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I mumble another response but don’t answer, not really. I was never a morning person as a kid, and that didn’t change into adulthood, though I usually have a better routine in place, so waking up before the sun isn’t a total drain.
He turns me then, moving my body until I’m facing him and I let him, both because I don’t have the energy or mind space to argue, but also because I don’t want to. I want to face him, to see his sleepy morning face, interested if he’ll have the boyish tired look he used to have, the one he had when I left his bed while he was sleeping last week.
When I see his face, the light playing on the lines that are sharper than my memory has cataloged them, I see he does still have that sleepy, boyish look.
I can’t help but smile at him, his own smile widening as I do, that dimple I always loved deepening and begging for me to brush my lips to it like I did when we were young and in love.
His hand moves, brushing my hair back, then stopping on my cheek and resting there. “How do you feel?” he asks, low.
I take a moment to take stock of myself, too exhausted and drained to lie, but I don’t take note of my physical being, of how my body feels, but my mind. The exhaustion is still there, but the feeling of heaviness, like a weighted blanket covering my body, is lighter.
We’re at the tail end of this episode, it seems.
“Alright,” I whisper.
“Don’t lie to me,” he says.
I can’t help it—for what feels like the first time in forever, as it always feels after an episode, a smile tilts the edges of my lips. My hand reaches up, pushing the chunk of hair breaking up his handsome face to behind his ear. A mirror of the move he did just a moment before.
“I’m not. I’m feeling alright, not one hundred percent, but I’m feeling… better. I’m sure that has a bit to do with you.” I don’t know why I confess that, but it hangs in the air between us, a bright shining confession I both want to take back and want to repeat so he knows the truth of the statement. I do neither and I’m relieved when he doesn’t ask for clarification, instead asking me a question.
“This happens often?” I sigh and fight the urge to turn away, to hide. He’s seen me at my darkest, and I know, in a way, I’ve seen him at his. We’re even now, I guess, in a weird, twisted way.
“Often is… I don’t think it's the right word. It's not regular, not every day, but notirregular.”
I do the math, knowing this was a longer episode than normal like the stress of the world kept it around a bit longer. “This one lasted ten days, which, for me, is longer than my normal.”
He doesn’t say anything, which makes me both anxious and relieved, simply watching me, his thumb brushing over the curve of my cheek as his eyes take my face in, categorizing and memorizing everything.
I do the same, taking note of changes that I haven’t noticed on his face yet. Small changes over the last seven years, small lines beside his eyes, the way the boyish softness has left his cheeks.
“What helps?” he asks after long moments.
“What?”
“Is there anything I could do to help?.” I stare, blinking and trying to understand his question before answering.
“It’s not necessarily predictable, but stress… doesn’t help.”
His face shows pain, clear as day, guilt, and pain, and I instantly want to remove it.
“No. Not like that. It was… just a lot. The last couple of weeks have just been a lot. My mom was… my mom was the trigger. I also had work to motivate me to get up and get moving, which probably didn’t help when she fired me. I didn’t have to leave the house, so… I didn’t.”
I didn’t want to leave my house for fear of seeing anyone in our small town and having to endure their inevitable questions, either about my mother or Riggins or whatever other stories have been spun in the days since Atlas Oaks returned to Ashford.
“Leaving the house helps?”
“What?”
“Leaving the house. Does it help?”
“Sometimes. Exercise and fresh air and sunlight help, but it could also be a placebo.”
Eventually, he nods and moves, letting go of me and rolling away. My body instantly misses his touch, his warmth. Suddenly, I feel alone and small again.
But then his hand is held out to me, his tee and sweats rumpled from sleep as he hovers above me.
“Come. Get dressed,” he says.
