True North

Chapter 48

What on Earth are you doing?! the voice in Stormy's head shrieked.

She snapped out of her fugue to find herself nearly face-to-face with Brian, his expression unreadable as her fingertips toyed with a section of his hair. Stormy yanked her hand away and leapt back from the table, mortified.

"Sorry, there was... something," she stammered, unable to meet his eyes. "In your hair." She flicked the fictitious piece of nothing into the garbage and skittered toward the door. "Um, is it okay if I use your bathroom?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, but she was already out the door.

She scurried down the hallway and locked herself in the downstairs bathroom, pressing her forehead to the mirror when she was securely contained. Her breath was coming fast and heavy, fogging up the cool silvery glass.

"What is the matter with you?!" she hissed to her own reflection. "Have you gone completely insane?!"

Stormy took a couple of deep breaths and then flushed the toilet, just for show. She splashed cold water on her face several times and dried off with a hand towel that had a pleasantly familiar scent. As she pressed it to her face and inhaled deeply, Stormy suddenly realizing that it smelled like Brian, minus a couple of key elements, and that she liked it for that very reason!

Stop it, stop it, stop it! she berated silently, panic rising in her chest. She folded the towel and draped it over the rack where she had found it, then gave herself a last, hard look in the mirror. Stop. It. Now!

Stormy could hear the television playing in the living room, so she cautiously stepped inside. Brian was tipped back in the overstuffed recliner with his legs stretched out over the footrest. As she drew near, she could see that he held a bag of frozen peas pressed against his ribcage.

"Does it hurt much?" she asked, motioning to his side.

He glanced up at her and smiled, seemingly oblivious to the weirdness that had just occurred between them in the kitchen, and Stormy breathed an inward sigh of relief. Maybe she was making a mountain out of a molehill.

"Not really," he said, although they both knew he was lying. "I'm just following doctor's orders. Have a seat."

Stormy sat down on the couch, curling her legs up underneath herself as she sank back into the cushions. Staring at the television as he flickered through the channels, she relaxed into the easy quiet between them, feeling grateful that she hadn't done anything to complicate their friendship. But maybe she spoke too soon on that one.

"Did you spend the night here?" Brian asked suddenly, and Pop! went her tiny little bubble of security.

"No," Stormy said, mostly because it was true. "I came inside for a minute, but then I went back to my father's house. Why?"

Brian tipped his head to the side and pressed his lips into a thin line, his brow knotted in concentration.

"Hunh," he said, his expression clouded over in confusion. "I could have sworn that you were—"

He paused, and Stormy's heart seized up in her chest. Did he remember her being in his bedroom? Did he remember what he had said to her? Oh, God! Had he seen her checking out his underwear?  She held her breath and dug her teeth into her bottom lip, willing him to remember anything but that!

He shook his head. "Never mind," he said. "My head's not on straight..."

"Well, it's no wonder," Stormy scoffed, relieved. "You practically overdosed on those pills Henry gave you!"

"What? No, " he denied. "I only took one."

"Yeah, last night.  And then you took two more sometime this morning," Stormy informed him. "That's probably half your problem—you've got a narcotic hangover!"

Brian seemed to be searching his mind, but came up blank.

"I don't remember that at all," he mused, absently stroking the shadow of stubble that ran along his jawline. "Actually, I don't remember anything after—"

He stopped short again, and this time Stormy's heart plummeted into her toes. He seemed to be pulling something from the far recesses of his mind, trying to grasp something that was just beyond his reach. He looked straight at her, and the light of cognition sparked in his eyes for just a split second before he doused it with his own doubt.

"I don't think I remember anything after turning onto the main road," he confessed, disbelieving. "How is that even possible?"

Relief flooded over Stormy, although she felt guilty for using Brian's incapacitated state to her own advantage. But it was best this way, for both of them.

"This is your brain on drugs?" she suggested with a shrug.

"Apparently," he agreed, although he still seemed to be wrestling with his own sense of reality. "I guess from now on, I'll 'just say no'."

"Yeah, that's probably a good credo for you to live by," she said, propping her head on her palm as she turned her attention back to the television.

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"Well, if you're blacking out and losing whole blocks of time," she elaborated offhandedly, not really paying attention. "Besides, you talk in your sleep."

As soon as the words passed over her lips, Stormy knew she'd made a mistake. She prayed that he hadn't picked up on it, but could feel his eyes burning into her before she even turned around.

"And how would you know?" he asked suspiciously.

Shit, shit, shit! she panicked, buying herself some time as she resituated herself to better face him.

"Well, we had an entire conversation before I left here last night," she recovered smoothly. "So if you don't remember anything after turning onto the main road, then you must have been talking in your sleep."

"Oh." He accepted her explanation, but he looked so utterly confused and dismayed that Stormy was certain she was fated for Hell. His eyes met hers once again. "What did we talk about?"

"You don't wanna knoooow," she teased mischievously.

He blinked back at her, and then a smile began to dance at the corners of his mouth.

"Shut up," he finally said, and Stormy laughed enough for both of them.