You Have My Attention

As soon as I started to gain consciousness, it felt like something was so perfectly right and yet wrong, at the same time.

As Andy and I had been sleeping next to each other for a couple of weeks now, I was accustomed to waking up curled against his side; I was so used to the feeling of his warm skin pressed against my own and his long fingers gently gripping my waist. I was always greeted by his raven hair in the mornings as it tickled my face, making me want to bury my nose in it since it always smelled like the sweet conditioner he used.

The experience of waking up next to Andy was a unique one, hence why I noticed immediately when he wasn’t there, despite the fact I wasn’t even properly conscious.

Forcing my eyes open, I looked over to the space next to me, just in case Andy had rolled over in the large bed during the night – something that wasn’t physically possible in our bunk.

Unexpectedly, though, it was empty. The sheets were in slight disarray - an obvious indication that Andy had gotten up, but due to the fact the mattress was cool on his side of the bed, it was obviously a while ago.

Slightly confused as to where he was, I pushed the covers away from my body, briefly pausing when I saw the state the lower half of my body was in.

Since I was still naked from last night, the dark purple love bites on my thighs and hips were visible; the stark contrast between my pale skin and the purple of the marks made me smile – those were Andy’s marks. I was his.

Deciding there were more pressing matters at hand, though, I stopped admiring the marks and clambered out of bed, pulling on some boxers as I moved across the room.

The obvious place to check would be the bathroom, so I went there first, only to find it empty.
Next, I quickly pulled some clothes onto my body and headed off down the hall towards the other boys’ hotel rooms, in case Andy had gone in there to see them. When I got there, though, no one answered my knocks on the doors.

Running out of places to look, I headed towards the hotel’s restaurant, where breakfast was just starting to be served. Surely, if he wasn’t in our room and wasn’t in one of the other guys’ rooms, he would be down getting us breakfast or something? Coffee maybe?

No, only a family with two hyperactive children, an elderly couple, and a middle aged business woman were seated in the eatery.

Not a single sign of any of them.

Starting to panic, I left the restaurant, heading straight for the hotel doors and out towards the parking lot, and – more specifically – their bus. If they weren’t in the hotel, they’d have to be in the bus, right?

Right.

As I stepped outside, though, it was as if realisation hit me hard and I had to start accepting this as the current situation.

The bus wasn’t in the parking lot, meaning they’d left.

All five of them had left.

Andy left me after he’d slept with me without so much of a word.

That was when the tears started to roll down my face, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.