Homecoming

My eyes burn as the light is turned on, but I take my time turning to the doorway because I already know who it is. I mean, it is his room, after all.

“Connor, what are you doing here?” Nate asks me shocked after jumping a bit upon seeing me sleeping in his bed. I can tell it’s late and assume he’s been with Alex. Right before I climbed under the covers whenever ago, for a second then, I though he wasn’t coming back. In more ways than just the one that applies tonight.

I pull myself up and run my hand through my hair to feel the cold air of his room hit me, intending for it to wake me up. His eyes downcast and I shiver, shirtless. It’s cute, the flush of his cheeks and I smile, lazily, forgetting what he asked.

“H-How long have you been here?” There’s guilt in his voice as he drags his eyes up to meet mines again. He just wants to be there for me. I shrug and scratch my head. “Details, details,” I wave off with a smirk and lay my head back on his pillow, “Hit the light, will you?”
“Connor, really, do your parents know-“ He turns off the lights and I can hear the room moan as he hesitantly makes his way to his bed.

“Go to sleep, Nate.”

I hear the creak of the bed and feel it weight down as he crawls in on the side closest to the wall. “I got a text,” he continues speaking and I groan before feeling his jeaned leg hit mines. He’s liked to never sleep in jeans.

“Take off your pants.” I don’t even care how it sounds. I don’t care how about anything sounds today. I’m kind of just sleepy. Really, really sleepy. Like I haven’t slept since homecoming.

It’s an awkward silence, but I don’t notice it because I’m already half-asleep. I groan again to snap him out of it because I can’t work up the energy to say anything else. And then I hear some rustling and feel the bed shifting. His pants fly over me and hit the floor almost silently. I turn to him, my eyes still closed. “What’d it say?” I mutter. Though my eyes are closed, I know his aren’t even in the dark and I can feel his breath and the beating of his heart as the simple motions make the bed slightly rise and fall.

“They told me to break up with Alex.”

I force my eyes open and am, as I thought I’d be, met with his. We just breathe in the same rhythm for a while, but my eyes keep falling. I close the one closest to the pillow just to keep my left eye open. Making bargains with myself to stay awake for just a little while.

I’m exhausted with my life. I’m exhausted with myself and I just don’t know how many times I’ll have to shut my eyes, wait eight or so hours, and reopen them until things get better.
So, honestly, I’ve embraced it all. I’ve embraced the changes and tried to make new ones myself because obviously this whole act normal thing just isn’t working for me. But I just can’t get this whole thinking before acting thing down pact, I don’t see how anyone can because it makes everything just seem so wrong. The more you thing about anything, the more it just seems not right. But I can’t stop thinking. And I can’t stop feeling like maybe I’m just thinking about all the wrong things. So when I randomly push myself, when I blurt something out- it’s nothing that I would’ve said before this whole ordeal.

The thing is that I didn’t get a lot of time to think about telling my family that before I let it topple off my tongue. So it doesn’t even seem wrong.

“What are you going to do?” I ask. At this point I try not to think about what I want him to do. I try not to pray for the response I want because I’m trying this new think called not being selfish. I’m trying to be different. I’m trying to contort myself to change the way a part of my mind has.

“I was thinking you could help with that,” he says.

“How?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was almost hoping for some rambled response of yours that I could just pick apart and analyze for a while.”

“I’m too tired for all that. What’d he say?”

“How do you know I told him?” I open my closed eye for a moment for better vision to check his expression.

“Honestly?” I ask just in case. Just in case he’s just talking for the hell of sorting his own thoughts out aloud. He gives a short nod against the pillow. “I think you want to. I think the blackmailer is just giving you a reason. I think the text messenger knows you.”

He gives a slight smile I can see through the darkness.

“Why are you smiling?” A section of messy bed hair falls into my face and pushes it away.

He shrugs and changes the subject, “How’d it go after I left?”

“I don’t know, I left too,” I reply, suddenly tired again.

“Why?”

“Much too awkward.”

“So you’ve been here since then?” I can hear the frown in his words, “You should’ve called.
”
“But then you wouldn’t have been with Alex. And then you wouldn’t have told him about the text message. And then he wouldn’t have implied that he agreed with the person.”

I don’t feel his breathing move the bed for a moment or two.

“How do you know that happened?” he breathes.

“Alex called…Alex called me.”

Nate’s eyes widen but mines close and he pinches my side. I remember we used to do that. Before everything got all awkward.

“Ow,” I say though it didn’t hurt.

“Why? Why’d he call you?”

“He-He just said that um- that uh…that…I won.”

“Was there another sick game that I wasn’t aware of?” He slowly stats to sit up on his elbows, his facial expression hurt…in a word. I try to pull myself up just a little, open my eyes a little wider, in shock because…I’d never. I mean really, I may be a douche but I’m not, I’m not like betting money on my best friends feelings.

“No! Seriously, I didn’t even fucking get it until you told me what the text said.”

He nods, cautiously and starts to lay back down before he pulls me into this weird half hug thing. I laugh slowly, “What are you doing?”

But suddenly my question in irrelevant because I feel his lips on my lips and I know damn well what he’s doing.

I pull back, just a bit at a time so I’m on my back and he follows. He follows to my side of the bed, he follows on top of me and he doesn’t break a hungry kiss.

Hungry- like he’s searching for the answer to all of this with his tongue. And maybe he’s not finding that, the answer, but I’m totally fine with it.
When we’re breathless, he stops. He rests his forehead on mines. “I didn’t do it,” he mutters.

“Do what?” I ask between pants, now wide awake, my hands on his hips, absent mindedly rubbing small circles. A smile is hanging in the air and I don’t even feel confused.

“I didn’t break up with him.”

Until he said that.