It All Started with a Lie

Chapter 21

She lets out a huff, rolling her eyes. "You know how much I hate it when you call—"

"Thank you."

The look on her face tells me that it is red, but her foundation covers it well. "Oh, well, you're welcome."

She fumbles with the bandaids, pretending to stuff them back into the box despite them already being in there, letting her hair cascade in front of her face. "Are you staying the night?" She mumbles, crushing the bandages in the package.

"Do you want me to?" I am desperate for her to say yes, so when she tries to turn away from me I guide her back so she has no choice but to look at me. I can feel her pulse palpitate through the spot on her wrist that I hold her by.

Her voice is soft when she speaks. "You don't have your bike to drive home."

"Right. I guess I'm staying then."

She steps out of my grip, saying she will get extra blankets despite us both knowing she will wake up with all of them and I will have none.

I pass a series of mirrors on the way to her room, all flashing images of my face, decorated in a pink bandaid, and it is the first time since I was a kid that I have looked in a mirror and smiled.

I find her in her room, laying in a makeshift bed of pillows and blankets on the floor beside her bed. "Darling?" I question.

She pops her head up from a blanket mound. "You can sleep on the bed."

I raise my brow. "Excuse me?"

She lays her head back down. "I'm gonna sleep on the floor. It helps stretch my back."

"I'll join you then." I grab the pillow off the bed to move to the floor but she shakes her head and insists I take the bed, that she prefers it that way.

"Come on darling, I'm not gonna bite." I am already taking the bed, because I know she will not change her mind.

"Shame, I might be into that," her tone doesn't match her words.

I'd give anything to know what she is thinking. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

A heavy silence falls over us. She pretends to sleep, and I realize that she has no idea that she snores in her sleep because she feigns in utter silence. It's a long time before she finally dozes off, and all I can do is stare at her and wonder what she wants for us, because I know what I want and I don't know if we're on the same page, or even the same book.
————————
It is nearly four in the morning when my phone rings beneath my pillow, waking me up. I groan, trying to find it.

I somehow managed to move to the other side of the bed, laying on my stomach with one arm dangling off the bed. In my move, my phone has been losts to the tangle of sheets and blankets. I find it somewhere beneath my ribs. "Hello?" I answer, groggily before even checking the caller ID.

"Everyone is fine," my sister begins, and my body grows taut. "Sonny came home a few minutes ago crying, he locked himself in his room and won't open the door. He's not injured from what I can tell."

I rub my face, sighing. "Okay, I'll head home now." It is only then that I remember where I am, who I am with, and that I do not have my bike.

"I'll see you soon. Te quiero."

"Te quiero."

She hangs up and my phone flashes at three percent charge. I lay it beside me and peak over the edge of the bed to see Alexandria, hoping I have not woken her. She is still fast asleep, in a cocoon of blankets. Her hand holds mine, her forehead presses against the back of my fingers.