Breakdown

The cool November air had me shivering in my thin hoodie, keeping my pace at a brisk walk, though I was a bit tempted to just sprint. I wasn't sure if I would be able to however, so the run-walk it was. I thought about the morning I had with Jack and smiled, breakfast and music, it had been great, if you didn't include the shaky start we'd had. As I approached Oli's apartment complex, I was shivering violently, and I knew that tomorrow I was going to wake up sick, so I made a mental note to try my best to get back to my own house tonight. The last thing I need was to be stuck here sick when Oli's switch flipped. With that thought my smile had effectively been faded by the time I reached the call box. I pressed the buzzer and waited to hear the click that signaled the door had unlocked.

I pulled the door open, sighing contently at the warm air inside the small lobby area. I climbed the stairs to the second floor where Oli's apartment was located and knocked on the door as forcefully as I could, which wasn't very much at all considering I was practically convulsing and it was almost impossible to pull my hands out of my pockets and away from my body. The door swung open after what felt like an eternity later, and I watched as Oli took in my pitiful state before pulling me through the doorway, spinning us around and kicking the door shut with his foot. He led me to the couch and settled me under his arm, letting me absorb his heat as we both sat in silence. I sighed contently as my body warmed back to a normal temperature, feeling my eyelids become heavy, burrowing further into Oli's side while releasing a yawn. I felt his body shake as he chuckled and he pulled me away from his side, causing me to make a whining noise.

"Oli." I complained, dragging out the final letter of his name. He laughed harder at me and pulled me on to his lap instead, and I nuzzled into his front.

"Come on Alex, I didn't want you over just so you could sleep on me." Oli said pushing me back a bit so he could look at my face "Sorry for last night, you know how I get." his eyes bore into mine, asking for the forgiveness I knew I shouldn't give him, but always did anyways.

"S'okay Oli, I know you didn't mean it." I said, taking the opportunity to snuggle back into him, wanting nothing more than to just sleep, already feeling the oncoming symptoms of my inevitable cold. Sighing, Oli wrapped his arms around me, and I reveled in the added warmth.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, more out of habit than anything, I didn't answer verbally, shaking my head instead and looked up from where I had burrowed myself.

"Can we watch a movie?" I asked, diverting further conversation about food. Oli didn't understand that I couldn't eat just normal things like pizza, and it had the potential to make him angry, so it was better to avoid the topic completely.

Thankfully Oli let the subject drop and agreed to watch a movie, shifting me off of his lap so he could walk to the tv and put in a movie "Anything specific you want to watch?" he asked turning to look at me, his eyebrows raised up in question.

"If you have any new movies I haven't seen yet then that, if not then anything's fine." I answered, not really caring either way, as I aimed to fall asleep no matter what movie Oli picked. I felt exhausted, partly from trying to recover from last night and partly from walking in the brisk weather. Oli shuffled through a few dvd cases finally picking one out and pushing the disk into the dvd player and returning to the couch, settling back in and pulling me against him again. I made myself comfortable and pretended to pay attention to the first ten minutes of the movie before giving up any semblance of caring about the film and letting myself drift off in Oli's arms.

I was suddenly jerked awake by Oli as he pushed me back onto couch. I sat up disoriented and confused about how much time had passed, looking at the television and seeing the same movie was still playing, making it apparent it hadn't been very long. I switched my view to Oli and saw him standing in the middle of the room one hand pushing his hair back, pulling the locks in a distressed manner, the other hand holding his phone, which he was staring at intensely, an ugly look set on his features. He didn't look like the same person anymore, which meant he'd probably swung into his other self, that was bad news for me. Oli looked up from his phone then and directed his gaze at me, as if suddenly remembering I was there as well. He gave me a hard stare and I was suddenly terrified, he looked calm enough, but you could see something brewing in his eyes, and I could only hope that it wasn't meant for me.

He made his way over to me, taking long strides back the couch, and picking me up off of it when he was close enough. I wobbled a bit after the sudden shift of posture, grabbing Oli's arm to balance myself without giving the action much thought. However just a millisecond later I realized what I'd done and pulled my had away as if his skin had electrocuted me, and looked up fearfully to gauge his reaction. His expression was the last thing I expected, he looked upset, but in a sad disappointed way, not in a 'I think he's going to punch me in the face' way. "I'm really sorry Alex." he said quietly, and I realized he was still himself, not only that but he was apologizing.

Oli knew I had pulled away because I was afraid of him, he knew what nightmare he was to me, and I knew he wished he could turn off the other side of him, I wished he could too. "I know," I replied looking to the ground and shuffling my feet. Next thing I knew I was being pulled into Oli's arms, and I welcomed the embrace, wrapping my arms around him as well. We stayed in each others arms for what felt like hours, until a buzzing from Oli's hand made us pull away from one another. Oli started pacing as he read the new message he'd received, his hand in his hair once more. I wanted to ask him what was going on, but there was part of me saying that I really didn't want to know, so I stood still in the spot were left me, waiting for him to remember I was here again, and he did, striding over to me as he had before, grabbing my arms and yanking me to him. Only this time instead of a hug, he connected our lips, pushing them together gently, and I knew he was holding back. After the innocent brush of lips he pulled away, releasing my arms and staring at me intensely for a moment, his expression a cauldron of emotions.

"Alex it's time for you to go home." he said to me, taking one arm, spinning me around and leading me towards the door. I wanted to question him, ask him why, but I didn't, counting my blessings I'd gotten in and out of Oli's apartment without any damage, physical and emotional, for the fist time in a long time. As we reached the door, Oli swung it open, but turned to face me again "I'll text you later, yeah?" he said pecking my lips once more before letting me through the doorway.

I headed downstairs and out the doors, immediately assaulted with even colder air than I'd had to deal with earlier. Suddenly I wanted to spend the night at Oli's, even though my walk home would only be half as long as the walk from Jack's to here, as my house was the midway point of the two. sighing, I started my journey, wishing I'd brought along headphones so I could at least play music to drown out the eerie quiet of the night. I pulled my phone from my pocket, and discovered it was much earlier than I thought, still within reasonable hours for someone to be awake. I also noticed that I had a text message that I must have gotten while I was sleeping over at Oli's. It was from Jack, but that wasn't surprising, as he was one of the few people who ever bothered to text me anymore, a far cry from my once social butterfly status. I opened the message and read over the words,

'Stay safe'

It was his usual message to me when I was at Oli's, and every time he sent it I replied with 'Always', but I'd missed the window of sending the message, and I wondered then if Jack was worried about me. There was never a time when I hadn't returned that text, and now I was biting my lip pondering what I should do to alleviate any worry he may have about me. I thought at first maybe just a simple message explaining how I'd fallen asleep, but decided against that idea and opted to call Jack instead, scrolling through my contacts till I hit his number. My finger hovered over the call button for a moment as I thought about he might be sleeping, despite how early hat I felt it was. After circling the call button with my thumb I finally pressed it and held the phone to my ear, listening to the ring as I curled in on myself in an attempt to keep warm in the bitter near end of autumn air.

After two rings Jack picked up, sounding breathless as he answered "Alex?" he questioned sounding apprehensive.

"The one and only." I said chuckling a bit, seeing my house approaching in the distanance, barely visible the the street light glow.

"Why are you calling? I thought you were at Oli's?" he asked, and his voice sounded so relived that it made my heart ache a bit.

"I fell asleep for a while and when I woke up Oli was texting someone and he didn't look happy about it." I said, shrugging despite the fact that Jack couldn't see the action, "Then he told me it was time to go, led me out the door and here we are." I finished in a matter of factually type of tone, looking up to see I had arrived home.

"Oh, well I'd tell you to come over but my parents are still awake and yeah." Jack said and I could tell was saddened over the fact that he couldn't have me over, especially since it would be a rare occurrence for me start out sober over there so we'd actually be able to hang out, as we had this morning.

"It's okay Jack, I really need to shower and get into clean comfy clothes, I've been wearing the same outfit since yesterday and it's almost tomorrow, I'm starting to feel gross." I replied as I made my way up to my front door, digging out the house key and twisting it in the lock.

Jack laughed at my response and added "Hey, I tried to get you to change but you'd already made your transformation into a drunken sloth." the term made me roll me eyes as I pushed the door open and stepped inside the dark empty home.

"Why does it have to be a sloth, it should be something cuter, like a puppy or a kitten." I argued, causing him to only laugh, making me huff in decided defeat "Well whatever, I'm going to go take a much needed shower now, I'll text you when I'm done, okay?"

"Okay, bye Alex." Jack said, still sounding fairly cheerful. I was glad he seemed in good spirits today, and I liked to think that I was the reason, seeing as we had quite the enjoyable morning jam session, and for the most part, our conversations today had been stayed out of the fight zone. I returned his goodbye and ended the call, approaching the steps and taking them two at a time to get to my room that much faster.

Once I finally arrived at my bedroom door, I slipped inside and flipped the lights on. My room was mostly clean, save for the majority of my wardrobe being located on the floor. I shook my head at my own laziness and gathered the clothes in my arms, taking them to the laundry basket I found myself never using, and shoved the dirty laundry inside. I decided that I would do laundry when I was done with my shower, as I was officially out of clothes, which I had discovered while looking for something to wear after showering. I sat on the edge of my bed for a moment trying to think if I had any extra clothes anywhere, before suddenly popping back up after remembering the duffel bag under the bed.

I dropped to the floor on my hands and knees, and stuck an arm out underneath my bed. Feeling the handle, I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled it out. These weren't my clothes, they were Jack's, but I ended up wearing his clothes almost every time I was over at his place, so I knew they would fit me well enough. He on the other had couldn't always wear my clothes as he was a bit taller, and my shirts sometimes fell short over his torso. I dug through the contents of the bag pulling sweats and a a soft shirt out, happy with my find. Zipping the bag closed once more, I stood and kicked it back under my bed, and walked over to my bathroom, popping my head to see if there was any towels left in the small closet space next to the sink. Thankfully there was, and I stepped fully into the bathroom, shutting the door out of habit, it's wasn't like there was anyone home to walk in on me anyways.

Stepping over to the shower head I turned the knobs, making sure it was nice and warm, before taking a step back and pulling my shirt over my head and letting it fall to the floor, then shimming out of my tight jeans. Then, finally, I stepped into the shower, making a contented noise as I reveled in the warm spray. I ran my fingers through my greasy hair, letting the water soak it through. I took my time soaping up my body, and washing my hair, knowing that once I left the steamy confines of the shower I was going to end up cold and wet. I stayed under the water until I felt it start to lose it's warmth, sighing in defeat and cutting the stream off. I stepped out into the steamed over bathroom, taking the towel and drying my body and hair, before wrapping it around my waist, habit taking over once more despite the empty house, and taking the step out of the enclosed comfortable bathroom back into my bedroom, feeling goosebumps raise as my body was hit with the temperature difference.

I quickly pulled the clothes I laid out onto my body, wanting to prevent the start of shivers, turning then to grabbed my discarded clothes from the bathroom floor, adding them to the pile of laundry in the basket, grabbing the entire thing and bringing it down the hall to where the laundry room was located. I opened the lid of the washer and dumped the clothes inside, adding detergent and starting the cycle, then taking the now empty basket with me as I returned to my room. I set the basket back where it went and dragged myself to my bed, exhaustion hitting me full force as I crawled under my covers. I settled myself in, closing my eyes, but it felt as if I'd forgot to do something, though I quickly disregarded the thought as I was quickly falling into a deep needed sleep.