I cast that thought aside with another mental shrug and ignore my ever-growinglaterpile of problems.
Instead of climbing in with me, like I expected, Micah turns away. And it makes all that dulled panic and uncertainty rise right back up inside me. I jolt up, catching his wrist and holding him more tightly than I probably should, because he turns to look at me with wide eyes.
His mouth makes a small, shocked ‘o’ for a second, before his brain seems to piece it all together. Then everything about him softens all at once. His eyes crinkle at the side, and he leans over the bed to put his face only inches in front of mine.
“I’m coming back,” he says in a conspiratorial whisper, sort of like we did when we were kids. “I’m just getting you some water and something to eat.”
I don’t know what to say to that. The truth is, it makes the trembling from before start up again, but this time deep, deep inside my chest in a place no one can see. The place that hasalways been dry and dusty because I haven’t exactly lived a life where someone was cutting the crusts off my sandwiches or bringing me glasses of water.
Instead of speaking, I grunt my acquiescence, and it makes Micah give me another small smile. I uncurl my fingers from his wrist one by one, and before I know it, I’m alone in the room.
I hate it. It lets my mind drift toward all the walls inside me and the places they’re bulging, where fissures are beginning to form from holding back too much with too little for too long.
Numbness washes over me, because it’s easier than anything else, and I don’t know how much time passes until Micah comes back. When he looks at me this time, it’s with a little frown instead of that warm expression. I’m lying down, I realize. He sits on the mattress next to me and puts a plate down on the bedside table along with his obnoxiously oversized Hydroflask thing, then his fingers gently brush some hair away from my forehead.
“Can you sit up for me for a minute to eat something?” he asks, which is a lot easier than the other things he might have, likeAre you okay?OrWhat did we just do?
With a groan, I pull myself up into a sitting position. Micah looks pleased and sits cross-legged on the mattress opposite me, reaching back and then depositing the plate between us.
It really is sandwiches. Not with the crusts cut off, because that would be ridiculous, but still. There’s a little pile of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the plate, all cut diagonally in half. Like something you would see at a kid’s birthday party.
Micah grabs one and starts eating it completely cavalierly, before nudging the plate toward me. I pick one up, but I’m slow to bring it to my mouth. It feels weird in my hand.
I suddenly worry that I didn’t get all the blood out from under my nails. When I look at my hand, it seems too big and too rough and scarred to be holding something like this. But the wayMicah is watching me intensely as he chews his own sandwich tells me I won’t get away with not eating it.
When I take a bite, the sweet and salty flavors explode on my tongue in that way they do when you haven’t eaten in way too long, and your mouth forgot what food tastes like. Like when you’re so fucking thirsty that when you finally get to drink, water suddenly tastes like the most delicious elixir on the planet.
Micah nods slightly, still watching me, and his approval makes this all go down easier. Even if it shouldn’t. I shouldn’t need that from him, but it helps anyway.
In silence, we work our way through all the sandwiches and then pass the ridiculous flask of water between us until it’s empty and Micah finally seems satisfied.
Then he finally lets me lie down again. Just when I feel so tired my body might punch through into another dimension of existence. Like I’m floating in a land that’s parallel to this one, but where the air is viscous, and every movement is weighed down by extra gravity.
We lie on our sides, not touching, but looking at each other. Daylight filters in around the edges of Micah’s blackout curtains. It’s only a little, so we can still barely see each other, but you can tell from the color that the sun is already high in the sky outside and it’s probably getting hot. I need to close my eyes, but I can’t.
Instead, I watch the little dust motes floating in the air between us, caught in each tiny spear of sunlight that’s broken through. I watch the way Micah blinks slowly and watches me back, his mind obviously humming with a thousand things he hasn’t said yet but wants to.
Eventually, when neither of us has moved or closed our eyes, Micah reaches out to me. He cups my cheek for what feels like the thousandth time since I got here.
I hate it. I hate the way it makes me feel soft and fragile and like something that needs his protection. I hate it, but thatdoesn’t stop me from nuzzling into his palm like a needy animal, taking in a deep, shuddering breath as the warmth of his skin manages to calm something in me that I didn’t know was in distress.
“We can talk about all this later, yeah?” Micah whispers to me across the darkness.
“Yeah, Bambi. Of course.”
“Just get some sleep for me. Please.”
Thepleasecrumples something inside of me, just like it always does. I reach out and grab him by the waist, dragging his body across the foot and a half of mattress that’s in between us.
Instead of objecting or stiffening, Micah just sighs. His body is soft and supple under my hands, and he lets me arrange him next to me, pressed against me everywhere. He slots one of his legs between mine and then slides his arms around my shoulders until my face is pressed against his neck. I keep my arms around his waist, exactly where they belong, and for a second, I cling to him so tightly that I don’t know if he can breathe.
This is it. This is better. I don’t know what the fuck any of it means, but not letting go is the only thing that makes me feel like I’m not unspooling at some distant corner of the universe, so I’m going to roll with that for as long as he’ll let me and deal with the consequences later.
Micah
I don’t know what time it is when we wake up, except that it’struly nighttime. Nothing but darkness sits on the other side of those curtains, and the room is so black I can only make out the vague outline of Tadhg’s face, still only inches away from mine.
Thank god I had the foresight to call out for my shift while I was making those sandwiches before. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to leave him until we’d at least had one conversation about what is happening between us.
