“He Doesn’t Look at Me Like He Used To…”

I've been laying down in bed for hours and I can't fall asleep, no matter how hard I tried to rest. I've spent my time in bed just staring at the ceiling, thinking about my life and all the things I could've changed. I guess seeing someone close to you lose their life really makes you want to think about how precious your own life is.

Raising my hand to the ceiling just to feel like I am still in my body, just to think that it can be taken away... I don't know, it's not particularly scary but I still don't want it taken away from me. I sigh at the sight of the moon light from our window shining through. Sometimes I forget that I have this tattoo on my finger.

79919170. That's the number seared into my skin, that's my identity. Without this small mark, I wouldn't be able to walk around the city, be with loved ones or even grow old. Without this small mark, I'd be dead, face down somewhere in the god forsaken place people called the Remnants.

I can still remember the process of getting this thing. I was 2 months away from turning 18 and I was scared. My family made a meal for me and Daniel before we got picked up by the stepford wives, a bunch of old women that were too pure for children. My dad knew some people who were raising chickens illegally and we decided to have that because they said we would need a hearty meal.

We got onto a bus with other young couples that were on the cusp of adulthood. Some looked happy and some looked more scared than others. I was scared, that's for sure. When we got off the bus, a Genitor greeted us and told us to line up by gender. I was separated from Daniel before I could even say goodbye to him. The Genitor led us to a waiting room and one by one we were called to have a conversation with him. They wanted to know if our relationship was real or a necessity of survival. They asked me basic questions: What's Daniel's birthdate, What's Daniel's favorite color, when did we start to date. Although I knew all of them, I was still scared that I was going to be wrong.

After hours of waiting, they reunited us back together. We were then led to a giant white machine, and they told us to stick our finger next to our pinky inside. It burned a lot, like someone was rubbing a hot piece of glass against my finger. When it was done, I was left with this mark, to commemorate when I turned into a woman.

It seems like so many decades ago but in reality, it was no more than two years ago. Still, in all this time, I still haven't gotten used to Daniel's snoring. I look over to him and he is sound asleep. "Jeez, I wonder how can he sleep", I say out loud, hoping that he will hear me and wake up. He is sleeping with his back turned to me so whatever I say doesn't get to him. He's been sleeping like that for a while now, not facing me.

I try to not let it get to me, I say to myself, "It must be comfortable to sleep on that one side... so that is why he always does it."

But it does slowly creep up on my mind every once in a while. Especially when I look up at our ceiling fan. Just staring up at it, watching it spin and spin and spin into the night until I have to wake up and make Daniel his lunch for work. Then I spend my day at home cleaning or go visit my mom. When it gets late, I get ready for when Daniel gets home by preparing a meal. After, I watch TV with him for a while.

Right now, we are watching a soap opera together called Lover's Quarrel. It's about a girl who meets a boy in her class that she really likes but without her knowing until she is of age, her parents have an arranged marriage prepared for her. So, she has to decide who she wants to be with for the rest of her life. It's pretty cheesy but it keeps me entertained enough to forget about life.

Then, after a long day, I find myself here again, staring at this rotating fan. Going in circles throughout the night.

"Is love just something others do?", I find myself saying without a thought. I guess all the thoughts in my head have to spew out into the real world somehow. But I don't even know what that means, am I incapable of being loved? I turned over to look at Daniel one more time and got a sudden sick urge in my stomach.

I get up as fast as I can and run into our bathroom. Almost slipping, I throw myself to the toilet and begin to vomit into the bowl. I can feel the hot throw-up pouring out my mouth. I usually don't get morning sickness, but I do get a lot of night sickness, if that's even a thing.

Just as fast as I wake up, Daniel also wakes in a panic from all the commotion I caused. "What's going on!", yells Daniel before stopping himself, "Oh." He gets up from the bed and begins to walk towards me but right now, I don't want anyone near me. I'm spewing chunks violently and this idiot decides to come close to me. I wave my hand at him to go away, and he does.

But in less than a minute, this fool comes back with a cup of water. I mean, I'll take it, I won't say no to a cup of water right now.

"Are you feeling better?", he asks me.

"Yeah", I say to him as I wipe the vomit from my lower lip, "I think so." Even though I bet right now I smell bad and look bad, he is still here. I ask myself why? A normal person would've just slept it off and let me deal with it alone. But he doesn't?

He looks at me with such a calming gaze, "Ok good, let me help you up and take you to bed."

Daniel grabs me by the hand and tries to pull me up. "Wait! don't touch me!", I scream at him as I slap his hand away. Confused by my actions, Daniel looks at me kind of worried and I see it in his eyes. But from the corner of my eye, when I put my face back into the bowl to keep on throwing up, he just smiles.

"I thought you were upset", he laughs while grabbing my empty cup. Without even having to ask him, he goes and gets me more water. By the time he returned, I had finished vomiting but still had that sick feeling in my stomach. He helps me up from the bathroom floor and for some reason when I looked up at him, I was suddenly compelled to call out for him.

"Daniel…", I say. I can't exactly convey but I had a sudden excessive need to tell him how much I love and forgive him, but no words came out. It felt as if my throat was being crushed by something heavy.

"Hmm?", Daniel hummed at me.

Still fighting that horrible feeling, I tried to find the right words to say but alas, "Nothing, never mind", I told him. For me it was much better if I didn't say anything. Anyways, it was already too late, and Daniel needed to sleep. I know if I poured my heart out to him right now, he would want to talk about it. It was ok, he isn't the kind of person to continue to pry an answer from me.

"No, what's on your mind?", he asks me in a sleepy daze.

He lays me down on the bed and he takes back his position. "Selma?", he calls again, "What's wrong?" It was weird and kind of out of character for Daniel to be so curious. I had to tell him something.

"Do... Do you… Did you turn on my alarm?", I just had to come up with something so he would stop asking me.

"I don't even touch it", he tells me sounding like he doesn't believe that's what I wanted to originally tell him. I mean, I know he doesn't believe me but... but... I don't know.

"I'm sorry. No, I'm asking if you can turn it on for me, I think I turned it off by accident."

Through the darkness of our room, I can still see his smile. He says, "Yeah, no problem. You can be pretty clumsy sometimes", as he reaches for the alarm clock on our nightstand. I think to Daniel, it didn't matter if he knew something was eating at me because I would eventually tell him. But, in reality, I never really told him these kinds of things. I didn't want to burden him with my thoughts.

"I forgot to ask you, what do you want to eat in the morning?", I asked him.

"Anything is fine."