“Aiden,” I shout, trying to keep the panic at bay.
It’s fine. This is fine. Everything will be fine.
He’ll help me.
“Aiden!” I shout again, louder this time, and definitely edging intoscreechterritory. I can feel my breath coming in short, sharp bursts, causing my chest to hurt, and—oh, no. Is this a heart attack? Am I having a heart attack? “Aiden!”
When I hear the thundering of feet coming down the stairs, my body buzzes with relief. Or maybe it buzzes because I’m losing sensory input; I’m not sure. Whatever the case, I do feel relief, and I am buzzing—an unpleasant tingling feeling that starts in my hands and feet and moves gradually up my limbs.
“Help,” I croak pathetically. “Help me, please. In here.” The tiled floor and walls of the bathroom cause my words to echo slightly, bouncing back, mocking me like mean kids on the playground.
A second later, I hear a tentative knock at the door. “What are you going on about?” Aiden says from the other side, sounding grumpy. “I’m trying to grade papers.”
“Help me,” I say again.
“I’m not coming in there. What you do in the bathroom is your own business. I don’t need to see that?—”
“Get in here and help!” I shout. The panic is starting to overwhelm me again, the pain around my middle becoming more and more unbearable by the second. “It’s not locked. Open the door and come help me!”
There’s a solid five seconds of under-his-breath grumbling from Aiden before he cracks the door open.
And I swear, he could not be moving more slowly if he tried. He is molasses running down tree bark on a snowy day, and Ido not have timefor that.
“Aiden!” I snap. “I’m not naked or sitting on the toilet. Open the freaking door or so help me?—”
The door flies open with a bang, revealing a glaring Aiden.?* “Listen up,” he begins, striding into the bathroom. “I do not want to be summoned whenyou’re in the—in the—in—” But his words fade away as he takes in the situation, his eyes widening, his jaw dropping.
I look down at him from the window where I’m stuck, half-inside, half-outside, legs flailing, my upper body dangling helplessly. “Please help me,” I say as tears start to pool in my eyes. “It hurts, Aiden?—”
“For thelove,Juniper,” he says with a sigh, rubbing his temples in the way he always does when he’s annoyed by something I’ve said or done. He looks up, his eyes raking over me, clearly assessing. “Why are you like this? How did this happen? What on earth are you thinking?”
He hurries over to me, standing directly under the window and lifting his arms. His strong hands grasp me under the armpits, relieving some of the pressure and pain from where the windowsill is digging into my stomach.
“I’ve got you,” he says, shaking his head—probably at my stupidity. “Give me your weight, come on. I’ve got you.”
“I thought I would fit, but I didn’t! It’s because I’m pear-shaped,” I babble like a madwoman. “Pears aren’t supposed to go through windows?—”
“I don’t know what that means,” he mutters distractedly as he eases my body weight into his grasp. I wiggle my hips frantically, trying to find a little bit of give.
“It means you’re smaller on the top half and bigger on the bottom half,” I wail. “I’m apear, Aiden?—”
“Your bottom half and top half are both fine. Stop talking about fruit.” He pauses, then adds, “Actually, just stop talking altogether.”
I whimper in pain as I force my non-rectangular body to squish through this very rectangular hole. Aiden’s grip under my armpits is starting to hurt too, especially as more and more of my weight falls to him.
“I’ve got you,” he says again as I finallymanage to get the widest part of the pear in. And hesayshe’s got me, but I’m not quite sure I trust him—he’s grunting more than talking, and when he takes a tiny step backward, he stumbles a bit.
I don’t have a choice, though, so I finally give in, letting him have all of my weight. Then I pull my legs through the window one at a time, scraping the length of my thighs and shins against the unforgiving windowsill, tears stinging my eyes, until all of me finally makes it in…
And lands squarely on top of Aiden, sending us both sprawling to the cold tile floor.
We land like lovers in the midst of passion, my body directly on top of his, our faces inches apart, our breath knocked out of us—but the look in Aiden’s eyes isn’t the look a man gives his lover.
It’s the look a man gives the woman he’s just rescued from a very stupid situation.
It’s the look a man gives his roommate when he’s wondering if he could have her evicted.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to banish the tears of pain. Everything hurts—my legs from scraping through the window, my arms from holding up my body, my torso from the pressure of the sill. That last one will probably bruise.
