cool » l. hemmings

xxxviii.

⇉ luke ⇇

Typically, in my experience, the first few weeks (maybe even first months) of your relationship with someone are supposed to be like the honeymoon-phase; kisses every five seconds and smiles never finding a way off of your face. I guess Michelle and I are more unique and complicated than I thought, because we haven't been anything like that. I was fine with it -- all I want is for Michelle to be happy again, like she was before this.

Ethan was just as bad as Michelle, and I was somewhere in between. I have no idea how Michael is feeling, I haven't talked to him since I called him to the hospital. Both of us were surprised by the fact that I was actually making an effort, but it had to happen someday and I couldn't just not tell him about the boy he considered a brother laying in a hospital bed barely breathing.

Speaking of breathing, Michelle could barely do that anymore and it made me want to cry, to be honest with you. I'm so horrible at comforting people and I'm stressed and anxious and as much as I don't want to be smoking right now, it's what I'm doing. Was this a bad idea to do just before I walk to Michelle's house? Yes. Do I feel like an asshole? Yes. But I don't want to bother Michelle with my problems right now, so I won't. This is a one time thing until she's okay again and then she can nag me about coming to her with my stupid life as much as she wants.

Adding to the amount of stress that's been put on everyone lately, my father finished his work that he needed to do back at his old job location and is now back home. Not that I didn't love my dad, because I do -- he's just arrived at the most unconvenient of times.

I sat on the back porch of my house, on the stairs and ridding myself of any thoughts for the next five minutes. I always dread when they actually come back, as soon as I stomp out the ash into the ground. The worries, about Michelle and about how much I'm probably going to screw everything up, always flood through in waves even rougher than before I tried to slow them down. You can't stop the crashing of waves and you can't dry up all the oceans, and pretty soon I need to learn that.

"Hi, Michelle," I give her a small smile, seeing her sitting at a chair in the kitchen with a jar of peanut butter. I sat down next to her and kissed the top of her head. "We're going to the cliff today, right?" Since today is Grady's birthday, even if she told me no I was going to take her. The only time she'd been out of the house was when I made her mom take her grocery shopping, because they both haven't done anything.

"Hi," she said, dropping the spoon she held out of her hand and into the jar. "We might be, I don't know. I kind of want to be with everyone today."

Putting my arm over the back of the couch and behind her head, I rose an eyebrow at her questioningly, "What do you mean by everyone?"

"You, Ethan, my mom, and Michael. I think we need it, don't you? It would be kind of selfish for us two to leave everyone on a day like this," she said. I nodded, realizing how horrible it would actually be for us to act like it was just the two of us when we had a whole family that felt the way we did.

"Yeah, okay, we can do that," I smiled softly at her, taking the spoon from her peanut butter and eating out of it. Michelle still seemed extremely down (not that I expected her not to be) and I, being horrible at cheering people up, haven't made any progress in my attempts and not being able to see her smile for the past few days really gave me a horrible feeling. People being unhappy in general makes me unhappy, but Michelle -- I'm the shipwreck while her waves are crashing.

Michelle perked up a bit with my agreeing and looked at me, "We should just hang around here. Maybe we could -- I don't know, we don't have to if Ethan--"