I leap out of bed as though it’s melting beneath my body, flicking my light on, no longer caring how bright any light is. Frantically in search of clothes, I realize I skipped laundry day, and all my clothes are dirty.
Finding a vacuum-sealed bag, I rummage through until I find what I need, an old t-shirt that I throw over my head, and thin, gray sweatpants I know have a rip in the crotch. I’m in too much of a hurry to change. Rushing out of my apartment door with my phone gripped in my hand, I look at the text again.
Snow:I need you. Please.
A text like that from the girl you’re sleeping with could mean so many things, but something in myguttells me she doesn’t need me for the ways she has in the past.
No, this is different.
She’s back in Grangewood Creek earlier than she said she’d be, and while I know very little about her life outside of the one she lives here, I feel like I know enough at this moment.
She doesn’t need me for sex.
She needs me for something else entirely.
And while everything in me is telling me to turn back around and pretend I didn’t read the text until morning, my chest is telling me—screaming at me—to go.
I read the text again while I’m in the elevator, making sure I’ve read it right and didn’t see things in my sleepy state, but the same four words appear, and each time, the same meaning rings in my head.
She needs me.
Legs bouncing as I watch the numbers tick down from floor to floor, it’s almost as if time is standing completely still and I’m anoutsider looking in, watching a desperate man trying to ignore the way a girl makes him feel.
When the sound finally dings and the doors spring open, I’m through them as fast as I can, running down the hallway when I finally make it to her apartment.
The gold numberonestares back at me while my knuckle taps on the door, and I grant myself permission to go over the text one last time to quadruple check—just to make sure I didn’t imagine it.
Her door opens slowly, but I push through it, slamming it shut behind me while our bodies crash together. Her arms loop around my middle, and mine around her shoulders, and I softly stroke her hair.
We don’t say anything to each other.
Not a single word.
We hug in silence for a while, my hands rubbing up and down her back. I don’t know why I do it, but something tells me she needs it as a reminder that I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.
We stand like that for what feels like an eternity, yet somehow not long enough, when she takes my hand in hers, and drags me to her bedroom.
I watch as she climbs into bed, signaling with her head for me to follow her, and I do.
We lay chest to back for a while. I can feel her deep breaths against my hand where it remains firmly pressed against her stomach, but she lifts it away when she turns to face me.
I can see her soft, ice-blue eyes staring up at me, only just. The moonlight is filtering in through the gaps in the blinds, and that’s when I notice the sheen, redness, and puffiness to them.
Evidence of crying.
For how long, I don’t know.
I hadn’t heard so much as a whimper since being here. I hadn’t even noticed a change in her breathing, or a tremor in her movements. Something tells me she’s perfected the art of crying in silence, never wanting to burden anybody else with her pain.
My heart aches for her.
It kills me knowing she has to hide it from people, including me.
But who am I to her, other than a guy she sleeps with?
I kiss her forehead and she closes her eyes slowly, silently letting the tears fall down her cheeks, but she wipes at them quickly, probably hoping I can’t see.
“Let them fall, Snow. I’ve got you,” I tell her, speaking for the first time since I burst through her door, and it’s like she needed permission to feel the way she does, without the guilt attached to it.
