Tongue Tied

The bright sunshine pushed through the vinyl blinds that covered the large window of my bedroom. Not yet ready to get up (or face another day, for that matter) I pulled one of the pillows that was resting underneath me and strategically placed it so the sunlight would no longer bother me and I was able to go back to my hibernation-like sleep.

On Sunday’s I slept as long as I possibly could. Monday’s brought a week of exhausting work plagued with nights of bad insomnia, and so the weekends had- since I got out of graduate school and made a name for myself in the real world- began to be my sanctuary for sleeping purposes.

Scooting closer to the center of the bed, I found my face plastered up against a warm and rock solid wall of muscle. What the fuck? I rubbed my eyes and pulled up the blanket and peered down; a naked wall of warm, rock solid muscle.

“Stop moving.” His voice spoke hoarsely.

Sidney.

For a split second I couldn’t figure out where he had came from—and when I had agreed for him to stay the night. Picking up the blanket again I looked down at myself.

Naked.

Shit.

“Sid?” I couldn’t remember what happened from last night, and I needed to know what went down. The last thing I remembered was sitting on the couch in my living room in a pretty heated make out session with said naked Adonis. After that things began to get a little hazy.

“Hmm?” He asked, poking his head from underneath the covers and opening one of his eyes. His chocolate brown eyes burned into his curly brown hair stuck up in every which direction. If it weren’t for me having complete amnesia from last evening, I might have thought it was a little cute. Tiny bit.

“What happened last night?” I bit down on my bottom lip and waited for the verdict. Deep down I had hoped nothing went on. Sidney and I weren’t “that” yet. Or quite possibly might never be, and in all honestly, after I lost JP I hadn’t really been there for sex. He sighed and pulled himself up against my headboard, dragging the blanket along with him. Dejectedly he dragged his hands through his hair and gave me that “you don’t remember all the fucking shit we did last night” look.

“Tequila happened, Caroline.”

It was short simple and to the point.

Tequila happened.

I searched his eyes to see if they would give off more of an explanation but they were emotionless.

“I don’t remember.”

“Yeah, I figured. Get dressed; you need a good cup of coffee and some breakfast. You look like shit.” That hurt. His voice spoke as if he were agitated but his face told a different story. The corners of his mouth were pulled into a small smile and I hoped I hadn’t fucked up too much. For the first time since JP dying, I felt whole again.

~~~~~

“Are you mad at me?” I asked cautiously over a plate of scrambled eggs Sidney had made. Since I had gotten my lazy ass up out of bed, I had puked twice and managed to wash a giant Advil down my throat in order to help the raging headache I had. The food was only making the situation worse. He looked up from his plate- we hadn’t spoken since he got up out of bed- and shook his head. From the look on his face, he was lying.

And was a bad liar at that.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Sid.” He lifted his head back up from his plate and stared at me, then finally set his fork down on the yellow plate. I should have realized right then and there that I was about to get myself into an ass load of trouble.

“Do you want to know if I’m mad at you, Care?” He asked, his voice already rising. I nodded my head quickly and shoved myself into the lion’s den. “No, Caroline, I’m not mad. I’m fucking furious. So fucking past the point of pissed off that I can’t even comprehend it.” He took a deep breath and I blinked back at him. Everything (whatever it had been) I wasn’t able to remember last night. I knew Tequila happened, but…

“Do you even realize what happened last night?” He growled.

I shook my head and mumbled out a feeble “no.”

“I asked you, asked you, if you wanted to take our relationship a little further. No big deal, right? It’s a legitimate question seeing we’re one step away from basically fucking each other, and you went god damn ballistic.” A little part of me began remembering this part.

“I--”

“No, you listen to me.” He ordered. His voice was raised but I wasn’t worried. From what I knew of Sidney, he could get pissed, but he was a gentle giant. “You told me to drop it, so I did. Dropped the entire thing, until I go into the bathroom to take a piss and come out to see you downing, and I’m not talking about taking a sip, but downing a god damn bottle of tequila.” Memory of that was coming back too, and what was coming back wasn’t pretty.

The next few parts of our conversation I really wasn’t there. I was trying to take myself away from what had really happened. Sidney droned on though. Words of: fucked up, wasted, passed out and that I needed serious help warped my fuzzy mind and before I knew it I was hunched over the toilet bowl for the third time that morning, praying to those god damn porcelain gods.

“You mixed your pills, Caroline. You mixed your pills with fucking alcohol. You need to get yourself some help. I don’t even care about you not wanting to date me, hell if this is the fucking whack train that you are, I’m glad you didn’t say yes and I saw it beforehand. You need some help Caroline, and I can’t be the one to give it to you.”

That hurt. Not like ‘he just hurt my feelings’ but deep down. I didn’t think I had a “problem” I didn’t think that deep down something was wrong. I had dealt with bipolar disorder my whole life, it was something accepted. What I didn’t realize however was that the one person in my life who had made me feel alive again since JP had died was about to walk out my door and probably right out of my life.

And he had a legitimate excuse to do so.

“Sid?”

He shook his head.

“No, Caroline. No. I can’t do this anymore. You’re up and then you’re down. We had a fucking fantastic night and then you fucked it up. Please get yourself some help, because if you don’t, you’re going off the deep end very quickly.”

He was being honest. Brutally honest, and at this point it hurt more than when the representative from Team USA swim told me that my husband had been killed while in the line of duty. Words could kill.

“I’m going to give a recommendation to Mario saying you were fantastic for your work, but get some help. You need it.” He didn’t allow me for if’s, ands or buts. He got up, grabbed his coat off the back of his chair, and took his keys off the counter. Before I even realized he was gone, I broke down.

I had fucked up and I had fucked this one up real good.