Ice Cold

22

"You really have to bring him up?" James asked, shaking his head at me. "Fine, then I know your sex dream was about Landon because you said his name. I just didn't want to embarrass you, but now I don't care because you're being a massive asshole."

"I'm not embarrassed," I told him.

"Of course you're not," he said, rolling his eyes. "Have you fucked Landon yet or are you in the stage of just imagining it?"

"Oh, we have passionate rough sex every night."

"And you don't invite me?"

"Why would I?"

I got out of bed and started toward the door to go to the restroom.

"In all seriousness, if you're dreaming about him you should probably just fuck him and get it over with."

I didn't dignify that with a response and left the room, closing the door behind me.

The problem with James's logic was that I wasn't dreaming about Landon because I wanted to have sex with him so badly. It was because what I felt for him was more personal and emotional than that which was something I had never felt for anyone before. And something I shouldn't be feeling for him at all.

I wasn't supposed to get caught up in emotions for someone, especially not for someone I had history with like Landon. Someone who could cause the breakage of my already fragile relationship with my brother. I should have known something like this was coming. I had spent too long with everything working out for me and something had to give.

I braced my hands on the edge of the sink and stared at myself in the mirror for a moment.

Sometimes I felt like a stranger to myself. This was one of those moments. The rational part of me would never let myself feel anything for anybody. And that was the part I clung to, the part I knew, the part I was comfortable with.

I finished in the bathroom and went back to the bedroom. James was in the middle of getting dressed when I walked in. He glanced at me, raising an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

The weather outside was cold, dreary, and raining, making the decision for me to stay in my dorm all day instead of going to class a very easy one.

"You're actually going to class today?" I asked James, sitting down at my desk.

"I have to," he said. "I have an exam in one class and if I have one more absence in another the Professor is gonna fail me."

"How unfortunate."

James flipped me off and left the room. When he was gone, I pulled out my laptop and worked on some assignments to submit them early. I was already ahead in most of my classes, so there wasn't many of them for me to do.

I moved onto working on my novel when I was finished with assignments. I had been stuck for days on what to write, my thoughts unable to translate into words on the page. That problem persisted even as I sat at my desk, the page open in front of me.

I read over my words, forcibly stopping myself from back spacing through the whole thing. That was the thing with writing; I was never satisfied when the end result.