Page 31 of Here In Your Arms

“Sure, thanks. You have quite the stack there.”

I turn my head and look, pushing away the heaviness that’s lingering as best I can. “Oh, yeah, I like to grab the ones with fun titles or covers and read the backs slowly before I buy any.”

“That’s such a cool way to do it. I’ve never thought about that. Usually, I know exactly what I’m going for,” she says. Her voice has smoothed to a more comfortable pace, and I wonder if she was nervous saying hi.

“Thanks,” I tell her, and take a sip of my coffee.

“You okay? I mean, I know you don’t know me well, and I don’t know you well so you can tell me to fuck off if you want. You just seem kind of down, I guess. Since I only met you once I suppose I don’t really know,” she says, looking over at me.

I debate what to tell her. Usually, people don’t actually want to know, but she seems sincere. She made a point to check on me at the bar when he was being an asshole. Maybe she really cares? Why does she care anyway? She doesn’t know me.

“Why do you care?” I ask softly.

She sighs and looks away from me into the rest of the store. “I have a friend who struggles with bad thoughts. She has so much anxiety she deals with and she’s trying to be better, but it made me start noticing when someone might be struggling. She’s wonderful. I’m so grateful I met her, but I wish I had known about her anxiety before putting my foot in my mouth around her.”

“What happened?” I ask before I can stop myself.

She smiles a little. “The first time I met her, she got overwhelmed and walked away from the table we were at, so I followed her to try to talk to her. I didn’t realize it was anxiety, so instead of talking to her about that, I just started in on what I thought the problem was. She chewed me out and left.”

“That seems rude.”

“Knowing what I know now, I see why she did it.” Morgan is still smiling as she tells the story. “I’ve gotten better about approaching people and trying to determine who they are before assuming I can help.”

I nod slowly, turning her words over in my mind. I’m still not really sure what her end game here is, but maybe she is just a nice person who wants to help. She seems like it, but I know that my friends have all thought I was too much and never stayed. Maybe if I just keep that in mind, it won’t be so bad when she leaves. Wes and Kyle probably won’t be far behind, so it’ll be good practice to deal with the feeling.

“I’m not particularly okay, then. It’s… uh, it’s a bad brain day today,” I tell her, eyes glued to my coffee.

“Sorry to hear that. Can I ask what a bad brain day means?”

“Yeah, sorry, I just default to what I normally call things…”

“Hey, it’s not a problem. I just want to understand, you know?” She smiles gently at me.

I nod. “Yeah, I get it. To me, it means that my brain isn’t working the way I want it to. Everything feels heavy, it’s hard to function, I don’t really want to do anything. Most days I have some of that, and I can ignore it, but bad brain days are the days it’s really hard to push through or days where I can’t push through.”

“I’m glad you did today enough to be here. It’s nice to be able to be here with you.”

I look over at her, and she’s looking at me with kind eyes. I expected pity or maybe panic as she tried to figure out how to escape, but I see only kindness. Feeling caught off guard, I’m not really sure what to do with it. My eyes fix back down to my coffee.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable… I can leave if you want,” she offers.

“No!” I say quickly. “You can stay. I’m… I’m not used to having anyone understand. They usually try to run or look at me like I’m pathetic. It’s nice to be heard.”

“I’m happy to hear you.”

I clear my throat. “What kind of books do you like to read?”

We spend the next hour discussing books and getting to know each other more. Morgan enjoys smut, thankfully, so we had a lengthy conversation on what our favorites are: genres, authors, books. Our tastes are similar, but we do swap some recommendations in areas the other hasn’t quite gotten into yet. By the end of our conversation, I have three books to buy and I’m feeling more relaxed about having shared stuff about myself with Morgan. The bad brain day isn’t gone, but I feel some comfort at least in talking with her.

“Are you feeling shitty still?”

If it was another person, I might think she was fishing to see if she fixed my brain, but the way Morgan asks gives me the sense that she’s just checking in. There’s no pressure to say the right thing, just a friend asking a friend. I guess that’s what it feels like. Huh.

“Yeah. Bad brain day is still in full effect.”

“That fuckin’ sucks.”

I huff a laugh. “Yeah, maybe it’ll be better tomorrow.”

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