A message.
Micah:i’m sorry i love u pls come home
* * *
Micah
Wherever Sam had been, I was expecting it to take longer than fourteen minutes for him to burst through the front door.
It slammed behind him, leaving us standing in darkness, him shrouded in shadow as his shoulders heaved.
Resuming my med regime had calmed me in recent days. My mind no longer jumped from fire to the ocean and back again in ten seconds flat, but even with the chemical-induced zen, I still found it hard to believe he was really there.
I stepped forwards.
He stepped back.
“Sam—”
“What? What do you want to say, Micah?”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Everything.”
“Be specific. I’m not dealing too well with my miseducated guesses.”
He was so cute when he was fuming. In different circumstances, I might’ve found humour in his balled fists and flashing eyes, but there was nothing funny about the hurt marring his beautiful face. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I made you worry. And I’m sorry I didn’t take my pills. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
“An accident?”
“Yeah. I didn’t realise I’d started missing them, and then I lost my shit too much to make the connection.”
It felt good to say it out loud to someone who wasn’t paid to be interested. Dom had done his best, but we weren’t close enough for him to care for me like a real friend. He felt sorry for me.
Sam didn’t feel sorry for me. Judging by his expression, he still wanted to throttle me.
I chanced another step forwards. This time, he didn’t move. My hands itched to grab his, but I kept them at my sides. I’d recovered enough to trust my feelings, but deserved or not, I couldn’t handle his rejection. Not yet. “I’ve been to the doctor and my therapist. They said missing all those doses woulda made me really ill. And I was ill for a little while. I felt sick because of the Prozac withdrawal, like my head was a fucking spaceship, but the mood stabilisers were worse. I didn’t know what I was feeling, man. I lost it... not as bad as before, but another few days... if you hadn’t called...”
Words failed me. What if Sam hadn’t called? What if he hadn’t been in my room and realised my mistake? Would I ever have figured it out for myself?
Somehow I doubted it. And then what?
God, I couldn’t go there. The scar on my leg throbbed in time with my thudding pulse, and the nausea I’d carried for weeks kicked up a gear.
I scrubbed a hand down my face. For days, I’d imagined this moment, how I’d crawl into the darkest corners of my mind and tell Sam anything he needed to hear to believe that it wasn’t me that had run from him, that it was demons I’d relearned how to contain. But with him so close and yet so far, I didn’t know where to start. Where it ended. Or how to explain the mess that had come in the middle.
“Micah.”
He said my name like a prayer. I swallowed hard and met his gaze. “Yeah?”
“How long are you staying?”
“What?”
“How long are you staying? I mean, are you back? Or is this a stepping stone to something else, cos if you’re moving out, I’d rather go back to the pub while you get on with it, okay? I don’t need a conversation.”
