Sitting on the opposite couch, staring straight at me with a bowl against his chest, was Sacha.
Of course it was.
I smiled weakly at him and got to my feet with a mumbled, “Morning.”
I looked away before Sacha replied back with a “Morning, Gaby,” as I bent over and shook Mason’s shoulder some more.
“Go back to your bunk, crackhead,” I told my lifelong friend.
Mase groaned and rolled onto his back, opening up one sleepy eye. He waved me off, and I figured I’d done my best. If he ended up with Sharpie on his face, it was his fault.
I staggered to bed, pulled the curtain across and went back to sleep.
“Gaby? Are you awake?”
Yeah, I was awake. No, I still didn’t really want to talk to him.
I’d been lying down in my bunk for the last hour, head aching, the curtain blocking everything and everyone out while I traded on and off between thinking and reading. I thought about my family that I’d just seen and how they loved me, about Eli who was my partner in crime for life, Laila, Mason and Gordo. I even thought about Brandon briefly. Mainly, I thought about Sacha, how I felt about him and how I needed to get over it. Or at least deal with my crush more effectively.
I’d gotten over a big breakup already and this wasn’t even a breakup though to a certain extent, it felt worse. Maybe because there hadn’t been a single chance of anything. Or maybe just because I was crazy. More than likely it was just me being crazy and dumb and a sore loser.
Regardless, I needed to get over it.
“Gaby?” the voice whispered again.
I glanced up like I could see through the materials separating Sacha’s bunk from mine and felt my lips purse together for a second. In that same moment, I wondered about what he’d want to talk about. I needed a few more minutes for my new mindset to really kick in, so I stayed quiet.
I’d overheard them talking about how we were stopping pretty soon to shower, and I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone yet.
Get over it, Gaby. Deal with it. Quit being a little bitch.
“Best of the Best?” Sacha whispered once more.
I didn’t respond, but I did feel slightly bad.
Was I being an asshole? I’d had guy friends in the past who liked me, and I didn’t like in return for one reason or another. But had I been awkward and rude to them? Of course not. Had they been upset with me for not wanting to date them?
No. They hadn’t.
In hindsight, I realized that I was being more of a bitch than I needed to. I had gone out of my way to avoid Sacha. When he made some kind of indication that he wanted to talk to me, I’d do something so that he couldn’t. I knew I was being immature, but I was so disappointed in myself that I didn’t have the heart to want to talk to him.
That wasn’t his fault.
All of a sudden, the curtain to my bunk swung open and the next thing I knew, this gigantic body caused an eclipse before rolling onto my bed, closing the velvety material behind him.
And I knew it was a “him” even though my eyes hadn’t adjusted. I could recognize Eli’s scent in a landfill.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-hissed at him, his head exactly five inches away from mine. His body crowded mine into the back paneling so I was on my side, crammed against the wall.
“Are you awake?” he asked in a normal voice. I still couldn’t see his face clearly.
“I am now.” I whispered back, conscious that a certain singer might still be in his bunk, listening in.
He poked me in the forehead with his index finger. “Is your period over yet?”
Only he would think about asking me that. I’d swear Eli was the most desensitized man on the planet. There were times when I was younger that I think he seriously believed we were the same person in two different bodies. “Yes. Why?”
“I want to know if you’re done being in a shitty mood.”
