Hearts Without Chains

26.

~Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's~ Billy Wilder

Harry-

When I wake up I'm freezing, my back bare and my legs chilled. When I lift myself onto my elbows and open my heavy eyelids, I realize that I am not in my bed and not at my own house, but at Joey's. I close my eyes again and flop onto my back, trying to piece together just what happened last night and how I got here.

I only remember being in that closet, talking to Jo on the phone and then leaving it. When I feel something nudge my foot that hangs off the couch, I open my eyes, supporting myself on my elbows again. I find Joey standing at the edge of the couch, hair piled on top of her hair, being held by a hair tie.

"How are you feeling?" She asks.

"I have a headache." I respond.

My eyes scan down her frame shamelessly, and I can see her feet shuffling underneath her self-consciously as I do so.

"Do you want coffee?" She asks me, lifting her own cup for emphasis.

I sit up now, rubbing my temples with my fingers as I nod my head. How the hell did she get me here? Because I know that she is not the strongest girl. When she leaves to make me coffee I stand up, and go upstairs to find the bathroom myself. I find one at the end of the hall, and I rinse off my face and swish hot water in my mouth before leaving.

"Do you want toast?" Joey asks me as I come back downstairs. I chuckle to myself as I see her eyes flash to my bared torso, before fluttering away with a blush to her cheeks.

"Not with peanut butter on it for sure." I tell her.

When I approach the counter in the kitchen there is two pills waiting for me, with a glass of water and coffee. I take the pills, and sit down as I watch Joey make toast in the kitchen. Things are quiet between us, and I know for sure that there are questions that I want to ask her about last night. I bet I said some bullshit things, and I find myself hoping that I didn't hurt her feelings with anything I might have said.

"What exactly happened last night?" I finally ask when she's putting peanut butter on her toast, and jelly on mine.

She shrugs her shoulders, and takes a sip of her coffee.

"I know I probably said some bullshit things, so out with it." I tell her.

She shakes her head as she swallows, "No, you didn't say anything like that. You just made fun of my car, said something about your jacket...." She trails off, shrugging her shoulders again.

I lean my back onto the barstool, eyeing her.

"My jacket?" I ask with a laugh.

"You were upset that you left it at Daniels house." She tells me.

I didn't fucking tell her why, did I? By the small smile to her lips I can tell that I did, but I decide to just let the subject slip by and pick up my coffee mug which is just a plain dark blue. I bet it's her fathers.

"And that's all?" I ask. I know just what I'm searching for, what I'm trying to figure out if I told her or not. My mother, because she can't know about that, I don't want her to.

"That's all." She concludes.

Her eyes meet mine, and I can tell she's not telling me everything. But she places toast in front of me and rounds the counter with her own. She turns on the tv and invites me to sit on the couch with her while we eat.

"This seems like something you would never do." I tell her as I sit down.

"I usually don't." She laughs.