Page 27 of Nodus Tollens
Waking from a deep sleep was always the worst. Especially when you’re awakened by the slamming of a door and loud footsteps that made you want to chop off some feet. Groaning, I threw my hand over my eyes and tried falling back into the greatest sleep I’d ever had, but unfortunately, the sound of Hayes voice had other plans.
“Sleeping already?” He teased while throwing himself into the recliner beside me, causing the chair to squeak obnoxiously against the hardwood floor. I could immediately tell a change in his mood from earlier. There was a lightness to him that I hadn’t heard since his dad’s diagnosis. For a minute, I just laid there, soaking in the sound and hoping it wasn’t just my current drowsy state playing tricks on me.
“Nah, just resting my eyes for a bit.” I grumbled while I stretched out my arms and slowly rose to a sitting position. I looked over my shoulder at him and almost tumbled off the couch at what I saw. With his legs propped up on the recliner and hands tucked behind his head, the fucker was grinning from ear to ear. A full-blown smile that I hadn’t seen the likes of in months now.
And I knew him well to know this wasn’t just any normal kind of smile. Whatever had caused it had him staring into space with a pensive, dreamlike look I’d never seen. Even his eyes had a starry gleam to them that had my mind running wild with ideas. “Where have you been?” I run a hand through my messy hair making a mental note that I need a damn haircut soon.
“Oh. I, uh, I ran into Jesse.” Hayes turned his neck and met my confused stare.
“Why the hell do you look so happy about that?” I rubbed at the back of my neck, knowing damn well Jesse was more of a nuisance than anything. A loud and obnoxious football player was not a reason to smile. If anything, he should have come back in a worse mood than before.
“I’m not.” He scoffed, but then on a cough, he glanced away from me. “Well, not about that, I’m not.”
My brows lowered as I watched a flush form across his face.
What the hell? Why is he acting so weird? Avoiding me altogether, he went back to staring off into the distance with a pensive look across his face. Eyes starry and focused, I sat a little straighter at the intense energy brewing in the room.
“Then, what are you happy about?” I asked.
He didn’t respond right away. Instead, we sat in silence. Not that I was surprised because it seemed to be a recurring thing that happened more often now. It was as if we had no more to talk, or in his case, he kept everything in, hoping it would just vanish and I’d somehow brush it off like nothing. He knew better than that, though. To assume that I’d just forget and pretend like everything was rainbows and butterflies when I clearly knew it wasn’t.
Was I worried? Fuck yeah, how could I not be? My best friend was the happy one. He was the one who was always on my case about what was up my ass, but the tables have turned, and I feared I wouldn’t be able to fix it. Fix him because I was shit with words. Shit with my feelings, but there was a feeling of hope blooming inside me, and maybe even curiosity about what was making my boy happy.
“Have you ever been happy, like outside of hockey?” He questioned in a soft, sincere tone that had me exhaling. He already knew the answer to that and must have noticed because he huffed. “What I mean is, have you ever experienced something so intense, so… like you’ve been knocked off your feet by the force of it that you can’t breathe until you get that feeling again?
Swallowing, I jerked my eyes off his side profile and unwittingly revived those feelings I had at the hospital. Even now, I could still feel the wreckage of her escape claw at me, despite knowing it was for the best. The pain wasn’t as vivid now, but there was still a lingering sting in the depths of my chest that would never go away.
“No, can’t say I have.” I lied while forcing down the knot that was currently stuck in my throat. I didn’t know why I decided to withhold that night from him. Maybe I just wanted to keep a part of her and a part of that night to myself, or I didn’t want to damage my tough-guy persona. Whatever the reason, in the end, it didn’t matter anyway.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?”
What the fuck?
If I had been drinking something, it would have been sprayed all over the floor by now. My eyebrows dipped immediately at the strange question because I knew right then and there what brought on this sudden bought of happiness.
A chick.
A fucking girl.
I knew Hayes to be a lot more… tame and generous with his women. He was at least upfront about his intentions and treated them with a hell of a lot more respect than I tended to. So, when he started to make his subtle confession, it shouldn’t have come off as such a shock to me as it did. He was a closeted romantic. He wanted the family, the wife, the whole nine yards, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. A part of my heart fractured, knowing that, one day, our friendship would gradually pull apart. It wasn’t going to be like when we were kids or even now. We both wanted different things in life, and I needed to accept that sooner rather than later.
But, like I said, I didn’t expect it to be so soon.
“I don’t know.” I answered honestly this time. Love wasn’t something I sought out or even foresaw in my future. Actually, I avoided it like the fucking plague because I knew someone like me wasn’t programmed for anything that intimate or consuming. The closest I’ve ever been to feeling anything resembling love was with her, hospital girl, and even then, love wasn’t the right word.
Confusing. Infatuation, maybe, but love, it couldn’t be.
“I, uh… I met a girl tonight.” His voice shifted, grew quieter, more tender as if he was speaking about something precious to him. “Well, I ran into her, actually, like physically ran into her on accident.” He chuckled.
“Yeah? And how’d that go?” I questioned while imagining in my head how that went down. Lots of squealing and astonishment are guaranteed.
Suddenly, the sound of his feet pushing the recliner down permeated the air, and my stare captured his again. “Not how I imagined, actually.” He chuckled as if replaying the events in his head. Then, leaning forward in the chair, he rested both elbows on his knees. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“Why not?”
He rubbed his finger back and forth across his chin with a mild grin. “I saw her naked for one, which wasn’t my fault, so she has no reason to not like me over that.”
Naked?
