I bolted upright, gripping the knife in my hand. Winder stood at the door, looking pissed. “I didn’t realize you’d be back so soon.”
“So you decided to get high, alone?” Winder didn’t look happy at all, his voice tight and loud. I didn’t know what bothered him so much about me smoking. He said himself he had seen it dozens of times before. I wished he would stop talking.
I rolled my eyes. “Why are you so worried about this? It’s nothing new.”
“Because the situation has changed, Blaire. You’re not at a party anymore. You’re in danger, and what if someone came in while I was gone and you were high? What then?” He paused. “Are you bleeding?”
“What?” I followed his gaze to my wrist, where a thin line of blood welled up. “Oh. I must have bumped into something.”
I must have cut myself with the pocketknife when he surprised me, but I didn’t want to openly admit that.
He frowned. “What’s in your hands?”
“Nothing.” I stuffed the knife deeper into the bedding, as if I could hide anything from him.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Blaire.” Winder stormed closer, wrenching my hand so the knife fell harmlessly on the bed next to me. “What the hell? What were you doing with my knife?”
“I…uh. I…” I met his thunder-filled eyes and I couldn’t stop myself from crying. “I just hurt everywhere, Winder. It all hurts so bad, and I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Oh, baby. Baby, baby, baby.” Winder tossed the pocketknife back into the drawer, and slid on the bed next to me, gathering me into his arms. “I know. I know how bad it hurts. But that’s not the solution. You hear me?”
“I just want it all to stop, Winder. I don’t want to live in this stupid void any longer. I don’t want to hate myself for not remembering, and I don’t want to be afraid of remembering. Where am I supposed to go from here? Where? How am I supposed to move on with my life when I don’t even know who I fucking am?” I sobbed, and Winder twisted me around in his lap so I faced him. He stroked my hair.
“You put one foot in front of the other. One after the next, day in, and day out, until it’s not something you have to think about anymore. Until it becomes normal again. Things aren’t going tofall into place overnight. It’s going to take work, and it’s not going to be easy, and yeah, it’s going to hurt. But I’d like to think you’re worth it.”
I wanted to bottle his words, to wrap myself in them like a blanket. I wanted to sew them to the outside of my skin so I would remember them even when I stumbled. “Why are you so good to me? I don’t deserve any of this.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Winder rolled me off him, curling along my back. “I think everyone deserves to have someone who pulls them up when they fall. Humans aren’t perfect. None of us are, even the ones who pretend. And I think sometimes it’s refreshing to embrace those imperfections. Flaws aren’t inherently bad. They’re just something that stands out against a mold we all think we’re supposed to fit into.”
He traced a line down my arm, his light touch bringing me back to him time and time again.
“Do you think we’re bad people?” I murmured, needing to speak the words aloud, and to hear his answer.
Winder’s finger paused. “No. I don’t. I think we’re two people who are making the best of a shit situation. And somehow, I think it makes perfect sense, because in some ways, I know you better than you know yourself.”
“If you…” I trailed off, almost scared to hear his answer. “If you could go anywhere in the world, right now, where would you go?”
“The beach,” he answered without hesitation. “I’d go to the ocean. There’s something about it that calms all the anger in me. It’s like seeing something so much bigger than myself, something I have so little control of, it makes me realize how small of a part I play on this earth. It brings me back to myself, when I go too far.”
“I think you’re a lot bigger than you realize,” I said.
I didn’t need to see him to know he was smiling. “And you, Blaire Barlowe, are going to do even bigger things.”
I didn’t think that was the truth, but I couldn’t contest him when he sounded so happy and at peace. I owed him that much. We fell quiet, lying together in a comfortable silence. The late afternoon sun shifted to evening, and neither of us made an effort to move. Leaving this bed would mean acknowledging the outside world, and what we had to do next.
Eventually, Winder cleared his throat, interrupting the silence wrapped around us. “Do you want to talk about earlier? It might help to get things off your chest, and I’m a good listener.”
I watched the reflection of the light on Winder’s ceiling, making craters and divots out of the popcorn texture. It looked like my own personal moon, so close I could reach out and touch it. That was how dreams worked, wasn’t it? Something so far-fetched, so unachievable, within your reach. Too bad humans were flawed, and we tended to trip right at the finish line.
Still, I reached my hand out toward the makeshift moon, the speckled light coming in from the window dotting my skin. I didn’t know how to put my emotions into words. They all felt like they would fall short. How did one describe what it felt like to doubt your entire soul, right as it felt like everything was falling into place?
I opened my mouth, only to close it again.
“Have you ever thought about starting over?” I whispered finally.
Winder laughed softly, the sound reverberating through my entire chest, an echo I never wanted to lose. “Wasn’t I the one who asked you about a time machine?”
“Yeah. But I mean, time machines would just let you go back and tell yourself to make a different decision, right? What if you had the opportunity to start over completely. Fresh. No scars on your soul. No mistakes.” My heart ached, throbbing down to mywrists, as I confessed the secrets that lay so close to my skin, like sharing them might strip me raw. “That’s what I couldn’t get out of my mind, that maybe I could solve all my problems with a time machine.”
