Smoke Break /Georgenotfound/

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Half asleep in George's arms, all I could think about was whether he had slept or not. I swear I could feel him tracing patterns on my back the whole time, so I strongly doubted that he did.

I would be lying if I said I slept well. It was as superficial as it could get, and there were so many layers contributing to it.

Firstly, I couldn't breathe properly for some reason - well, to be fair, the reason was probably the fact that I had been crying astronomical amounts of tears. The second thing was the stubborn headache I had, which wasn't something uncommon, so I tried to ignore it. But one of the third problem was weird. I was coughing, and my throat was sore.

The pile-up of those discomforts got so bad that just one reason was enough to make me wake up.

So when my phone buzzed on the bedside table, I popped my eyes open. I reacted to it so quickly that it almost seemed like I had been desperately waiting for the notification.

I blinked a few times and sluggishly separated from George, sensing our chests practically pulling apart like stickers.

Gazing at him, I briefly considered that the buzzing sound might be from George's phone, given his exaggerated reaction to the sound. However, when I saw his phone in his hands, my doubts faded away.

Without saying a word to him and hearing a word from him, I reached for my phone.

And I almost swallowed it whole as the screen lit up with the notification that woke me.

Georgenotfound tweeted.

I panicked. Hard.

I quickly shut off the screen, straightened up, and hoped he hadn't caught on. But even if he didn't see anything, the fact that my phone buzzed right after he tweeted definitely struck him as suspicious. The skeptical look he shot at my phone earlier clarified everything.

I bit my lip, forcing myself to act normal and not raise any more suspicion with my stupid behavior.

"Good morning," as if nothing happened, he pressed his lips together and smiled, making my heart race even faster, "slept well?"

"Yeah - no. I... I slept okay." I placed my phone screen-down on the bed, closing my eyes for a moment to catch my breath and concentrate on not stuttering over my words and making a bigger fool out of myself.

"Why just okay?" Even though his voice didn't sound like he was suspicious of anything, my paranoia was telling me that he knew and was acting unbothered on purpose.

Trying to go with the conversation was straigh up torture though.

"I don't know," I shrugged, "did you sleep at all?"

"I napped a little bit," he smiled, nodding, "but you were coughing all night. Do you feel okay now?"

As he continued speaking calmly, I began to think I might be overanalyzing and overly paranoid. Finally, I took a deep breath and spoke.

"Yeah, I'm okay. But I do have a bad head- achoo!" George chuckled as I sneezed mid sentence, "Bad headache." I ended my sentence.

At first, I tried telling myself that all these symptoms were just because I cried buckets yesterday. Convinced myself that my throat was irritated from all those salty tears, hence the coughing and soreness. However, when I sneezed four times in a row and began sniffling immediately after, it became apparent that crying had nothing to do with it.

"Oh, you're sick!" George said it so happily that it was almost offensive, "That's literally karma for lying to me that you're sick!"

"What? No!" The way he accused me triggered a defensive response for no reason. It's not like being sick is a crime, but I felt the need to defend myself. "I'm not sick... I'm just..."

"Aww, it's okay. You'll learn not to lie to me anymore," he tried to pat my head sarcastically, but I jerked away quickly, giving him a judgemental, bitter look.

"That's so mean!" Only when I raised my voice I realized that, in fact, it sounded sick.

"Lying is meaner, isn't it?" He shrugged, but as I gasped and parted my mouth in an offended manner, he chuckled, "I'm just kidding, come lie down, I'll get you breakfast."

"I'm not hungry," I frowned, but my protests were useless. He insisted on pulling me back to lie down, though this time on the bed instead of his chest, which was honestly devastating.

"What do you wanna eat? Wait, nevermind, I can only chop fruits," he got up, stretching, "you'll eat fruits, right? You don't really have a choice, so.."

"I think there should be premade oatmeal in the fridge, idiot," I sighed, laughing softly at his cluelessness, "there's other stuff too, see if there's anything you like."

"Okay, fine," he spun to leave, but then it dawned on him, "and don't call me an idiot. I'll abandon you, and you'll die."

"Oh please," I rolled my eyes, getting comfortable in the bed, "I'll survive."

"You couldn't even survive a few days without me, you ended up crying."

My expression fell. Despite his obvious jest and the playful laughter that followed, his words hit a nerve. It stung because, even though he was unaware, there was truth in what he said.

I cleared my throat, shifting uncomfortably and forcing an unnatural chuckle, "Sure, whatever."

Luckily, he was just a man and couldn't sense mood shifts unless they were as dramatic as a soap opera.

He left for breakfast, and while he was gone, I couldn't resist checking my phone. I was still stuck on that tweet and what it could be.

I hurriedly opened the app, like I was on some secret mission, and my mischievous grin unexpectedly melted into a... softer gaze?

Georgenotfound
Staying up all night and staring at the star

That was the tweet. Star. Singular. While everyone assumed it was a typo, the knowledge that he spent the night holding me tight in his arms forced me to think that maybe, just maybe, there were no typos. And the thought alone melted my brain.