Playing with Fire

e p i s o d e | t w e n t y - s e v e n (pt. 2)

I can feel the blood pounding against my eardrums as I wake up the next morning, my head aching. I sit up fuzzily to face my living room, and blink at the washcloth that falls off my forehead and into my lap. When had I come back home last night? I could have sworn that I'd saw Anna somewhere, too. Maybe it was in a dream ...

When I glance beside me, however, I see her there. She's kneeling against the couch with her head in her arms, her eyes closed. My breathing must have stopped for a good minute as I stop and stare at her. Am I still dreaming? My hand reaches out towards her face curiously, and I half-expect it to pass right through my image of her. But when my fingers brush against her dark hair, my heart leaps.

She's here.

Without even thinking, I drop my head onto her shoulder. She slowly lifts her own face, blinking dazedly around her surroundings before her eyes land on me.

"Are you finally awake?" she asks.

I sit up straight before helping her onto the couch next to me. "Did you stay in that position the whole night?" That must have been somewhat uncomfortable for her.

"Feel bad," she responds cheekily.

"But that means ..." I trail off and narrow my eyes at her. "Did you stop by the bar?"

"Bar?" she asks, a little too innocently. "What bar?"

I grab her by the arms. "Anna! Why the hell would you go into a bar just to pick me up? I would have gotten home one way or the other by myself!"

She frowns at me. "Yeah, tell that to your formerly passed-out self. I got a call from the bartender saying that you were practically unconscious, so Sawyer and I headed over."

Winston called her? I press my lips together. Well, he sure does fit the puzzle pieces together quickly. Either that, or I must have been saying some crazy things about Anna while drunk. Still, the fact that she went to the bar is enough to send nervous chills down my spine. At the same time, it's impressive that she managed to do it. Maybe she really has changed, after all.

"Anna, promise me you will never endanger yourself for me again," I say to her sternly.

She turns her head away. "I could tell you the same thing, but you wouldn't listen to me, would you?"

I guess she has a point there. Despite the strands of hair sticking out from her head and the tired look in her eyes, I can't help but continue staring at her admiringly. It's just so satisfying to finally be able to see her up-close again.

"Do I have to put myself in constant danger for you to forgive me?" I ask. As jokingly as I say this, I'm only half kidding.

Anna shakes her head distrustfully. "Don't do it ever again."

I wrap my arms around her and put my chin on top of her head. "Then don't leave me ever again."

She hesitates for a moment, before nodding into my shoulder. "It's a deal."

She allows herself to stay cuddled up in my arms for a moment before lifting her face to look at me, her eyes narrowed. "I do have one question, though," she says skeptically. "Why did you still have my face as your wallpaper? I thought I told you to get rid of that picture."

"You didn't explicitly say that," I argue. "Plus, I developed a masochistic habit of inflicting pain on myself every time I checked my phone. Do you know productive I got afterwards?"

Anna rolls her eyes. "You sound like you had a great time."

"Yep. I hooked up with at least eight girls."

Her jaw drops, but she quickly picks it back up. "I'm surprised it wasn't more," she grumbles resentfully, her arms crossed.

"I'm kidding." Just talking to other girls was painfully annoying enough. Unlike when Anna converses with me, their ulterior motives were too clear – they didn't have genuine interest or curiosity. They didn't have the same crystal-clear innocence gleaming in their eyes. It took all of my strength not to go insane whenever I was forced to have a conversation with them.

"I don't know what I would have done if you didn't come back," I tell her, pressing my hands against her cheeks so that she resembles a chipmunk.

She swats at my hands and feigns nonchalance, flipping her hair haughtily over her shoulder. "Well, it was a close call."

I just grin stupidly at her. "So, why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Come back."

Her hand touches the back of her neck as she blinks her eyes around the room, avoiding my gaze in embarrassment. "Well, I mean ... I could have avoided the whole situation altogether, but I was just worried –"

"Come on, Anna, spit it out," I tease playfully.

"Okay, well ..." She lets out a resigned sigh. "I guess a part of me still didn't want to let go, even after all that had happened." She tips her head questioningly to the side. "Do you think that was selfish of me?"

I smile at her reassuringly. If it was, I'm glad that she decided to be selfish for once. "In this situation, we can both afford to be a little selfish," I reply.

Anna smiles in acknowledgement and then picks her phone up out of her jacket pocket. Her eyes widen when she sees the screen, and a loud gasp comes out of her mouth. She immediately dials a number into the phone and lifts it to her ear.

"Twenty missed calls from home," she squeaks to me.

"Anna!" I hear Kai's voice nearly burst through her phone, and she holds it away from her face. "Where the heck did you go last night? You never came in, and I was about to call the cops, until Sawyer told me that she had been with you!"

"Sorry, Kai," Anna responds meekly. "I went to ... Rowan's."

"Hawthorne? Anna, what the heck?"

"He almost died!" Anna defends herself in a dismayed voice.

"Died? What happened? Is he okay now?"

I pluck the phone out of Anna's grip, ignoring her protesting. "Silver!" I chirp cheerfully into the phone. "How are you, buddy? Did I hear you worrying about me?"

The rage in Kai's voice is pleasantly obvious. "Hawthorne! I'm going to gauge your eyes out! What happened to you and Anna? Why did she spend the night at your place? How the hell did you almost die?"

"Let's just say she saved my life," I reply innocently. "You can hear the full story from us later." With that, I hang up the phone and toss it back to Anna, who catches it as if it's a ticking time bomb.

"You can't just hang up on Kai!" she gasps.

"I just did." I beam at her. "You're with me right now. And I'm not going to let anything interrupt that."