“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“If happy ever–”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

It’s not the original Maroon 5 version. It’s an acoustic cover, a female voice. One of those covers, you know the sort. Cute and tender. Ukelele. I have no idea whose reel it is. 

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

I have no idea what the reel is actually about, either, what’s the visual to go with this audio, what’s the caption, what’s the account, even. It’s 2:15 AM right now. I know that at least because when I roll over to stare at the back of my partner’s head but not say anything, I can see the time on the microwave just past her and it says 2:15. 

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding–”

“If happy–”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

I think maybe the reel is about plants. My partner has been very into plants, lately, she’s been watching lots of PlantTube and Plantstagram. The last reel was about plants, how to know if you’re overwatering them. You really don’t want to overwater your plants because the roots can rot or the leaves turn yellow. My partner has consumed what is probably around five hours of content at this point on how not to overwater her plants, and she’s asked me four times over the past two days if I think she’s overwatering her plants.

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

I don’t even know how many plants we have in the house. I lost count a while ago.

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be–”

“If happy ever after–”

I love the plants, don’t get me wrong. They’re making beautiful silhouettes against the moony light of the windows. My partner makes a beautiful silhouette beside me against the moony light of her phone. She really loves this reel. 

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

We have to get up for a flight in two hours, and we went to bed about twenty minutes ago. 

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

She really loves this reel. 

Five hours later, give or take, she’s tripping over her feet in the Philadelphia airport. We’ve just gotten off our first flight to here, now we’re moving our best to make our connecting flight to LA. I’m dragging along our luggage in the “very expensive suitcase I bought. It has four wheels, so pull it on four wheels, don’t just drag it along behind you on two wheels like everyone else– here, give it to me, I’ll show you… see? Just… you have to… okay, nevermind, just drag it on two wheels behind you.”– I take her by the elbow and gently steer her out of the way of other passing passengers, a little to the left, a little to the right, a little forwards, a little faster, she’s going a little too slowly. I don’t know this airport. I don’t know how far we have to go to reach our next gate or how easy it’ll be to get there. We have forty minutes before our flight starts boarding, and we want to grab some food before that. I also want to buy a jacket real quick because my partner is wearing a thin silk top in which she looks absolutely stunning but the planes and also this airport are air-conditioned– “And why wouldn’t they be, huh? Airports, airplanes, air-conditioned?”– “Yes, Bubu, very funny.”

She stumbles a little as we get onto one of those moving sidewalks which they really ought to have in more places besides airports. She hasn’t looked away from her phone since giving up on the luggage about seven minutes ago. I do my best to steady her. “Can it wait? We have to keep moving, quick quick quick.”

She doesn’t reply.

“Honey?”– “Yes.”– she puts the phone down for about thirty-eight seconds as we step off the end of this sidewalk and onto the beginning of the next one. “I think our next gate is to the left– it was gate ‘B’, right? Can I see the boarding-passes again? …honey?”

Twenty-five minutes later we’ve got $15 avocado toast and a $13 egg-sandwich with spicy mayo which I’d pay $10 for without flinching, not bad, not bad, but that extra $3 makes me want to unscrew one of the nice barstools at the restaurant and take it home, for my trouble. I ask my partner how her food is, she wishes it was warmer. The fries that came with my sandwich are warm, taking those helps. I ask her what exactly it is that she likes about avocado toast, I’ve tried it and I just don’t quite get it, I’ve never been one of those “avocado” millennials– “and I mean, actually, technically, you’re gen-Z, aren’t you? Are avocados a gen-Z thing, too?”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would–”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“Why do you keep watching it over and over? I’m not criticizing, I’m really not. I just want to understand. We think in such different ways, it’s really interesting.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

She shows me an app on her phone that tracks screentime to prove that she spends less than an hour on Instagram every day. I come up with a great app-idea for an app that pretends to track screentime but actually just shows random small numbers. She doesn’t talk to me again for another forty-minutes– ten minutes to get on the plane, twenty-five minutes before takeoff, five minutes in the air before her cell-phone can’t connect anymore. 

We talk for four hours, uninterrupted. We talk about languages, English, the difference between all her pronunciations and mine. She makes me say my words over and over as she repeats after, doing her absolute best to copy me. She doesn’t let me move on to any other sentences or ideas until I’ve told her that she’s gotten one of my words or phrase exactly right, and it usually doesn’t take more than four or five times, aside from the American “R”, which she’s been trying to master for a few weeks now, and it’s absolutely destroying her throat. She’s had a horrible cough, and whenever people get nervous around her or raise an eyebrow, we have to quickly explain that she’s been learning to growl, that’s all. She tells me out of nowhere that I look like a duck. I ask her why I look like a duck, and she asks if I know how to say “duck” in Hindi. I ask her how. She tells me “Mehndak– or wait, no, that’s ‘frog’.”– “Hold on, say that again? How do you pronounce it?”– “Mehndak.”

It sounds (to me) like “Man-Duck”, and “Why does ‘Man-Duck’ mean ‘frog’? Like, the name of one of the animals is actually just like a half-person half-a-completely-different-animal, like ‘Man-Duck’– half-man, half-duck. Like me, according to you, I’m a man who looks like a duck… which means that I’m a frog?”

We laugh and we laugh and we laugh. The very patient man in the seat next to us laughs along. He’s a great person, we learn that very quickly through almost no interaction. “Alright, so if ‘Man-Duck’ is ‘frog’, what’s ‘Duck-Duck’?”

My partner takes a moment to think about it. “Battakh”– it sounds (to me) like “Buttock”. We laugh and we laugh and we laugh. 

“May buttock hoe guy-yah,” I try, which really ought to be “Mein battakh ho gaya”, which really ought to be “‘Mein battakh hoon’, actually,” my partner explains. “Mein battakh kyun hoon?” I reply. “Batao na mein battakh kyun hoon.”– Tell me why I am a duck. 

Her eyes widen– “Oh, you’ve been practicing.”

I shrug– “Batao na,” I repeat. Tell me.

She starts trying to teach me the names of other birds. “Eagle” and “Blue Jay” and “Ostrich” and “Hoopoe”. She won’t tell me why I am a duck. She refuses to even acknowledge the question. “Kyun-ki mein battakh hoon,” I suppose, and I’m pretty sure I got that right. Because I am a duck. She teaches me how to say “Where”, “There”, and “Here”. She teaches me “Kuch bi”, but she struggles to explain what it means or in what situations you would use it. She explains to me that she doesn’t really speak Hindi, so much as “Hinglish”, they taught everything in English in the schools she went to, and Hindi was an elective language like French or Spanish here. Whenever she talks to her parents or her friends from back home, she thinks in English and translates it in her head, and so do they, and I ask her why they don’t just speak in English if that’s how they’re already thinking, and she tells me that they just don’t. “Why don’t you wear shoes in bed?” she asks. “You wore shoes today, and you’re going to wear shoes tomorrow, so why not just wear shoes in bed and save yourself the trouble of having to take them on and off in the meantime?”– “So speaking in Hindi instead of English is like taking off your shoes before bed and putting them back on in the morning?”– “No, what?”– she furrows her brow, shakes her head– “What are you talking about, Hindi and English? I’m saying, why don’t people wear shoes in bed? You could put down some newspaper by your feet to keep everything clean.”

I know she loves me because she doesn’t pull her phone back out until after we’ve landed and finished taxiing. Everyone is standing up all at once– it’s that part now that’s the worst part of flying, getting your stuff from the bins, getting off the plane. You’ve got to take your backpacks but also stand half-hunched over and trying not to make eye-contact with the people across from you and trying not to be bitter about the people in the rows behind you who are just pushing past instead of waiting their turn. I’d rather the floor just open up beneath us and we all just go tumbling down onto the runway, that would be a better way to leave. “I’ll let you grab the luggage from upstairs,” my partner tells me. “Upstairs” means the top shelf, that’s what she calls it. “Downstairs” is the bottom shelf of wherever she’s talking about. “You’ll let me grab the luggage?”– I stick my tongue out at her and giggle one of my little giggles– “You’ll allow it?”

“Yes, Bubu.”

Twenty minutes later we’re out on the sidewalk, waiting for a shuttle-bus. Six hours after that, we’re in bed in the hotel-room, side by side. We’re exhausted beyond belief. My partner is as limp as an empty glove. She’s not quite asleep yet, but almost, she’s right on that edge of it. I’m a bit more awake, and yet somehow more tired. Life is cruel that way. 

“…if happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this,” I sing, softly.

She shifts a little– “Hmm?”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”– a bit louder, a bit more confidence. 

“Oh, yeah, that song.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“Mmm, I love it when you sing to me”– she settles down again, snuggles herself a little tighter under the blankets. “Sing to me more in the morning.”

Why wait?– “If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“…honey.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“Honey.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“Please.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

“Matt.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be–”

“Matt.”

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

She hits me with a pillow. 

“If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this. If happy ever after did exist, I would still be holding you like this.”

Ten hours later, as the sun rises, I’m still holding her. 

She’s snoring.