“He’ll be fine in the morning,” I hear Syd say. “Just make sure he has water. And if I find out you chickened out again and don’t talk to him, I’ll make your life a living hell!” She adds a very light and pleasant twist on her frankly terrifying words as I lay here in my bed, spinning. Everything is spinning. My fairy lights are still on, and I can hardly tell where.
“Okay. I’ll get him another water bottle. Thank you, Syd,” Noah says.
“Get him three. One for now, one for the middle of the night, and one for the morning. My cousin taught me that,” she replies. “And don’t even think about leaving the room to even pee in the morning before you talk to him. Nasty, morning-breath-ass conversation. Do you understand me? Am I clear? If you like your penis attached naturally and not surgically to your pelvis you’ll follow these orders.” Noah nods at her.
“Yes, ma’am. I understand.”
“Okay. Good fucking night,” she says, then slams the door. The noise hurts my head. Am I supposed to be hung over already? I lean and my arm sort of lulls and falls right into the trash can that Syd tossed next to my bed while Noah asked frantically what was wrong. He thinks just because he knows a little bit about the body he can help me. Well, fuck you, Dr. Assface. You’re the reason I feel like this in the first place.
Noah comes and sits on the edge of my bed, and he rubs my foot with the softest, most intimate touch. I recoil. That doesn’t belong to him. That sort of affection.
But the room is still spinning, and I can’t really find the words to explain to him that I don’t like that. He still gets the picture and shifts away from where he touched, because he’s just like that. Thoughtful. And yet, I hate him for being thoughtful, for giving me hope that he’s going to do anything other than break my heart tonight. And I hate him for making me want to forgive him for leaving me out to dry for a whole week while it sort of felt like my world collapsed.
“Lee, are you… gonna be okay?” he asks. His voice is so gentle, and it’s unlike anything I’ve heard in so long. Why does he get to be like this now? No, fuck you. I roll over so I’m not facing him and pull myself under the covers. I can see his shadow reach to brush my shoulder, but he balks and ends up standing up off of my bed. I don’t fall asleep for a while because my body is still on high alert and my thoughts are racing through the hedge maze of my brain.
When I wake up, I’m not even a little hungover. Because I’m still drunk. I think. I look over at Noah’s bed, and he’s still beneath his covers and breathing lightly. I go to shower and don’t bother to be gentle with the door. The water isn’t hot enough for me, because I could really use a nice, horrible, painful scald, but it is what it is. It’s not hot enough to sober me up, but it’s enough that I’m still alive.
I go back to the room, drop off my stuff, and go hit the dining hall. I run into Jayde there, and we chill and eat for a little bit. She can tell something is wrong, but I don’t say anything important to her. Not that she can’t handle it, or that it isn’t her business, but I just can’t get a fucking wrangle on anything myself. I’m still struggling to walk totally straight, even today, which sucks. And like, I know Noah wants to talk today. But I don’t think I’m up to it. And a part of me thinks he doesn’t even deserve my time like that.
I feel like I should just ignore him back for a week. And that part of me that’s saying that kinda scares the shit out of me because I’m known to let it win.
I pass our room and go to Ali’s. I knock, but she isn’t there. I think about texting Syd, but the idea of her being critical of me partying so hard springs to mind, and I change my mind on that. Who else do I even know? No one. I know no one! Jaxon, I guess, but there’s no way in hell I’m calling him. What about that one guy I slept with to make Noah jealous in November? Nah. Clingy. Nice dick, though. But too clingy. Is that like… a thing? Do I only want what I can’t have? I am still not sober enough to think about this, to be honest.
There’s a lounge on my right that mercifully spares me from going back to the room and facing him. Honestly, I should just fucking mature and go chat, but for some reason, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Part of me is scared of what he’ll say, I guess, but the other part of me is scared of what I’ll say. And fucking!!! Rightfully so! I should have some words with him.
The lounge couches are this ugly grey and blue combo, but they aren’t the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever sat on, so I slide on top of one. No one else is here, and I’ve got a nice, shitty view of the sparkly sun reflecting off of the remnants of the ugly, slushy snow, and all of the little people winding around outside going to classes, meeting friends, going for Starbucks… FUCK. Going to classes. Um. Well. The good news is, I’ve only missed one class so far. The bad news is, I’ll miss the other two if I don’t go like, right now. Well, I guess I could make the third one, but…
Fuck it.
I email my professors from my phone about how I was puking all last night and feel really sick and ask them to fill me in with what we did in class today. I CC the TAs just to be sure. I can always ask in the group chats, too. It’s not the end of the world.
I need to talk to someone.
I open my phone and call Maggie.
She answers on the first ring. Of course she does.
“Liam? Hey! What’s up, buttercup?”
“Hey, Mags. Just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I’m good. I just miss you a lot.”
“Aww, you cutie. I miss you too!”
“I guess I have a stressful conversation coming up, too, and I just… You put me at ease.”
“Wish I could be there to support you through the whole thing--”
“But you can’t fight every battle for me. I know, I know.” It’s a routine we’ve been over many, many times. She and I have been friends since elementary school. She says second grade, I say first. We both agree that we were friends with each other before we were friends with Cal, though, who she met in seventh grade when we were on a “friendship break” and I met in our sophomore year when she finally wore me down enough to audition for musicals.
“You got it. I cannot fight every battle for you. But I would if I could.”
“I miss you like oxygen.”
“Nah, you miss me like a plant: good for oxygen, but you don’t need me immediately next to you, you just need me nearby enough that I create oxygen. You know?”
“I don’t know, actually. That was a horrible analogy.”
“Oh, so that one was horrible, but the one about the kanga-”
“Don’t bring up the damn kangaroos. We were thirteen.”
“I will always, always bring up the damn kangaroos, Liam Marshall.”
“And there’s the middle name.”
“I’ll leave you with that? I’d love to chat longer, but… I kinda have to go. Can we talk later? Maybe tonight? After whatever’s freaking you out is over, maybe?”
“Yeah. I just…”
“Just remember: be confident. Be patient. Be yourself. Say what you mean and--Shit, I really have to go. Call me tonight, okay, Lee-Bee?”
“Sure thing, Mags. Love you.”
“Love you too! Bye!”
“Bye.”
I squeeze the fabric of the couch beneath my fingers. I’m almost positive I’m still drunk. But I can’t really help that, now can I? I cannot avoid our room all day. I can go to the library, but I feel like I barely know how to read. I could go out into the city, but I’m just not coherent enough for that to be safe. I could fake my death, change my name, move to Canada, and never talk to Noah again, but I feel like that could possibly have some other unintended repercussions to it.
I breathe in heavily and watch the passers-by outside for another minute or so, then realize I cannot keep stalling forever. Plus, I need my coat to go to the library. If I choose to chicken out, I can just grab it and go and pretend I need to study, right? It’s not even a lie, I definitely need to study. I have two exams in the next two weeks. And a paper. And at least three homework assignments. And a hell of a lot of reading. Listen, okay, not trying to scare anyone away from college, but it kinda sucks, if I’m being honest here. I’d much rather just lay in my bed and rot away. Y’know, as long as Noah wasn’t also in the room.
Okay. Okay. No more stalling. Time to get to the action.
Time to go confront my possibly homophobic roommate that I thought was my best friend until I told him I had a crush on him.
Wait, he’s known I was gay this whole time! How could he be homophobic? Wait, is he one of those like, “I’m cool with it just don’t hit on me” kinda guys? Oh god, I ruined our friendship. It’s my fault. I--fuck!
I need to go back to the damn room, right damn now.
Dammit.
I didn’t even realize I was up pacing. Why does this give me so much anxiety?
I shake my head, as if that can shake some sobriety into it, as if that can help cure my nerves, and shove myself into the hallway.
On the very brief walk back to my room, I manage to distract myself by running into three different people I’m only barely familiar with and strike up meaningless, stall-filled conversations with all three of them, then I hop into the bathroom for a nice, procrastination-filled session on the toilet. Not that you needed that information.
Now, I’m standing outside my own door, my keys out and ready to jingle to warn Noah that I’m coming in. I move to stick the correct key in the hole, (sexual imagery, anyone?), but as soon as I get close, the door swings away from me. Standing in the way is Noah, showered and still a little wet. He kinda looks like he does after a workout, his dark hair all wiry and matted and sticking to the side of his face in a way that makes him look smaller, somehow. The mole on his neck is also more obvious to me than normal, though that’s probably because he’s standing really fucking close to me with a dopey grin above that fucking abnormally perfect chin.
Seriously, his chin is perfect. I hate my chin. It’s round and kinda ugly and I have this little patch of skin beneath it that gives me a horrible double chin every time I look anywhere. It’s just skin, it’s not even like I can work it off! His is breathtaking. Like most of him is. Like his presence here right now is.
Though, his presence isn’t breathtaking for hotness reasons, more like, “Oh my God I do not want to see or talk to you right now I’m so extremely nervous in your presence” reasons.
“Hey, Lee! I woke up and saw you were gone so I ran and took a shower. Have you gotten breakfast yet?”
I nod and walk past him. It’s like my lips don’t work right now. My bed doesn’t creak when I flop on in.
“Uh, okay… Wait a sec, don’t you have class? You usually aren’t home on Fridays…”
I shrug.
“Is everything okay?”
“You tell me, Noah.”
His smile is confused, and he comes to sit at the foot of my bed, just like he did last night. I move my foot away when he reaches down to pat it, and he looks up at me. For the first time in I think our entire friendship, he looks nervous. He looks uncomfortable. Good. Bastard. I hope you’re fucking writhing in nerves.
But… I don’t. I don’t want you to suffer. I can’t look at you sitting on the edge of my bed like this looking like I kicked your puppy just because I’m being an ass.
“I know I like, ditched you for a week, but I just sort of needed some time to think. I hope you aren’t too mad. I know I should have told you why I was nervous, but I couldn’t come up with the right words. Mostly because I’m afraid of scaring you away.”
His gaze is avoiding my eyes, and I’m bearing straight into his soul with mine.
But what the fuck??? What does he have to worry about scaring me away with? That he just can’t live with me? I can’t even keep my face hard anymore, I have to sit up to hide some of my emotion. I pull my hoodie with me and fold into a little ball with my knees by my chest. My heart is going hard in there, and it sort of feels like it could use the added cushioning.
“I guess I should just tell you, yeah? I’ll get to the point.” He takes in a heavy breath, and stands up, his hands going right for his hair. I’m sort of enjoying seeing him so nervous, actually, and I’m not sure if that’s my sadistic streak flaring up, the fact that I think he should feel bad for freaking me out, or the fact that it feels kinda intimate to see him fall apart at the seams like this.
Comments (2)
See all