Inferno

thirty one | the snippy mornings

Morning comes and brings along a myriad of emotions I'm left to explore with a scalpel called heart and an inherent fear that's got me clutched since ever. First, it's pathetically mooning by the eye hole in the door, looking if Harvey's left already so I can too and avoid addressing what may or may not have went down yesterday. Next, it's jitters and dreariness while driving over to Chase, having no clue what I'd say, what he'd interpret and if this is truly the cusp of us. Feet grazing over the welcome mat by the door, I wait for him to answer, and when he does, all the speeches prepared, points noted are chucked into a shredder. "What's that?" I let my purse slip off the shoulder and down the floor, my attention solely on his swollen eye lid and the crimson coated bandage over his head.

"Don't worry, it's nothing," he says, inspite of the little moans besmirching his words when I run my fingers over the wound.

"It's not nothing, Chase. Tell me how did this happen?"Escaping the vexation lining my concerned gaze, he is meticulous in attempting to not explain the story behind the scars. "I'm not budging until you do."

"Alright, come inside at least," paving way, he picks my bag up while I lead ahead and to where I spot the hospital bills laying in the emerald marble tray on the table. "While I was driving back from your place, I almost got in an accident with a drunk driver at Micheal Street. I obviously wasn't in the best mood and may have given him a piece of my mind over the whole thing. Soon he was getting out of his car, so did I, and it ended in an ugly fight."

I'm not facing him, I didn't think I could have or it'd just be me going into a space where I'm seventeen, vulnerable and thinking what a blunder I've made getting into this. Counting breaths and the momentum of my heartbeats, I turn to him, hoping the disappointment doesn't show and doesn't shroud itself in guilt. "So this is how it's going to be them? Every time we have a little fight, you end up bottling the frustration and bruising yourself over the first idiot that comes your way."

"It was just a bad day," he shakes it off as if I can't see his steps hitting and missing because of the eye, and his shirt worn the other way. "You... you came to talk, right? About last night."

"I did, but that can wait. You sit over there, I'll bring you a ice pack for the eye," grabbing him by the arm, I force him down on the couch, turning for the kitchen when he pulls me down onto his lap.

"It can't wait or I'll lose whatever sanity's left in me after having lost all that blood." My wide eyes then make him chuckle in a contrast to the vapidness clouding my face. "I'm kidding, it wasn't really that much."

"That's not funny," I try pushing him away, except either he's been working out or my attempts are lesser than half hearted; the feeling of staying nuzzled in his arms, addictive even in the worst times.

"I guess we're okay then?" He searches for agreement in my expressions, but it's not that simple anymore. "There's still something there?"

"I don't know, you tell me. Chase, I understand everything you said yesterday, but I still feel there's something you're not telling me here, and that something happened while we were apart."

His hand slips off mine, not as much an affirmation to my doubts, but just as indicative. "I don't know why you think so, but nothing really happened. I left Spain after two months, went back to Amsterdam for a while and have been in Vancouver for six months now, so it's all been fine. Nothing troubling."

"Really? You're saying it was all peachy and nice, that you've felt nothing but great in the past so many months? If that's so, it makes me feel very relieved, but not if it's a facade you're distracting me with." I want be wrong, I do, but I'm afraid that's not the case.

"Okay, it wasn't all good. I mean, I'd been feeling terribly lost coming back from Barcelona, and then there were things between mom and dad, that just weren't easy. But that's it, and you've got to believe when I say this is really it," his words are convincing, but his hand cupping my cheek and then traversing down to my collar bone tracing patterns is somehow more.