Skinny Love

six o'clock a.m.

"When I wake, sometimes I remember my dream. It's always the same. I dream that you're is alive. And those dreams are the worst because they're dreams. I haven't thought about you in a year."

+

AN UNSENT LETTER TO FRANCIS DE LA ROSA, HER EX BOYFRIEND

+

DESPITE THE WAY the house gave off the illusion that it was warm an cozy when the fluorescent light bulbs were on, the two floored home was actually much more than people probably gave it credit for. 

There was barely any extra furniture, unlike my house. While some corners of my house were over the brim with books, magazines, dirty laundry, and lamps, his was designed so that there was much more room to do whatever you wanted. Everything in her room gave off a vintage aura, painted walls, pictures and Polaroid shots hanging up on the cork board and his entire house looked like a minimalist interior design class threw up in it. 

Ignoring each chill up my spine with every step on the cold floor, and muffling my coughs by bunching up my shirt and pressing it to my mouth, I attempted to skillfully dodge pass the floorboards to enter the hallway. I winced when my feet made the floor creak but to my luck, Adam only shifted. 

Putting my arms around my (not so thin) waist, I ventured past the doorway of his room, until I was standing out alone in the hallway. All the lights on the floor were off and there were, to my knowledge, no parents in the house. I was pretty sure they were on a business trip of some sort, because I was almost certain that I walked by an empty master's bedroom before I went to Adam's room.  But I still made a mental note to ask Adam about this later.

I walked down the big steps hesitantly, down to where the kitchen and living room were. 

It was spacious and there wasn't much to do. Unfortunately, due to my sucky map making skills in elementary and my mom using a GPS when she drove to places, I stink at directions. I would have gone home now. Photogenic memory was great and all, but it found it's Achilles heels when it came to following verbal directions. The rain had ceased and all that was left was the occasion plunk of a raindrop falling from the tip of a tree branch.  It should have been a comforting sound, but all it did was put me off edge. What was my mother going to say if she woke up to the sound and realized that her eldest daughter wasn't home?

Half my shirt (or Felicity's actually) was still pressed up on my mouth, almost muting the coughs that escaped my throat as I took in the rooms that I didn't get to see. My mind wandered back to the little girl I saw when I walked in, presumably another one of Adam's sisters?

The details of her faze fuzzed as the only memory that took hold of my brain was the one wear Star Wars was read aloud for me. Adam's deep yet at the same time light voice in particular made my cheeks burn for no reason. 

While collecting my thoughts (that at the moment were more sprawled out and confusing as trying to separate the hay stick from the pile of the needles), I ended up in front of the door. I immediately turned around so my back was toward it, trying not to tempt myself. Either I would get lost or get kidnapped. And a sick Lydia Beau was in the mood for neither. 

in their living room, where the only main piece of furniture was a big blue couch that seemed impossibly soft. 

I walked over and collapsed on it. Not that my mind was tired, but my body was. And I couldn't relax as well as I could with another being near me. In this case, Adam. I coughed, my face buried in the couch, and not daring to look up. As if I had been embarrassed in public, I could almost feel my temperature rising higher and higher. I clenched my eyes shut and let out a groan of pain.