Time just feels … funny when Tristen’s around.
I wait for the tone, for the loud interruption to steal this moment from me, but it doesn’t come.
I guess I do get small mercies after all.
I’m uncertain when Tristen slipped sideways, but when he teeters close to falling over, I extend my leg. Can’t explain why I do other than I think his head is supposed to be propped up. I remember reading that somewhere in the manuals I peeked at while I waited for him, so I let him lean down until he’s resting his head on my thigh near my knee.
He settles. Sighs.
It’s hot. Prickly from the stubble on his cheek poking through the sweatpants I’m wearing.
“Em,” he murmurs into the quiet, and my stomach rolls over.
“Yeah. It’s me,” I whisper back just as softly.
Could he be … dreaming of me?
There’s no way that’s true, but for a moment … I let myself pretend it is, and I touch his hair.
It always looks so soft.
Parts of it feels coarse, brittle almost, and wafts the scent of smoke up from his head. It’s not much, just a few tiny ends that flitter away when I touch them, but he’s got so much hair that it raises from his scalp in tufts. I doubt he’ll even notice.
My sight homes in on the dark smear across his temple that doesn’t make sense to me, but I watch it flex every now and then.
His eyes flutter beneath his lids, the lashes dancing across his high cheekbones.
There was a time in my life … a time that I recall my mother remarking on the objective attractiveness of the guys on the TV. She only ever did it when we were alone, or at Bobbie’s, and I remember thinking it was strange to judge someone on how they appeared. The people on the TV were perfect on purpose. Intentionally made up with powders and chemicals. Even I knew that then.
But that was before the woman I knew as my mother disappeared before my eyes. Before her bed claimed her existence and her eyes dulled to nothingness.
Before even the sound of a pen dropping would send her into a spiral.
Though looking at Tristen now, I believe he’d be appealing by those standards.
But what I find myself seeking out, instead, is the crook of his front tooth I suddenly wish I could see. The scar across his brow that prevents the hair from growing. Uneven coloring in the stubble that’s grown in on his chin.
A large freckle on his forehead I don’t think I’ve noticed before.
The ring through his nose.
The many tattoos that shade his skin in greyscale.
Those things … the ones that make himTristen… are what’s appealing to me.
The things I never saw on the TV.
But he should be.
He’s … pretty.
My stomach flutters into little knots and I force myself to look away.
It’s not until I’ve broken the trance that I realize my fingers are intwined in his hair, scratching at his scalp.
I want to pull them back. Fold my hoodie sleeve over them to keep them from wandering.
Though, this time, I don’t.
