Chapter 40

                                    

                                          
Waking up the next morning felt like tearing myself from quicksand. Heavy, dreamless sleep. Another roller coaster ride in the abyss. I blinked open swollen eyelids, my vision blurry, my mouth dry as a desert.
Cold. A glance down told me I was only wearing underwear. I had a vague memory of stripping off my orange jumpsuit and crawling into bed, barely having the strength to pull the covers over myself.
At least I wasn't alone in my cold quicksand bed.
I crawled over to Michael and curled around him, digging stiff fingers into his unzipped jacket until I could feel the warmth of his skin. If he wasn't awake already, the sudden presence of a freezing body atop his certainly did the trick.
"Ah, fuck," he mumbled, but didn't move to push me away. "Your hands are fucking ice."
The pain behind my eyes was coupled with simmering nausea, the kind that made me want to puke just so it would go away. "I know." My voice came out raspy. "That's why I'm tryna warm them up."
He let me wrap around him, hands under his shirt, legs intertwining with his. I had socks on, flimsy ones that offered pathetic resistance against the biting cold.
I peeked one eye open to gauge Michael's expression. He looked obnoxiously well-rested. "Dude, I think I'm still high."
That made him laugh. "You're such a lightweight."
"I'm a cheap date," I said.
I felt him kiss my hair, messy as it was, and nuzzle into it, hands reaching up from his sides to hold me. "Does that mean you'll let me take you on a date?"
My heart spiked with sudden fear, a dizzy spiral of questions. What would that look like, how should I act? Almost as quickly, I pushed them down. "Yeah, okay," I said. Then, thinking that sounded pretty lame, added, "I'd like that."
"Okay..." When I glanced up, he looked happy, slightly surprised. "Okay," he said, more confidently. "Cool."
"Cool," I echoed. Bright round balloons of euphoria rose up, up, up, and burst in a deafening pop. The reality of our situation rushed in to sweep away the remnants of bliss, leaving me with a sickening dread in my stomach.
I pressed my ear to his chest, counting down heartbeats as I debated my next words. My impulse control was something I was trying to work on, but so was my communication. I decided to say it as directly as possible.
"Michael, you need to break up with Heather."
Immediately he tensed, I could feel it. "I'll figure it out," he mumbled.
I set my jaw. I was torn on how to respond. Half of me didn't want to respond at all, just curl up with him and forget about it for another day. Half of me wanted that so bad.
"You've been saying that for a month." The words were out before I could stop them, phrase them better, acknowledge my own role in the problem. I bit my lip and stared at my hands while I waited for him to reply.
"I'll figure it out today." With all the determinism of a kid saying I'm going to build a rocketship to the moon!
I love you, I wanted to scream at him. I love you and I'm ready to give up everything for you, why won't you do the same?
Or was it all simply too little, too late? All the weeks I'd wasted playing hard to get, pushing him away, denying my feelings. How could I blame him for not wanting to deal with that?
Michael nudged me. "Hey, you should try to go to class today." Ever since Rhoda got us kicked out of World History, I hadn't felt like showing up to my other classes. I mostly sat in the back and didn't talk to anyone.