P.S. Ty’s been awake for ten minutes and already he’s told me about the Amazing PETA People. Why the hell do you let him watch that kind of stuff?
My faces splits, and I know it’s because I’m smiling.
This realization wipes it away.
I stand in the shower for a good thirty minutes, alternating between hot and cold because I’m either sweating or shivering, and I think maybe I am getting sick. When I can no longer take the water rushing on my body, I get out, wrapping a towel around my waist. I wipe the condensation of the mirror and stare at my reflection. I look pale and wan. My eyes are bruised and my lips cracked.
No wonder she broke up with me, I think, half-crazy. I look like a meth addict.
It tries to rise again, that feeling of despair, and I almost let it. It’s so much easier to feel sorry for yourself. I should know, I’ve done my fair share of it. I think I have it in check when just a shard slips through, and I see the lip of my reflection quiver slightly. I grip the edges of the sink and will myself to stop, to just fucking stop already. My reflection seems to listen as I glare at it. Its lip stops quivering, and its chest stops heaving, and blood starts to warm its cheeks. There, I think. There, see? See? I can do this. I can do this. I leave the bathroom, starting to feel better. It doesn’t last long.
I try to rub my arms, but I still feel cold
I dress, but nothing I put on fits right.
I try and eat, but all the food tastes like sawdust.
I turn on the TV, but the lights and noise hurt my head.
I pace around the living room.
I pace in the kitchen.
I pace in the living room again.
I grab my car keys.
I get in my car.
I drive and drive and drive, and I think I’m going to leave.
I think I’m going to leave and not look back.
It would be easier.
Ten minutes later, I become aware of my surroundings and see that I’m on a street I recognize, a street I know all too well. I try and stop myself, but I’m on autopilot. There is a pleasant buzzing in my head, and it’s like there’s cotton in my ears because everything is muted. I turn on the street where, when I was ten, I fell off my bike and scraped my knee. I pass the house where, when I was twelve, Creed and I had stolen a lawn gnome. I sail by a parking lot where, when I was fifteen, Mr. Thompson had taught me how to drive. I pull into a driveway that I’ve pulled into countless times before. I walk up a stone pathway that used to be covered in grass. I ring a doorbell that still surprises me as it sounds like my own. Nothing happens. I ring it again. And again. And again. I ring it until I hear a padding of feet, and then he opens the door, and it’s like I’m eight again, and it’s like he’s sixteen again, and I want to ask him if Creed’s home because I have come to stay the night, but I am afraid I’ll shatter like glass. I stare at him and he stares at me, and finally I say, “I didn’t know where else to go,” and he steps back, and I walk past him into a house that I used to think of as a safe haven. I walk up the stairs, and I hear him following me. I beg him silently not to speak, and he doesn’t. That’s good because if he spoke, autopilot would disengage and reality would set in. I see his door, and even though it no longer has a sign that says to Keep Out, that it’s Otter’s Room, I know it’s Otter’s room.
I open the door and the bed is disheveled, and I know he was asleep. I sit down on the edge and take of my shoes, and I crawl up into the bed, pulling the covers up and over me, making a cave where a Bear can sleep. I am so tired, and I can barely keep my eyes open when I feel the bed dip carefully, and I know he is climbing back in. I lift up the covers so he can come into the cave. He crawls underneath and lies on his side, his eyes heavy with something that I can’t quite make out, and he folds his arms around his front, laying his head upon his hands. I let the covers fall gently back down, and it gets dark in the Cave of Otter and Bear, but not so very dark that I can’t still make out his eyes, his nose, his lips. My hand reaches out on its own accord and touches his cheek gently. It’s stubbly, and he holds his breath, and I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I am. He grabs my hand and holds it between his. He’s about to say something, but I shake my head because I don’t want to hear a single word. I turn and lie on my side, matching his position, and draw my knees up to my chest and they bump his, and that’s where I leave them. I watch Otter watching me, and he still holds my hand, and I don’t draw it away. That’s how I stay until finally, inevitably, I fall asleep.
WHEN I wake, the sun is pouring in through the window above the bed. I stretch and look over at the other side of the bed, slight apprehension coursing through my body. It’s empty. I breathe a quick sigh of relief and immediately feel guilty. I roll over and grab the pillow and hug it against myself.
What am I doing here? I think. I just broke up with the only person I thought I could be with forever. And here I am, doing… what am I doing? This isn’t right. This isn’t who I am supposed to be.
How do you know? it whispers back. If you would allow yourself to think clearly for one single moment, you would know. You would know everything you have been trying not to be.
I hug the pillow tighter and the door opens.
“Good,” Otter says cheerfully. “You’re awake. I thought I was going to have to drag you out of bed to wake you up.”
I scamper up quickly against the headboard and hug the pillow to my chest. I look warily at Otter. He stands against the doorway, arms across his chest, leaning against the door jam. His short blond hair sticks out in different directions, and his green eyes sparkle, and his grin is as crooked as I’ve ever seen it. I start to feel tightness in my chest and loins, and I squeeze the pillow tighter. His long legs are clad in loose black sweats, and his white tank top shows off a tan I could never have. His arms look strong pressed against his trim body. I forcibly look away, trying to focus my ministrations elsewhere. I hear him chuckle to himself quietly.
“What?” I say, the word coming out more harshly than I intend.
“Your hair looks hilarious.”
I scowl and frantically start brushing it down. “Yours doesn’t look any better,” I retort.