Sam and Colby: The Penitentiary

12

I couldn't sleep. I don't know why, since we'd gone to bed at two in the morning and I was absolutely exhausted from the long day I'd had. I sat up and looked at the clock on the nightstand next to me that said 3:48am.

                "Ugh," I sighed, flopping back down onto my back. I'd never slept in this bed. I didn't like it.

                Actually, I just didn't like sleeping in this house without Colby next to me. I suddenly very much understood why he hadn't wanted to stay in our room without me.

                I got out of bed and went into the bathroom. I'd snuck one of Colby's big t-shirts out of our closet that he'd left in there. I loved wearing his clothes. They were so comfortable and they smelled just like him. I wasn't wearing any pants, just some Nike socks that went halfway up my calves.

                I stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. I felt almost guilty for changing so much when I was gone. Both physically and mentally. I suddenly felt mad at myself. These people, all of them, were a part of me and I was part of them. I left them in the dark for months. No one deserves to be bailed on like that.

                I started thinking about that night. How fun it had been to go get my second tattoo with the girls, how excited we all were when we got back to the house for my birthday. My heart started to race when I thought about what happened after that, though.

                My mom had called me to let me know that my dad had a tumor that'd tested positive for cancer. She hardly knew anything about it yet, how bad it was, but she thought I'd want to know.

                I'd come back downstairs, having already decided that I needed to go back home. Except at the time, I was only planning on going for a week or two. Colby had asked me to follow him outside to the garden the girls had started, and he had me sit down on that bench, and...

                "Oh, fuck," I whispered, realizing that I was crying. I rubbed my eyes, leaving mascara stains under my eyes. I turned off the bathroom light and went back into the room, crawling into the bed again. Looking at the empty right side of the bed made me start to cry again. I reached out, knowing that he wasn't there, and hated the feeling of the cold sheets next to me.

I really needed to sleep, but I couldn't. I was pretty sure I knew something that would help, though. I grabbed a blanket out of the closet and wrapped it around myself, then silently slipped out of the room. I snuck down the hallway to Colby's room and walked in through the cracked door, closing it behind me.

                He was asleep on the right side of the bed. I continued crying when I saw that he still stayed on the side he slept on when we were together instead of just moving to the middle like most people would.

                I tiptoed across the carpet and got into the bed as slowly as possible, trying not to move too much so I wouldn't wake him up. I got in and laid on my side, facing away from Colby so that if he woke up in the middle of the night, he wouldn't be immediately terrified by a face right next to his that hadn't been there when he went to sleep.

                I was almost asleep when I felt Colby moving around on the other side of the bed. A moment later, his arm snaked its way around my waist and pulled me into him.

                "Colby?" I whispered as quiet as I could.

                "Mhm?" he mumbled, basically still asleep.

                "I love you," I whispered. His grip on my waist tightened a bit and I felt him kiss the back of my neck.

 

                "I love you too, princess. Always," he whispered. Damn, did I miss this.

 

                "Hey, do you know where Nessa—oh my god, no way," I heard someone say. I opened my eyes to see Sam and Kat in the doorway. I smiled at them and gave them a small wave.

                "Aw," Kat whispered.

                "Sorry," Sam mouthed, backing out of the room with Kat before quietly shutting the door. I looked up at the clock by the bed that said 2pm. Damn, we really had been tired.

                I'd ended up further away from Colby than where we'd fallen asleep, his arm no longer draped around my hips. I rolled over to face him.

                I studied his face for a moment. There was something about seeing someone you love when they were asleep, the way their face was soft and relaxed. I smiled at him and placed my hand on the side of his face.

                "Hmm," he mumbled. I moved my thumb back and forth a few times, making him smile while still asleep. I looked down at his slightly parted lips, missing how they felt against mine.

                Wait, I didn't need to miss that.

                I leaned forward and gave him a short kiss, causing his eyes to shoot open. He didn't say anything, didn't smile, just stared at me.

                "Sorry," I mumbled. Maybe that was a little soon. I was about to roll back over when his hand reached out and grabbed my face, pulling my lips back against his.

                "Never be sorry about that," he said after a few moments. I nodded. "Were... were you crying?" he asked, sitting up. I reached my hand up under my eyes and swiped my fingers across my face, pulling them back to see them covered in mascara.

                "Oh. Uh, yeah. Last night," I said.

                "Aw, why?" he asked.

                "I don't know," I shrugged. "I just... I left. I left and I didn't look back for far too long. And then I changed while I was gone. I dyed my hair and basically stopped talking to anyone and I just turned into someone else. Someone that I'm not, someone that I don't want to be. I came back sort of out of nowhere and basically expected to just pick back up where I'd left off. And then you didn't say anything, didn't really react when you saw me again." He gave me a sad smile, then reached over and hugged me.

                "I had no idea what to even say. I didn't know what or who you came back for," he replied. "I messed up. And don't tell me I didn't, because I've already convinced myself I did. I just got ahead of myself with everything, I guess. You had been in the hospital for so long and I sort of realized that I could lose you at any moment. And then I kind of did, for a while. Every day that you weren't here, I'd either be sitting by the window in here looking out, hoping that I'd see your car or sit on the stairs praying that you'd walk back in. I gave up on doing that after about a month and hardly even left this room. Sam basically had to drag me outside to the pool yesterday when you came back," he said.

                "Colby, you know I never meant to hurt you, right? Saying no... it was hard. Really hard. I still love you and I continued to do so even when I was gone. I shouldn't have stayed away for so long, especially not without talking to any of you," I said. "My dad got better over a month ago. I told myself that I needed to stay there for him, but I knew that I was just hiding from everything that happened," I replied.

                "I'm sorry. That won't happen again," he said.

                "Okay, that is not the point I was trying to make. It can definitely happen again, just... not for a while," I said.

                "Yeah?" he asked.

                "Yeah," I replied.