Page 81 of More Than Chemical
Right
DALLAS
See you there
And it was settled. A productive night with Dallas was on the menu, and I had a feeling that my angst over my father would disappear. I just had to stop thinking about him and concentrate instead on the hot guy who, for reasons beyond sensibility, was totally into me.
Twenty-Nine
The Boy Approves
My study date with Dallas didn’t last long. Not even an hour went by before we moved to his room and took off all our clothes. For me, it wasn’t so much about sex or sleep. It was being with him, connecting with him. He helped me forget about all the crap in my life.
Later, when I was thoroughly relaxed and Dallas had fallen asleep, I began drifting off with my fingers crossed, but then suddenly, out of nowhere, my head exploded. A flash like a bomb detonated in a blinding light and, seconds later, released a deafening bang.
I jolted straight up, my chest thundering, electricity running through my body. I was gasping, hardly able to breathe.
“Ade.” Dallas put a hand on my back. “Are you okay?”
I looked down at him, my heart thrashing so hard I couldn’t speak.
“Ade?”
I nodded, trying to swallow, trying to form words. “I’m good.”
“Were you having a nightmare?” he asked.
I lay back down and pulled the covers up to my shoulders. That had been crazy. The noise. The shock. The only logical thing I could come up with was I’d had a hallucination—an audible one. Exploding head syndrome. I’d had it one other time last fall. The internet said it was something people with sleep disorders got. But I wasn’t about to tell him my whole sleep problem or the original reasons I had for having sex with him.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “It must have been a nightmare. Not sure how I’ll fall asleep now.”
He pulled me close and tucked my head into his shoulder. “I could talk you through that yoga thing. Where you concentrate on relaxing each muscle from your toes all the way up to your neck.”
“I don’t know. It probably won’t work.”
“It always works for me. Let’s do it.”
And he did. He used his deep, calming voice and started at our feet. I tried to focus on tensing a muscle and then relaxing it, but it wasn’t working. I was still wide awake. Of course, it worked for him. He only made it to our abs before his breathing evened out and turned heavy.
In the morning, I lay in his bed, still fatigued, while he stood in the middle of his room drinking coffee. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I’m leaving today to go out of town for the weekend.”
His words made my stomach cramp. Then a jumble of questions rained down on me like pellets of rock, but I couldn’t sort through them or place them in a queue for processing. There was only one thing I could spit out. “To go where?”
“Another ice cross competition.”
If I hadn’t been in his bed with the covers over me, the heaviness in my chest might have made me collapse to the ground. I needed him. I had to get through this weekend and the rest of next week in a state of distraction before my dad’s trial was over.
Maybe if I went with him, I’d be okay.
But he didn’t say anything more. Didn’t follow up his announcement with a much-needed invitation. Instead, he walked to his closet and picked out something to wear.
Suddenly, the girls in the peacoats and berets jumped into my overworked imagination. Maybe he wasn’t asking me to go because he was meeting up with another girl or girls.
Stop it, Ade. You’re freaking out for no reason.
I made a grab for my underwear and bra and put them on underneath the sheets. Then I stood and donned the clothes I’d been wearing the day before. “But you’ll be back Sunday, won’t you?”
He turned. “Maybe. I’m not totally sure. I could be gone through the beginning of the week.”
