There are ways of dying that do not end with a funeral. Types of deaths you can't see, feel or smell. Because death, just like love, has a mind of its own and some things can't be prevented.
What started as an innocent high school quest in search o...
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When I peel my eyes open the next morning, I feel like a tow-truck ran over me. My throat is parched and it physically hurts my eyes to keep them open for longer than a second at a time because of how light-sensitive they currently are.
For a moment, I consider simply nestling further under the blanket my body is covered with and slipping away from the reality again, but it's the second I fully register that there's someone else lying next to me, the side of my hand resting lightly by his shoulder. Collin.
Everything comes crashing back into me, making it damn obvious that whatever happened after I left the restaurant and Collin chased after me wasn't a dream but a reality. Every decision I made, every thing I told him. The urge to groan at my yesterday's gut-spilling presses down on me but I don't make a sound because I don't want to wake him up just yet.
I should be mad at him. For leaving and ghosting me after we had sex and never even giving me a proper explanation. I should be mad at him for what happened at Tim's on Sunday, for how he tried to choke him right in front of me and then, in a spur of an unfortunate moment, ended up accidentally knocking me to the ground, making all of my previous fears and dreads caused by Brad materialize. I should be mad at him for not giving me the space I asked him for and trying to get through to me despite all that. Yet, I'm lying in his bed now, watching his chest raise and fall with every breath he drags in and lets out, and I can't make myself feel any of those things.
Maybe that makes me stupid. And maybe that just makes me human. But looking at him in this raw, unfiltered way, when he's not even aware of it, makes me feel like the time doesn't really exist. Like there's nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. Except right here and right now.
It's comforting, in a sense. Because it gives me the possibility to ignore everything I don't want to focus on, all the responsibilities I don't feel ready to own up to and take care of, even if just for a little while.
I'd stay here with him, seal us away from the rest of the world if I could –not doing anything but lying beside each other, or sleeping for years until both of our bodies recharged after everything we'd been through and we'd be able to integrate back into normal course of life, ready to move forward lighter, without all the baggage we'd been towing behind us.
As if sensing my eyes on him, Collin stirs and yawns, blinking woozily. "Hey," a smile splits his face, stretching the still pretty fresh scar across the side of it.
"Hey," I smile back at him, the feeling coming to me naturally this time instead of feeling the need to force it.
Then it's silent, the tension somehow finding a way to seep back into the space between us, attempting to pull me closer to him.
Collin clears his throat. "You should call your grandparents. Tell them you're okay. They're probably worried."
He says it casually but there's a tension to his shoulders that makes me wonder whether there's actually more to it than what he's letting on. I'm kind of disappointed that he decided to spring the reality check on me this early, instead of keeping us cocooned in the safety for a little while longer.
