Cuddle Application

25 - Under the Covers

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
~Dr. Seuss

➳♀♁➳

"Sky, I can explain."

Oliver jumps from the chair, immediately dropping Cora's hand. I can't stop staring at her face. The admiration that was there the split second before she noticed me. The rejection that's there now, her eyes staring down at the hand Oliver's discarded. Her eyes meet mine, and there's a choice written across her face.

She purses her lips.

Fine.

"I see you're busy," I say bluntly, twisting on my heels and marching through the open door. I almost slam it shut, but Oliver follows too close behind.

Slam it in his asshole face, I think.

"Skylar, please wait—"

I don't. I march down the stairs, through the kitchen, and to the front door this time. No need to hide my exit anymore, and I really do feel like slamming a door.

"She asked me to come over, and I—"

"And you what?" I spin around. I can feel the hot rage bubbling in my stomach about to pour out through my lips. "Decided to play Mommy and Daddy and live happily ever after in her room? Meanwhile I haven't even seen her—"

I rip open the front door and in a millisecond, his arm flies over my shoulder and pushes it shut. I feel the warmth from his body heat against my back, my stomach flipping.

"Skylar," he whispers, voice low and husky. "I'm so sorry."

I flip around. "Are you now?"

His eyes almost roll. "Will you let me finish?" I cross my arms. "I didn't know you hadn't seen her. She asked me to come the day she got back." He runs a hand through his messy head of hair, and for the first time I realize how tired he looks.

His eyes are rimmed with dark sleeplessness, and for the first time since I'd met him, his shirt was plain black. No band name written across it.

I sigh. "I just want to be there for her, you know?"

"Yeah," he nods. "I do." He takes each of my hands in his and rubs his thumbs in small circles. I can feel a weight releasing from my shoulders. "I'm just trying to be her friend," he continues. "But that doesn't mean I'm trying to replace you."

That's not what I'm worried about, I think to myself. Sure, it stung that Cora had been seeing Oliver for an entire month without letting me in, but the worst part had been her expression. The compete infatuation on her face as she stared at Oliver.

I knew Cora. I knew her like I knew my own face in the mirror. The way she wrung her hands together when she was nervous. The was she pressed her lips together three times after applying chapstick.

The way she looked when she saw something she liked. The way she looked at Oliver —

She liked him. There was no doubt about that.

➳♀♁➳

Hospitals are musty.

My foot taps endlessly against the brown tile of the waiting room. My skin itched, as it always did when I sat in this place. One of the cleanest facilities in the world always made me feel like I was covered in a million ten-legged bugs.

Hospitals tend to try to distract you. They'll give a patient a stuffed bear to squeeze, and the parents free refills from the fancy coffee maker down the hall, but that didn't change their nature. Hospitals reminded me of all the bad things — of all the monsters hiding behind masks, waiting to strike. Everyone dies, and hospitals are usually a place you swing by on the way there. This hospital had a waiting room with four TV's, a ping-pong table, and a rock climbing wall that came up to my hip. No accidents could happen on a three foot tall climbing wall. No fun, either.