Page 25 of If This Gets Out

Zach flicks the ceiling light off, and a rustling of fabric tells me he’s taking his jeans off. I fiercely regret him turning the light off. “Do I… can I just…?” his disembodied voice asks in the darkness.

“Yeah, get in,” I say. I want to add, “Where did you think you were gonna sleep?” but I somehow rein the sass in.

He gingerly crawls under the covers beside me. He’s radiating heat.

“Screw Erin, too, and screw Chorus,” I add.

Zach groans. “I don’t care. I don’t even… care.”

“Good. Because they don’t know anything, and they’re stupid.”

A shuffling on the bed tells me he’s rolled onto his side, closer to me. “They didn’t get it wrong. You’re all better looking than me.”

I roll over so fast my head lurches. Too fast for a drunk guy, apparently. “That,” I say, “is the stupidest shit you’ve ever said. You’re hot.”

“Naaahhhhh.”

“Yeeeaaahhh,you are. You”—I reach out to poke him, feeling around in the darkness until my fingers collide a little too hard with his chest—“should be on the top of that list.”

“No.”

“Number one!”

He swats my hand away, and our fingers entangle for a second. “Stop lying.”

“I’m not.”

He shuffles in place to get comfortable, and it brings him closer to me. “I’ve seen the guys you think are hot,” he says “They don’t look anything like me.”

My breath catches in my throat. Why, exactly, does he give a shit about which guys I do and don’t think are hot? “What?”

“They’re all, like, buff or whatever. That’s how I know you’re lying to make me feel better.”

Oh. That makes more sense. For the wildest moment I thought he meant… something else.

“Zach,” I say, as clearly as I can. “You’re beautiful. Like, actually beautiful.”

We sit in a long silence, too long to be comfortable, and my skin starts prickling with anxiety. I can’t see the expression on his face, but I’m suddenly worried I pushed it too far.

“Get some sleep,” I say when he doesn’t reply. “We have to be up in five hours.” My head’s spinning, and I’m already dreading the alarm. Tomorrow’s going tosuck. But it was worth it, I guess, for a night of letting loose for once.

“Right,” he says, and he sounds weird, and I’m pretty sure I’ve made it uncomfortable, but my brain’s too foggy to form a plan to return the vibe to normal. My brain’s just starting to adjust to my eyes being closed when I get the feeling I’m being watched. “Zach?” I whisper.

“Yeah?” his breath falls on me when he speaks. That didn’t happen the last time he spoke. He’s moved in even closer. I’m sure of it.

Suddenly it’s hard to breathe, because it’s clicked. Something’s happening right now, and I’d missed it, because I wasn’t looking for it. Like an idiot. But something’s happening.

He’s so close to me that if I shifted just an inch, I’d be touching him. Legs, stomach, chest, lips.

I freeze, because I can’t be reading this right. I just can’t. And if I move, I’ll destroy everything.

Why isn’t he backing away? We’re too close.

He lets out a heavy breath, and it’s shaky. He’s shaking. It feels like my whole body clenches at once.

He’sshaking.

So, I shift in place. As though it’s casual, an accident. But of course it can’t be, and it’s a stupid farce, because the “accident” brings our knees hard together, and our noses almost touching, and I leave it like that.

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