Insomnia

Chapter 13: Raw Nerves

This was a terrible idea. I paced in Finn's kitchen, wiping my damp hands on the front of my jeans for what felt like the millionth time. I'd only resisted my darker urges for what, twenty-four hours now? Total fail. Even knowing this was Finn's plan didn't make me feel any better. I needed to stop making decisions based on what I needed and start making them based on what Mia needed—and right now, that was for me to stay as far away from her as possible. I never should've let him talk me into this, no matter how good his intentions. 

Finn slouched at the kitchen table. It looked like he was sleeping. He hadn't moved a muscle in ages, but his baseball cap was pulled so low on his head it was hard to tell. I jumped when he sat forward. 

"Parker, you need to chill. You're making me sweat and that's really saying something since you left the door open and it's practically snowing in here." 

"Oh, sorry." I walked over and kicked the bottom of the back door the rest of the way closed with my left foot. "When will she be here?" 

"I don't know. Her truck has been breaking down lately, so Jeff is dropping her off." Finn leaned back in his chair. "You freaking out isn't going to make her get here any faster." 

With a shrug, I plunked down in the chair beside him, rolling my head back and forth in a vain attempt to relax my tense muscles. I grabbed an orange from the bowl on the table and flexed my fingers around it. "I don't know if I want her to get here at all." 

"I'm telling you. This is going to work." But he chewed on the end of a pencil as he glanced toward the front door. 

"You don't know that." 

"No, but were any of your ideas this good?" 

I swallowed hard and tapped the orange against the top of the table. My ideas sucked. My ideas had made everything infinitely worse—possibly unrecoverable. 

Finn tried to play it off, but he seemed almost as nervous as I felt. His hands were a dead giveaway. We were opposites: when he was happy, he couldn't stay still. At the moment, his arms were crossed over his chest with each hand pinned under the opposite biceps. Keeping them motionless was the only thing he could control. 

Finn watched me, his expression frozen halfway between laughter and fear. His eyes were glued to my hand. Only when I looked down did I notice that I was still hitting the orange against the table—hard. Juice oozed out of cracks in the peel, dripping over my fingers and onto the table. 

I stood, threw the smashed orange into the garbage, and grabbed a napkin to clean up the mess. I had no idea what was going on with my hands these days. They almost had a mind of their own. I sat back down across from Finn. 

"Sorry. I wasn't paying attention."

"No . . . really? If you wanted juice, you could've just asked." Finn glanced over at the blob of orange peel in the garbage can and grimaced. "You all right, man?" 

"Yeah, fine."

That wasn't the truth and we both knew it. This was it. If we couldn't make this work, there wasn't much point in trying anymore. I would leave Mia alone. She deserved that much after everything I'd put her through. It was the only option I would allow myself to consider. But I hoped I could find someone else like her before it was too late. 

I shook my head. That thought was so absurd it made me want to laugh. There was no one like her, no one who could do what she did. 

I'd managed to alienate and terrify the only girl who could help me. Classic.