Breathe Me || Completed

11.1

11.1 - Bed

At midnight when Samantha finally decides to go to sleep, she closes my laptop and starts to drift toward the futon. That's one good thing about passing out at the dinner table: no one's going to roll you out of your bed like a pesky log. She's wearing her typical white t-shirt and frown as she plops down on the squeaking couch-bed, bouncing up and down slightly like a dog trying to find the most comfortable spot on a dog bed.

"Samantha," I call to her across the room.

"You okay?" she asks without looking at me. She seems to find a space that's to her liking. Lying down on the pillows my mother brought up from the couch, she yanks the tiny flannel blanket around her, glaring at the way it stops at her knees.

I sit up in bed, feeling the blood rush around in my head. Her eyes are closed. "You don't have to sleep on that," I tell her. I know how uncomfortable it is because I've been sleeping on it for the past few nights myself. One of her eyes pops open. "Come over here. I have plenty of blankets."

Why, Sally. I'm going to make myself faint again. She throws herself off the futon, making the fragile furniture groan with despair. I watch her long legs stride toward my bed, painted up and down with fine, golden hair. I've been shaving my legs obsessively since she got here. I guess when you're Samantha, you don't have to worry about shaving because you're gorgeous anyway.

"You sure?" she says, but she's already sliding under the sheets.

Her warmth is the fires of hell, burning, forbidden, white hot. She sidles closer and lays her head on the pillow next to mine. Two people aren't really meant to sleep in a twin bed, so if I want to save myself from rolling off the mattress in the middle of the night, I have to scoot right up against her body. I do. Our noses are almost touching.

She gives me a wan smile. "So you're not mad?" she says.

"Mad about what?"

"I dunno. You didn't say anything to me after you woke up . . ."

"Oh. No, I'm not mad." But maybe I should be. "They were bound to find out at some point, anyway. At least this way you sort of took part of the blame."

She nods. "I swear I wasn't trying to get you in trouble. My mom doesn't really give a shit when I do stuff like that . . . I didn't really think they were gonna freak out like that. I feel kinda bad."

Satan? Penitent? Who would have guessed? "Your remorse is enough for me," I giggle. She's looking at me with heavy-lidded eyes, our foreheads moving closer until they're pressed against each other.

Samantha licks my lips with a gentle tongue, moving into my mouth so subtly that I hardly notice.

It worries me that my father might come to check on me again and find us kissing, her hands pressed into the small of my back. He wouldn't like this at all, not just because Samantha is a girl, but because Samantha is this girl. The girl who pierced my nose with a sewing needle.

I can hear his words replaying in my head: I'm sorry we yelled. I didn't mean to scare you, Sweetie . . . we just worry about you. We don't want you to get hurt, Sally. Today it's a nose piercing, who knows what it'll be tomorrow?

I bite down on Samantha's chapped lower lip. I don't know what it'll be tomorrow. A cigarette, maybe? Some recreational arson? California?

It's Wednesday night. The thought of it makes my stomach clench.

Samantha jerks away suddenly and punches my stomach, hard enough to make me jump. "Hey," she says. "What the fuck, Sally?"

"What?"

She has her hand cupped around her lip.

"Oh -- Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, did I--"

Samantha chuckles. "Wow, I wasn't expecting that." There's blood dripping down her chin from her lower lip, scarlet beads in a silent procession.

I get out of bed, head spinning. "I'll get a tissue," I say.

"No, don't. Wouldn't want you to pass out again." Samantha climbs out of bed and pretends to swoon on me, knocking me back onto the mattress. "I'll be right back," she says.

I lie back down under the covers and snuggle into the warm indent Samantha left in the mattress. I'll be right back . . . but what if she wasn't? What if she disappears and never returns? For a second, I allow my heart to be gripped by the gut-wrenching possibility of it. A stunning loneliness douses me like ice water, shaking my core and pummeling my mind. My fingertips feel numb, my stomach, nauseated with sudden abandonment.

I hurt for her. It's physical.

But she does come back. When I see her, I let all the tension in my limbs unspool, and the ice in my center melts. The fire in my heart rekindles as she slips back under the covers next to me. She's holding a tissue to her lip. She frowns at me. "You okay?"

"Mhm. Just . . . trying to imagine what it would be like if you were really just gone."

"And what's it like?"

"Awful."

Samantha chuckles and touches my nose with her pinky finger, tapping the earring. I feel the sharp back tap the inside of my nose with a small pain like a finger prick at the doctor's office. "So you're coming?"

I roll over and she lets me pretend that I'm asleep.