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She says it’s fine because she has to say it’s fine because if she doesn’t say it’s fine it won’t be.
So it’s fine.
So she says it’s fine.
She doesn’t let herself think that it isn’t fine.
She doesn’t even entertain the idea.
She would be fine in the morning. She would. She just needed sunlight. And a reason to live.
And maybe a cigarette, or the box
And maybe some vodka, or the bottle
And maybe someone who loved her, or
She just needed it to be morning. Her thoughts always came better to her in the morning.
She needed the sun to rise and her spirits to follow suit.
She needed to sleep. That would speed the process up.
She tossed and turned and nearly begged for sleep to grace her with its presence.
It didn’t.
She tossed and turned and the sheets felt too much like words and not enough like sheets.
Nothing was comfortable and everything felt like too much.
She got up.
She paced the small hotel room and tried to focus. Tried to wrap her head around a thought. Just one.
Her brain was yelling louder and louder and all at once and too much and too loud and too much and too loud and she couldn’t think clearly. her brain tossing up idea after idea
and fragments that didn’t complete in sentences
and words on separate
lines
too many spaces and no periods
it was too much
she stood sill a moment
The yelling quieted down
She grasped onto a thought. It was a stupid one. A silly one. One that couldn’t possibly end well, but her feet were moving before she could tell them this was a horrible idea.
She knocked on the connecting door to her room, heart beating a mile a minute.
He opened the door quickly, too quickly for someone who should have been asleep. (Brooke cursed her brain for caring about his sleep patterns).
He wiped the non-existent sleep from his eyes and looked up at her.
“My brain… it’s going too fast. And I don’t know how to say this, but it always seems to quiet down around you.”
Jose didn’t speak, he just nodded and moved aside to let her enter the room.
She wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not for the silence.
She let him pull her by the hands to the bed.
The sheets felt like sheets.
Brooke let herself get lost in them.
Let herself come down.
He wrapped his arms around her, no hesitation. He pulled her close and let her breathe him in.
This was probably bad.
That her head stopped spinning when her chest nestled against his.
That her heart stopped racing at the feeling of his hands.
That her breath became shallow the longer she lay.
That she felt safe.
Exes weren’t supposed to feel this way.
They were supposed to smile cordially and talk in hushed tones to their friends.
They were supposed to stalk each other on social media and like every other post so it still looked like they were friends, but they weren’t too close.
They were supposed to move on.
And she hadn’t.
He had.
Or at least it seemed he had.
A new man all over instagram said that he had.
Brooke couldn’t open the app without seeing his face.
It made a cocktail of emotions stir in her gut.
A cocktail that was too sweet to be good for you.
But here he was, flush against her.
Stroking her hair in time with his heartbeat, well, their heartbeat.
Exes didn’t do this.
But maybe they could.
Maybe they could be those exes.
Maybe there didn’t have to be feelings involved.
She chanced a look up.
Maybe there didn’t have to be that many feelings involved.
She looked back down.
Their feet and legs were tangled up like wet pasta and Brooke knows that’s a stupid simile but she can’t seem to find words other than ‘safe’ and ‘home’ and ‘love.’
She looked back up.
His eyes were closed and his breathing was steady.
He wasn’t asleep.
She knew what he looked like when he was asleep.
Couldn’t forget if she tried.
She nudged closer and his hand wrapped firmer around her shoulders.
No, exes didn’t do this.
And this probably wasn’t good.
And there were assuredly feelings involved.
But it’s fine.
Even if it’s not fine.
It’s fine.