called up Marion, explained the situation. Heard a “fuck” and the line went dead, and that added to her gut feeling of Something Was Very Wrong. The feeling skyrocketed when Marion and Kyle eventually came to their apartment. She knew something was wrong when Kyle held her back, muttering quietly for Elena to “let Marion do what she must”.

She knew something was wrong when even Kyle, the group’s dubbed “emotionless stick”, kept his eyes on the office with a troubled look in his eyes.

It takes half an hour, nearly a whole one. Marion comes out unhappy and sits Elena down, clears her throat, and explains. When she does, the final piece falls into the puzzle. She talks quietly, almost in whispers. Kyle merely watches but Elena gets a gripping feeling that he too has known for some time. “He’s been meaning to tell you,” Marion confirms, still quiet, “but he keeps stopping. Don’t blame yourself,” she adds sharply upon catching the look on Elena’s face, “it’s not your fault.”

“But he,” she begins, and Marion cuts her off.

“No. Don’t make excuses for him. There’s no other reason aside from the fact that he’s afraid. He’s always afraid of how people would see him. And if anything, he doesn’t want you to see and treat him any differently.”

V.

The first time Ansel finally chooses to let Elena in, he lets Elena hover, ask, prod. He lets her ask all she wants and he gives answers. Some are filtered and some aren’t; she’s aware of a filter but is thankful that he’s talking.

They talk while he’s in bed with his head in her lap and her fingers gently running through his hair in a sign of comfort. They talk, Ansel’s voice low and quiet and hesitant and Elena all-ears, willingly listening. He talks, she listens. Whenever he stops to take a shuddery breath, she waits until he talks again.

“I’m not okay, Lena,” he admits, and she leans in to press a kiss onto his forehead. He feels the tingle of lips on skin; the static remains. “Lena…”

“I know. And it’s okay.” She rubs his back gently, “It’s okay to not be okay.”

He stays silent. Instead of feeling hurt, she decides to understand and she understands anyway even if his silence seems to give another impression. But Ansel burrows further into her, trying to get all the warmth he can because it feels so, so cold.

And Elena accepts.