Page 69 of Every Broken Thing

He said, “Yeah.”

“What are your dreams about?” I asked.

And Ben said, “My dad.”

The moonlight sifting through my blinds cut across his face in stripes, and his eyes glittered in the dark. He’d never talked about his dad before, and it made me ache.

“Why?” I pressed, and his eyes closed.

“Sometimes, parents aren’t who they’re supposed to be,” he said on a whisper.

The night swallowed it, stowing it away with the secrets I kept hidden too. Like the campfire in my chest that burned for the boy lying beside me. Like the picture of my mother I kept tucked in the bottom of a shoe box under my bathroom sink. Like the clothes stuffed in the corner of my closet that smelled like cheap cologne and cucumber melon.

“Stay with me, Ben,” I told him as I shifted closer. “I’ll keep your nightmares away.”

And he said, “Okay.”

We didn’t speak for a long time after that. He watched me. I watched him. Our arms brushed between our chests, our knees knocking. He hooked a foot around my calf, trapping one of my legs between his. His jeans were rough against my skin, but I didn’t mind it one bit.

As our breath mingled in the minuscule space separating us, I could practically taste the spearmint gum on his breath. But thelonger we laid there, the heavier my eyes felt. I fought the pull, but I wasn’t strong enough.

“Don’t go,” I said, and the mattress dipped as he shifted marginally closer.

His nose grazed mine, causing my eyes to close at his proximity. My stomach fluttered, and my heart jolted. I wanted to open my eyes to study his expression, but, now closed, my lids were too heavy to lift.

“You’re not going to remember this in the morning, are you?” he asked, and he sounded so inexplicably sad.

I hummed, not understanding. His fingers shifted, hesitantly slipping between mine until they twined together, and I smiled, inhaling his spring soap and spearmint.

“I love how you smell,” I mumbled.

“What do I smell like?” he asked, and he was even closer, the air pressure changing as he spoke.

“Spearmint and spring soap… and chlorine.” The last word was barely a word at all as I drifted away.

“You smell like apples and warm sand,” he said, painting his words across my mouth, never touching, but almost.Almost.“You smell like home.”

I wanted to tell him how much I loved that, but I’d lost my voice. I couldn’t find it as I sank into a black sky speckled with glowing eyes. I wanted to ask him to hold me, but I was a balloon, my string cut as I drifted higher into the inky waves of unconsciousness.

But before I dove beneath the surface completely, I swore his lips ghosted across my cheek, and I wished more than anything that it wasn’t my imagination.

20

Cheesy Eggs

An incessant pounding inmy brain woke me, and I curled myself into a ball and covered my head with my blanket to block out the glaring sunlight. My stomach roiled angrily, and my mouth tasted like ass, worsening my nausea. A piercing pain pulsed behind my right eye, and I groaned in agony.

What the fuck happened last night, and why did I feel like death?

Squeezing my eyes shut against the torture of my hangover, I tried to shift through my memories of the night before but was met with hazy pieces. They slipped through my fingers like smoke the moment I tried to grasp them. I remembered with perfect clarity the picture of Alice in Ben’s arms as they kissed, but after that, things got… weird.

I peeked out from under my blankets, and the sun punched me in the face. Why were my blinds open? I always kept them shut when I slept. Granted, I had no idea how I even got into my bedlast night. It was more than possible I forgot to close them before I passed out.

The pounding in my head started up again as I stumbled out of my bed and staggered to the window. I ripped the curtains closed violently moments before I tripped over a pair of jeans, and my jelly-like legs gave out beneath me. I fell to the floor with a crash, bruising my hip. I lay on the ground for ages until the loud banging in my brain became unbearable. Or wait, was it my head or the door?

The world spun as I rose to a sitting position—shit, was I still drunk? I swore, the floor moved under my ass, rolling like angry waves. To ensure I didn’t drown in the carpet ocean beneath me, I crawled across my floor on my hands and knees. When I arrived at my bedroom door alive, I opened it and listened intently. Sure enough, someone’s fist was beating against my front door.

Attempting to stand proved difficult, but I eventually made it to my feet. My vision blurred and the floor tilted, causing me to lean heavily against the wall. I hobbled down the hallway, scooting down the stairs on my ass like a toddler for fear of tripping down and breaking my neck in my delirious state. But after surviving the descent down the stairs, I made it to the front door.

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