Chapter Text
I pull a turtleneck sweater over my head, it makes my hair all static so I pat down the strands that are sticking up. I’d be hanging out with Micheal today, for the first time since Higgs, and it made me nervous.
I’ve been acting kind of weird around him since we kissed because I don’t know if he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend or not and to be honest I don’t even know if I want to be. I mean I care about him a lot but even the thought of that amount of commitment makes me want to puke and that’s just in my head so I can’t imagine how much worse it would be in real life. I do like him and all, I’m just a very unsure person.
I get to café Rivière, scope out the table Micheal is sitting at and quite literally collapse in the chair, slumping my head down onto the quartz table top.
“Hey” Micheal says
“Hello” I respond, muffled into my wool sleeve. I don’t have the energy to talk to anyone this morning so I try to keep my contribution to the conversation to a minimum.
“Tori” Micheal says “Have you been ignoring me?”
“No”
“Are you angry at me?”
I sigh deeply
“No”
I feel bad because I think he is genuinely worried that he’s done something wrong, which he hasn’t.
“Are you just saying no because you don’t want to face your problems?”
I look up from my elbow finally and make eye contact
“No.”
Micheal puts his face in his hands and sighs, he almost looks like a disappointed father asking why you came home drunk the night before, not that I’d know the look.
“Well I don’t understand, you’ve been acting very strange”
I sit up properly and place my chin in my palm
“it’s almost like you’re trying to disappear” he continues
It’s funny because even though I usually am trying to disappear, I don’t want to this time. I don’t like that Micheal is worried. I don’t like to see him when he isn’t usual sunshine self. I decide that I don’t want to say anything so I just kind of grab his sleeve and look him in the eye. He’s wearing this thin blue long sleeve with a white zigzag across his chest. We stare at each other for a bit and then he starts to pull me outside into the chill air.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong if I give you something?”
We sit down at a damp picnic table outside
“Perhaps…I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have this thing where I run away from people I care about”
Micheal looks at me and I think he wants to say something about me caring about him but I really hope he doesn’t.
“Are you scared?”
I hate this question.
“It’s fine if you are, I just don’t understand why you should live your life in constant fear, it’s very unethical”
At this point I’m avoiding eye contact because I know he’s right, he always is
“…”
I stay silent because if I say anything else, I will completely and utterly humiliate myself but unfortunately this means neither of us speak so I move my head to face him and just stare.
I stare into his green eye, and then his blue eye, and then I study his jawline, and then his nose, and then freckles. After I’m sure I could draw his face exactly from memory I put my head down and im not sure but I think I fall asleep. I can feel Micheal fiddling with the ends of my hair and then he starts to talk but I’m half asleep and the only words I can make out before dozing off are “I want” and “comfortable”
When I wake up Micheal is still there. I don’t know how longs been but I sit up and without saying a word Micheal stands up and starts walking, I follow him and realize we are walking towards my house. I ask myself if I want to go home and the answer is yes, I think Micheal knows this but I don’t want to stop being around him.
We get about 3/4 of the way to my house when I stop on the pavement. Micheal stops too.
“I’m sorry”
“Hm?”
“I’m sorry I’m such an asshole”
I continue walking towards my house and Michael walks too, at a bit off a faster pace. We reach my house and stop in front, I hug him. He seems surprised but hugs me back and then I muffle something into his shirt something along the lines of “I don’t want to talk” and just pray it doesn’t come off as weird.
I make him come inside with me and I make him a mug of tea and myself a cup of diet lemonade. We head up to my room and I feel like watching a film so I let Michael choose because I have no idea what to watch. He picks “whisper of the heart” from studio Ghibli. I set my laptop on the floor in front of me while Michael sits on the bed and braids my hair, I think even if we are upset with each other, the company of Micheal Holden is better than anything ever.
Midway through our hair braiding session, Charlie walks into my room but immediately retreats because he sees Micheal, I have a sense that he will bother me about this later. At this point in the movie the boy has moved away and the girl is crying about a book which is making me cringe so I ask Micheal if he wants a snack
“Your going to miss the best part though”
He whines so I keep making attempts to pay attention
The movie finishes and I have to admit it was a bit of a cute ending but was definitely still a bit corny. I decide to think about that later because it has started snowing and Micheal wants to go back outside. I put on more suitable attire for snow and I ask Micheal if he wants anything but of course as the human heater he is, he declines.
We decide to go back to café Rivière because I haven’t eaten a proper breakfast so I get a croissant and Micheal has another mug of tea
It’s quiet for a while, not a good quiet either, the kind that makes you want to run out the door, out of town and out of life.
I think about solitaire.
“Do you think they meant for it to be selfish?” I find myself speaking first.
“Solitaire I mean”
Micheal looks as me and the looks at his hands
“I think” he starts
“Maybe they thought is wasn’t at first but it turned into something that was”
I find that even though we know who solitaire is, we choose not to refer, and it’s not like solitaire traumatized me or anything, I don’t need to talk to anyone about it despite what Charlie thinks and I can tell when people are concerned about my well-being even though I repeatedly say I’m fine
I wish I could be left alone forever
“I heard that they’re moving higgs to Truham and Truham to the university or something”
Micheal says
I could not care less about this.