You're a Hot Mess (Peterick)

Chapter Eighteen - Life

Both of us lie, sheets barely making us decent, hands enclosed with each other's. We listen to the echoes of footsteps underneath us, the distant sound of music from a radio we forgot we even turned on.

And we just listen, just breathe.

Then Patrick breathes too heavily in the form of a sigh. He looks at me with his big, lost eyes and says, very simply, "I'm leaving in less than a week."

Five days, to be exact.

But I look at him with feigned surprise anyway like that thought hadn't been on my mind every second.

"Yeah, you are. That's soon, huh?" I say discreetly, almost brushing it off. Neither of us want to mention it ever, and neither of us want to get up from where we lie right now either.

I've figured out recently that life doesn't take into consideration what you want and don't want to do.

So we talk about it.

"Too soon." He mutters, like his mind is racing for a solution instead of focusing on what we're saying now.

I know in Patrick's mind the easy solution is for me to come with him.

"Do you have everything ready?"

But it's not that easy, even if he thinks it is.

Because life also doesn't make things easy on you.

It's a tired, bitter old thing.

He makes a sound, some sort of murmur that could express anything from sadness to downright elation. I look over at him to see him smiling something lazy and sleepy, but happy. In some sort of defeated, content way.

If I had a camera with me...

"I do." He confirms, and I grin back at him, chuckling lightly because we both know what that means.

"I have five whole days to spend with you." Patrick brushes his lips against my cheek, saying the words close to my skin and it's hot and comforting in contrast to the cold air floating around our apartment and in our heads.

I let out a laugh, flustered and happy, exactly like him. "That's a lot." I tuck some of his hair behind his ear and marvel at it. He still needs a haircut. I'll be damned if I let him, though.

It's longer now than it's been in awhile. He kept it short for most of high school, said it bothered him to have it in his face all the time.

A little while after we met again I told him I liked it long and he hasn't cut it since.

I run my hands through the hair past his jawline, I can see him blushing lightly out of the corner of my eye. He takes my hand away from his hair and holds it instead.

"A year wouldn't even be enough. I'd spend my entire life with you and it still wouldn't be enough. I'd still feel cheated." If anyone else said that I think I'd laugh in their face. But when Patrick says it, it sounds easy. Like that's the way things should be. He sounds nonchalant about it, even if he means it.

Life cheats.

It makes up the rules and still breaks them.

It's probably about time we play a different game.

But not yet.

"Well when the government turns everyone into robots in, like, 2045 then we'll get a house together... somewhere where it doesn't rain so we won't rust."

"The desert." He suggests, sounding sincere in it. 

"Exactly."

We both laugh, and everything slows down and I again reach the repeating conclusion that this is the boy I'm in love with. I don't know how long it's been that way but it is now and that's all that matters. He could disappear and never return and it wouldn't matter because I'd still be in love with him.