the boy next door

Chapter 17: Famous Last Words

Eren woke that morning in a flicker of blinks until his eyes fixed open and he was met with your sleeping face. He blinked again to affirm his awareness, you were still there; mascara crumbs along your eyelids, frizzy baby hairs suffused in morning light from the thinly slitted blinds.

It wasn't the first time he'd woken beside a girl. Hair tousled, mascara streaks and sweat glistened makeup. As if he'd slashed his fingers through a wet painting and revealed the canvas underneath. He'd crawl out from the mist of sleep and sex and whatever he'd taken the night before, gather his clothes, and trolly back to his dorm. Unconcerned with who she was, her name, friends, connections. He'd wake up and sever the event from his mind. The distance he felt on those mornings was like a sort of freedom. He could touch life without any burdens—free of participation. He'd compartmentalize the night, ignoring any residual side effects from the drugs. He was free, he believed, if he kept ignoring it.

But what he could not ignore, was you. He woke up chained to an emotion he didn't quite understand. He felt that pressure in his heart, as he did not know whether to keep looking at you or walk away. He felt the after effects of the lsd. Groggy and fatigued from such an expenditure of energy. He was confused about what was memory, and what wasn't. The previous day seemed like one long dream.

It was difficult to move, even the joints in his neck. He laid there for a moment and gazed at you—forced to confront his feelings. Eren wondered how he'd ended up here. As if he was intruding.

Eren sat up—rolled his neck and shoulders. He lapped his tongue across the dry roof of his mouth, swallowed, and yawned in a gape of silence. His brown locks stuck up at the roots, giving his hair some volume. Pieces had fallen from his tangled elastic, matting around his face. He dragged it out, painfully yanking a few thin hairs. Eren ran a hand through and stood up.

He tried to place the night in sequence. He remembered a dim image of your smile, the bedroom lights, a hand in his—laughing, alluring him into the room. Then he felt the mattress, the scent of your perfume and that final conversation. His memories; like striving for a floating balloon. Distant, gazing through the keyhole to his mind. He could never truly recall that night again. All he knew was how he felt.

Eren gazed at you, awkwardly snuggled in a sweatshirt on the edge of the bed. The white comforter was thrashed in the corner of the mattress. He grabbed it and laid a good section across your body. He started for the door.

"Eren..?" you murmured, followed by a rustle on the bed. He paused, tugged back into the room by the lure of your voice.

"Shit, my bad. Didn't mean to wake you up." He pushed his audibility through a thick film of exhaustion. Eren wondered if his voice was recognizable.

"It's okay," you said. You struggled to move yourself up the bed, half asleep. Eren debated on helping you, he knew he could easily lift you.

"Oh you're tryna," Eren put his arms beneath you, "this okay?" he asked, before going any further.

"Mhm," you nodded. Your sleepy eyes met his and Eren's arms nearly went limp. He lifted you princess style and placed you at the head of the bed. You snuggled—eyes shut, groaned, and dozed off into stillness.

Eren stepped away from the bed—he turned for the door before he was tugged any further by his feelings. He wanted to stay with you, ask you... if you remembered what he'd said. Like a ball and chain, bounding him to one space.

He took off down the hall, checking the time. Sunlight fell into the house—accidental, like light falling through the cracks in a cave—finding their own way in. Eren's shadow oscillated between light and dark while the house was imbued in liquid gold. It was a softer counterpart to the dark, gaudy grandeur of your home in Trost. The only sound was his sneakers sweeping against the marble floor for a dreary trudge back into mundanity.