by Natalie Ward
I have really fucked this up. Deep down I’ve always known that, known I have probably ruined it beyond all salvation. It’s what I did, what I always used to do. And this time, it’s no different because I’m the one who ended it. I’m the one who threw away the best thing that had ever happened to me.
But I want to start again, I want us to start again and I need to explain to him, to make him understand why I did what I did. But most of all, he needs to understand that this time I’m going to fight for it, this time I’m not throwing away the one thing, the one person I want more than anything else in the world.
So I kill the light, step further into his room and take a seat on his bed. I tuck my legs underneath me and I sit and I wait for Jared to come back. Hoping more than anything that he will.
Five years ago – Jared
I’m making coffee in the kitchen when Mia walks in. It’s just after ten o’clock and I’m already running late for work.
“Hey,” I say, turning to look at her.
She’s still in the clothes I put her to bed in. Her hair is all over the place in a way that almost makes me laugh because of how ridiculous it looks, and her eyes are bloodshot. In other words, she looks completely hungover.
“Coffee?” I ask, when it becomes apparent she isn’t going to respond like she normally does.
I watch as she nods yes without looking at me.
“You want some aspirin too?” I ask, desperate for her to say something, anything.
Mia nods again before she jumps up to take a seat on the counter, wincing at the movement. I grab some aspirin from above the fridge before I make her some coffee. As I’m about to pour creamer into it, I see her shake her head.
“Black?” I ask, trying to catch her eye.
Mia nods again and I am about to reach my fucking breaking point. I can’t tell if she’s not speaking to me because of embarrassment, her hangover, or both. As I put her cup of coffee on the counter beside her, I stand in front of her and stick my finger under her chin, tilting her head up and forcing her to look at me.
“You alright?” I ask.
Mia blinks before the slightest blush crosses her cheeks. My finger is still resting under her chin and her eyes are flicking between mine and anywhere else in the room, as if she can’t decide whether she wants to look at me or not.
“Hangover,” she eventually mumbles.
I keep watching her. Watch as her eyes refuse to meet mine now, as the blush on her cheeks deepens. I’m guessing this means she remembers everything that happened last night, that she isn’t just hungover, she’s embarrassed and avoiding me too.
I remove my finger from her chin and hold out my other hand. “Take these,” I say, putting the aspirin into her palm when she opens it.
I feel a jolt of electricity race up my arm as her fingers close around mine. I reluctantly take my hand away. It takes everything in my power not to just step closer, slide my hand around her waist so I can pull her against me and kiss her. Start up everything I put a stop to last night. But then she turns away, pulling her eyes from mine as she grabs her coffee and throws the aspirin back.
“Thanks,” she says as she hops off the counter and walks out of the kitchen without looking back.
I hear the bathroom door close, the sounds of the shower starting up as I’m left standing alone in the kitchen. I want to say something to her to make this right, to make her realise that me turning her down last night had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me. That I only said no to her because I didn’t want to do anything with her when she was so drunk she had no idea what she was doing. Because I’ve had too many of those experiences myself to ever inflict one on her.
I don’t want it to be like that with Mia. I want what ever is there, waiting to happen between us, to be real. Because at the moment, the feelings I have for her are the most real thing I have ever felt.
But I can’t because what I’m left with is me, standing alone with no one to say all these things to and a coffee to drink before I have to go to work.
By the time I get home, the apartment is in darkness, the only light coming from the TV quietly playing in the living room.
“Hey,” I hear Luke say as I walk in.
I nearly drop my fucking guitar when I hear his voice, something that might be guilt momentarily flashing through me. “Hey, you’re still awake. How you feeling?”
“Yeah, okay thanks. How was work?” he asks.
“Same, busy,” I answer, heading into the kitchen. “You want anything?”
“Nah I’m good,” Luke says.
I open the fridge to grab a beer, but find myself standing, staring at the almost empty shelf instead. Shit, Mia and I really did drink a lot last night; no wonder things got so fucked up. A part of me wonders if I should say something to Luke or if I should just act like last night with Mia never happened. Has she said something to him? What the fuck would I even say anyway, nothing really happened when you think about it. I mean apart from the kissing, Mia’s hands on my dick, and Mia asking me to sleep with her. And let’s not forget me shutting her down, her passing out and me putting her to bed. No, nothing happened at all.
“Fucking idiot,” I mutter to myself before I reach in, grab a beer and head back to the living room.
Luke is still sitting on the couch watching some crime show on TV, the sound turned down so low, I can barely hear it.
“Head still hurt?” I ask him, taking a seat
“Yeah, but not as bad as before.”
“Good. Mom did say it would probably take a couple of weeks before it’s back to normal,” I tell him, knowing he knows all of this already.
“Yeah.”
We sit in silence for a bit. I want to ask him where Mia is, whether he’s seen her today and if she’s okay now. But I don’t quite know how to. I don’t think I have anything to feel guilty about, do I?
“You and Mia have a few last night?” Luke suddenly asks as I lift the bottle to my mouth.
“What?” I say, nearly choking on a mouthful of beer.
“You two have a few drinks last night?” Luke asks, turning to look at me now. “Mia seemed pretty hungover today, that’s all.” His voice is neutral and in the darkness it’s hard to read his face, but I don’t think he knows.
I exhale before taking another sip of my beer, slower this time so I don’t choke on it. “Yeah, we did. I think she needed to let off some steam, you know.”
I turn back and face the TV, unable to look at Luke in case he sees that I’m lying. Well not exactly lying, but not exactly telling him the whole truth either. I’m not even sure whether that falls under the lying category or not.
“Thank you Jared,” Luke says quietly.
“For what?” I ask, genuinely surprised as I turn to look at him. The TV flashes and I catch a glimpse of his face, which is still a train wreck. It makes me wince as though I’ve taken the hit myself, every time I look at it. I still can’t believe his own father did that to him.
“For calling her and telling her what happened,” Luke says. “For, you know, everything.”
“It was nothing dude,” I say, not sure where he’s going with this. “The least I could do anyway.”
“Yeah it was Jared, and you know it. So, thank you.”
I quickly down the rest of my beer before standing up. “You’re welcome,” I tell him, suddenly wanting to get the fuck out of here before this conversation goes somewhere I’m not ready to deal with. “I’m gonna go to bed. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
I take a quick shower before heading into my room where I turn on some music and climb into bed. I’m tired and hungover myself, but mostly I’m exhausted from last night and this morning. From trying to make sense of what happened with Mia and wondering if she really is okay. I really want to talk to her about what happened, but I’m starting to think that’s going to be next to impossible, given how well trying to talk to her about her dad went last night.
I’ve been
lying in bed staring at the ceiling for the last hour trying to work out what to do, when my phone sounds with an incoming text message.
Hey you.
I’m so shocked when I read it, that I actually look up, as though I’m expecting Mia to be standing in the doorway or something. She isn’t of course, so I quickly text back: Hey yourself.
I wait impatiently for her to write something back to me. A full minute passes without a response. I’m about to text her again when my alert goes off.
Sorry about…you know
I run my hand through my hair. So, I was right, she does remember what happened last night. Not really surprising given the way she was acting this morning. I text back: are you ok?
Her response comes back quicker this time: hungover...embarrassed.
I write back, trying to reassure her: don’t be, nothing to be embarrassed about.
Mia’s next words make me feel like shit: easy for you to say.
I want her to know that I mean it. I want her to come in here so I can tell it to her face, reassure her that I’m not sorry she pulled the moves on me, I’m only sorry I had to say no. I text her back again: I mean it. Wanna talk?
Mia texts me again: aren’t we?
I exhale loudly, taking a chance: face to face?
As soon as I hit send, I wait, watching my phone and willing the text alert to come up again. But the next noise I hear is a knock at my door.
“Yeah?”
The door opens a few inches and Mia’s face peeks through. “Can I come in?”
“Of course you can.” I sit up in bed as she walks in. I’m not wearing a shirt, and it crosses my mind that I should put one on, given what we’re about to talk about. Mia is dressed in a UCLA t-shirt and boxer shorts and she looks fucking gorgeous. I watch as she walks towards my bed and sits on the end of it, crossing her legs under her like she always does.
“You alright?” I ask her again.
She shrugs at me now, but doesn’t look away this time.
“You have nothing to be sorry for Mia,” I tell her. “A lot of shit has gone down over the last few days and…” And I’m not really sure what else to say.
She shrugs at me again and I don’t know if she’s agreeing with me or she’s not sure herself. We sit, neither of us saying anything now. Mia is playing with the blanket and I’m not really sure what to do. Why do I get so fucking tongue tied around this girl?
Eventually, Mia speaks, “I’m really sorry about last night, Jared. I was drunk, but it’s no excuse for what I did.” She’s playing with the ends of her hair now, wrapping it around her fingers.
I take a deep breath, knowing I need to speak; that I need to let her know it’s okay. “There’s nothing to apologise for, I promise,” I tell her. “Like I said, a lot’s happened, sometimes you need to let off some steam. God knows I’ve done…” I’m about to say, dumb things when I’ve been drunk, but I don’t want her to think that what happened or was about to happen between us, was dumb.
“Yeah but it’s no excuse for what I did, what I tried to do,” she says, thankfully not giving me a chance.
I look at her and watch as Mia blushes and looks away. I can’t help but think back to any other time a girl has thrown her drunken ass at me. I’ve said no to them in the past, but not all of them, and not necessarily that often. Some, I just wasn’t interested in; some were crashing a guy’s night out. But Mia is definitely the first drunk girl I’ve said no to, who I actually wanted to sleep with. And strangely enough, that’s exactly why I did say no to her. Because I don’t want just a drunken night with Mia. I don’t want a one-night hook-up. Because I’m interested in her, most definitely, but I’m interested in her, like long-term type interested in her. And I certainly don’t want to fuck that up with any drunken misunderstandings, even though it seems as though that might have already happened.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” I ask her instead, hoping.
“Not really,” she answers, staring at her hands. “I think I’d rather just pretend it never happened.”
I smile, even though she isn’t looking at me. Although I haven’t known her that long, I now know this is typical of Mia. Ignore the problem, put a wall around it and hope it will go away. She doesn’t, but I do want to talk about last night. I want her to know why I said no and that if she asked me right now, I’d only be saying yes to her. But I also know there’s a bigger problem that caused last night, the problem she still refuses to talk about at all.
“Do you want to talk about what happened with your dad, Mia?” I try.
Mia smiles now and finally looks at me again. “Can’t we just talk about something else, something completely different?” she asks, hopeful.
“Sure,” I say, even though I know she is once again avoiding it. But at least we’re talking again and to be honest, right now, I’d rather that than trying to force her to talk about something she doesn’t want to talk about. God, I’m such a fucking pussy.
Mia smiles at me now, before a shiver runs through her. I realise she must be freezing sitting on the end of my bed dressed like that, so I scoot over and pull back the covers for her, indicating she should slide under it.
“What?” she asks, surprised as she rubs her hands up and down her arms. I can see the goose bumps from here.
“You’re cold,” I say. “Get in.”
She stops moving now as though she actually is frozen. She’s looking at me like she’s about to say no, and I can’t help but hold my breath as I wait to see whether she does.
“Thanks,” she eventually whispers as she crawls forward and slides under the covers. We lie down, heads on separate pillows and I pull the blanket up so we are covered to our chests. We are both staring up at the ceiling with a foot of space between us that feels more like a mile. We don’t talk at first; the only sound in the room is the music that’s playing, filling the empty space between us. I can’t even hear Mia breathing. I do hear the soft laugh she finally lets out though.
“What?” I ask, turning my head on the pillow to look at her.
“The ceiling,” she answers smiling, as she points to it.
I don’t look, I already know what she’s talking about. “Yeah, they were there when we moved in and I’ve never taken them down,” I say. “I kinda like them.”
“Turn the light off,” Mia says, turning to face me now.
I have to remind myself to breathe as I turn away and reach over to switch off the light. The room plunges into darkness and it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust and the ceiling to light up. But when it does, I hear Mia’s whispered, “Wow,” as she takes in the hundreds of glow in the dark stars that fill my ceiling.
“I wonder who did this?” she says, her voice a whisper in the darkness.
I turn to look at her, barely able to make her out. “I don’t know, maybe it was a kid’s room before me.”
“I’m glad you left them up there,” she says, still staring up at the ceiling.
I turn back and see what she is seeing. It’s almost like lying under the evening sky, even though you can never see anything like this in Boston. It makes me think about lying under a real sky like this sometime, with Mia by my side. Only in my dream, she is lying wrapped in my arms. For just a second I can almost picture it and it takes every ounce of self-control that I have not to just reach out and pull her into my arms, right now.
“Thank you Jared,” she whispers.
“For what?” I ask, not looking at her this time.
I hear Mia’s head rustle against the pillow. I’m guessing she’s rolled over and is looking at me, but I don’t move, too afraid of what will happen if I look at her now.
“For everything,” she eventually says.
I have to force myself to swallow, to even breathe. My heart is pounding in my chest and my fingers are tingling, itching to reach out and touch her. I want to ask Mia what everything means, what she’s really thanking me for. I want to tell her that last night was a mistake, but the m
istake was me letting her get so drunk in the first place that I’d have to say no to her. I want to tell her that I’m sorry, that if she asked me now, I would say yes, a million times over.
But I don’t say anything and by the time the music stops playing, both of us have drifted off to sleep, lying together under these stars and now only a foot apart.
Today, 12:52am – Mia
As I sit alone in Jared’s room, I look around and notice nothing much has changed. It’s the same as it always was, from the very first night I spent in here, to the last. Sitting in his room, with only a side lamp on, it casts the space in a muted darkness that is eerily reminiscent of the first night I came in here to make up for being a drunken idiot. That was the first night I ever slept with Jared, even if it was literally just sleeping.
It was actually one of the best night’s sleep of my life and when I’d woken up the next morning and found him still sleeping next me, I hadn’t ever wanted to leave. Somehow during the night, we’d drifted closer together and I’d woken up to find my body curled around his, my front pressed to his back. My arm had wound itself around his chest and my hand was resting over his heart, against the warmth of his bare skin. But the thing that had really gotten to me, had completely taken my breath away, was Jared’s hand, resting right over the top of mine. Our fingers were threaded together as though he was keeping me there, pressed against him, holding my hand against his heart as though it was all mine to have.
It had made me feel warm all over, a peaceful calm that slowly moved through every single nerve and every single fibre inside me. I could feel the strong and steady beat of his heart under my hand, which was nothing compared to the hammering that was going on inside my chest as it rested against his warm back. And it was right in that moment I realised what was happening to me, the very thing I didn’t think I was capable of.
And that was when I had freaked the hell out.
I had to get out of there. After throwing my drunken ass at him the night before and then having him reject me, the last thing I wanted was for him to wake up and find me wrapped around him like some kind of desperate freak. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep at all, but it had felt so right, so peaceful, lying here with him, looking up at the stars. But I knew I had to get out of there before he woke up and found me like that. So carefully, I slid my hand from under his and pulled my protesting body away from him. Jared had moved, almost whimpered in his sleep as I did and I remember freezing, scared he was going to wake up. But he didn’t, so I held my breath as I pulled myself from his arms and his bed.