Page 8 of A Totally Platonic Thing
At the moment, he looked objectively like a life choice that deserved questioning if there ever was one. And there went my teeth grinding again.
The thing was…I didn’t like anyone in the world as much as I liked Chris.
Most days.
Because Chris was awesome: funny and snarky and sweet, and always wanting to make everyone around him happy. He made me happy most of the time just bybeingaround. People sometimes thought our relationship was one-sided. That I followed him around looking after him, and that he took more than he gave.
But they didn’t see all the stuff that happened when they weren’t around, and not only the awesome-roommate stuff, like picking up the slack on dishes and cooking and laundry when my classes kicked my ass. The above-and-beyond stuff. Like the long nights, and not only the first one, he’d spent helping me edit my papers and tutoring me. I was a terrible writer, and thanks to my lacking high school education I hadn’t even known what a thesis statement was until Chris patiently explained it to me. Or the way he’d picked up the pieces when the relationship I’d had when we moved in together went to crap after she cheated on me. Chris listened to me moan about it, gave me insightful advice (“If you focus on, like, the part where she cheated on you and why, you’ll only be down on yourself and never get over it. Think about how your relationship wasn’t solid in the first place instead.”), and stayed cheerful and supportive even when I became…let’s say, difficult to be around for a couple of weeks.
Up until the last couple of months, Chris had never let me down when I needed him. He always un-spiraled me when I got in my own head. He’d introduced me to his friends, like Sebastian, helping me get out of my engineer-loner rut. Through Sebastian I’d met Aidan, now my gym buddy and honestly one of my closest friends.
And bottom line, he made me happy.
Even when he was drunk, and sometimes—and yeah, I was super fucking ashamed of this—especially when he was drunk. Drunk Chris got hilariously affectionate and a little crazy in this goofy way that made me smile, even if he annoyed me once in a while. So it’d taken me a long time to realize that as much as I enjoyed Drunk Chris, it was the way he let his personality loose that I really loved. And Sober Chris had used to be happier. He’d been as silly and sweet as Drunk Chris. Only Chris had been more subdued lately in general, making his drunken personality seem more normal in comparison.
And that really worried me, and it made me feel like a complete asshole to realize I’d been focusing more on the way Chris’s drinking affected me and less on the way he’d changed over the past couple of months.
Now that I thought about it, it had started with his own breakup, which had happened over winter break. I hadn’t really considered it that way before, because he’d been visibly upset for a few days and then seemed to get over it.
But had he, really? Had I been totally blind? Because before that he’d gone out on the weekends to blow off steam, flirt, and cut loose with Sebastian or some of the guys he knew from hanging out at Aeon’s gay night. But lately it’d become weekdays, too. And this wasn’t the first time I’d gone to collect him from Aeon. It wasn’t even the first time I’d gotten a call from Aidan because Chris had been too drunk to call me for a ride himself.
Honestly, it wasn’t even the first time in the last couple of weeks, because it’d definitely escalated.
Chris might not even remember all of those times, because he usually didn’t throw up enough of the vodka to sober up a little. I was pretty sure he’d been totally blacked out a couple of times recently. He sure hadn’t seemed to remember me taking him home the next day—or at least, he didn’t show it. And Chris wasn’t the sort of guy not to acknowledge something like that. Sure, he might not actually thank me. He tended to get all worried when he thought he’d done something wrong, and he overcompensated by pretending it didn’t exist. But he would’ve brought me a sandwich in the lab, or done something else thoughtful to show me he was grateful indirectly.
So yeah, not my first rodeo.
But having to pour him into bed, clean the vomit off my shoes—and his, because I couldn’t make myself leave it for him in the morning when he was hungover and miserable and ashamed—andbrush his fucking teethfor him crossed the goddamn line.
The thought of moving out made me feel sick. What the hell would I do without him to keep me sane and upbeat? I’d be lonely as hell. I’d miss him every second of the day. But I couldn’t become Chris’s crutch, could I? That wasn’t healthy.
On the other hand, I couldn’t live with him and not take care of him. Chris deserved to clean his own shoes. I’d cleaned them anyway. And brushed his teeth, having to wrap my hand around his cheek and stick my thumb in the corner of his mouth to keep it open while I scrubbed. I mean, seriously. I obviously had no boundaries. I wasn’t going to establish any. I had to simply admit that, and cross that option off the list.
I rolled over again, trying and failing to get comfortable, punching at my pillow and only managing to create more lumps in precisely the wrong places. Chris let out a sleepy little whimpering noise, and I held my breath again. Nope, he was breathing normally. Having those weird drunk dreams, probably.
Another room in another apartment somewhere…maybe a room to myself, like I’d meant to have when I rented this place originally. No one rustling and breathing in the bed just eight or so feet away from me.
No Chris, flopping across my legs on Saturday morning and grinning at me, green eyes all lit up with whatever mischief he had on his mind. No going over to Sebastian’s house together to watch movies with him and Aidan, heading home together after, hanging out just the two of us in our t-shirts and underwear having a snack and picking apart the plot of whatever crappy superhero movie we’d watched, while Chris elbowed me in the side and put his head on my shoulder when he got tired, and gave me that little flutter in my stomach of knowing I was the only one who got to see him like that…
Yeah, not happening. He was my best friend. Maybe Sebastian washisbest friend, which sometimes stung a little bit, but Chris was at the top of my list.
I couldn’t move out. But I couldn’t be Chris’s designated driver and tooth-brusher. That way lay madness. Talking to Chris about his escalating bad habits had gotten me precisely nowhere in the past. Like, arguing with a brick wall nowhere.
Okay, a brick wall that threw its hands in the air and huffed and puffed and rolled its eyes and let its voice go up a whole octave, and protested that it didn’t have a problem, but still.
I stared up at the faint lines of light and shadow on the ceiling. What had I missed? Usually he’d be totally open about what was on his mind. He really had seemed to get over that breakup in a few days…and he hadn’t even talked about how much he hated the guy. Chris always talked.
And…that was what I’d missed. Fuck. I hated even thinking that Chris’s ex was the reason for his behavior, although I couldn’t quite pin down why. But now that Ihadthought it, I couldn’t let it go. Yeah, I didn’t want Chris to be unhappy for any reason, which was part of it. But had he really gottenthathung up on that worthless, waste-of-oxygen piece of shit he’d been dating? That seriously pissed me off. That asshole shouldn’t have occupied so much of Chris’s attention when they were together, let alone after they broke up. He’d been such a douchebag, leading Chris on and letting him think they were exclusive while he cheated on his girlfriend the whole time. Chris couldn’t possibly still be hung up on him. It didn’t make any sense to me.
And either way, why hadn’t he talked to me about it beyond the day it’d happened, when I’d reassured him none of it had been his fault? Had I been so absent, spending time with Emma and in my lab, that he hadn’t thought he could talk to me?
My chest clenched with actual, physical pain at the thought. Jesus, he probably thought I’d abandoned him.
And I would never abandon him.
But that brought me right back to the problem I’d been circling around and around: I couldn’t and wouldn’t leave him, but I couldn’t keep up with my classes and my project and with Chris’s late-night drunkenness too.
Yeah, I had to come up with something else.
