Relative Fiction | ✓

27

There had been times over the last few weeks where I had to pinch myself after waking up in AJ's soft, clean-smelling sheets, as if I'd been enveloped in a dream instead of her arms. Her hair was splayed in ribbons across my chest, and her breath tickled my bare skin. I gently slid myself out from under her, only stirring her slightly from her sleep before she rolled over and pulled the covers over her head. I threw a shirt on and tiptoed down the hallway to the kitchen.

AJ had mentioned the other day she hadn't had a real breakfast in a long time, so I wanted to surprise her, and even though I'd only made pancakes once in my life and I generally burnt bacon to a crisp, I knew how to scramble an egg. 1 out of 3 could be worse, and the rest of it was the thought that counted.

As I fumbled around AJ's kitchen, I thought about the probability that this was what my future would look like. Making breakfast in the mornings, because I could actually get up early after a normal night's sleep. Flour on my hands and a flower on the windowsill above the sink. Four months ago, the thought of my future wasn't even a speck on the horizon. Now it was here, in living, breathing form.

I had minimal dexterity in my hands to begin with, but flipping pancakes was hard. I'd already botched two, but to avoid screwing the next one up, I tried to shimmy my hand under from a different angle and ended up burning my wrist on the pan.

I yelped, but quickly clamped my hands over my mouth to avoid waking AJ up. After shaking the burning sensation out of my hand, I looked down and saw the spatula in two pieces.

"You gotta be kidding me," I grumbled. "Cheap piece of shit."

I hadn't even made the eggs yet.

I turned the stove off and started pulling open drawers in the kitchen, looking for either another spatula or something that could put the spatula back together. After going through every drawer and every cabinet, I tiptoed my way back down the hall and towards AJ's office, hoping I could find some tape or something.

The door opened with a creak, and morning light filtered through the blinds in tiny slivers on the hardwood floors. Even though I'd been staying at AJ's condo regularly, I'd never been in her "office." It looked far more lived-in than the rest of the guest house, with stacks of books in the corner and an antique wooden desk pressed against the wall by the window. The desk looked like her notebooks had thrown up all over it, with bundles of papers and handwritten notes everywhere. How hard could it have been to just find some god damn tape?

I pulled open the first drawer, which was just filled with pens and a leather bound notebook with a string tied around it. My heart lurched into my throat as I ran my fingers over the divots in the leather. I knew by this point I had reached snooping level, but I couldn't help myself. My self-control was still on the edge of a knife, and this pushed me over. I just wanted to know what was buried in her soul, why was that so wrong?

I untied the string and started thumbing through the notebook. I traced my finger over her delicate handwriting, admiring the way she curled her y's and drew little circles over her i's to dot them. Could you be so smitten with someone that you even fell in love with their handwriting?

It wasn't under after I started deciphering her notes that my chest began to tighten. The word struggling jumped out at me several times. Struggling addict. Struggling relationships. Struggling to breathe.

It had to just be a coincidence. My name wasn't anywhere, but the words pulled me in deeper. I turned the page to strings of sentences, detailing a boy on the beach who couldn't find his way out of a paper bag. It was like a short little story, and suddenly I found myself reading about my own life from someone else's perspective. My stomach churned, and my heartbeat throbbed in my ears, but I couldn't put it down. It was like watching a car crash.