Moon Tower

10.

this chapter has been updated

I was late to work the next morning.

I woke up late because I had been up all night freaking the fuck out. I had managed a fitful sleep sometime around five in the morning, and the next thing I knew, my alarm was blaring at me two hours later. I cursed myself for offering to take the morning shift on Friday earlier this week. Though how I was supposed to see any of last night coming was beyond me.

I also tried to prolong being in my room for as long as I could, dreading facing Harry in my living room. I wanted to talk about last night, of course I did. But that didn't mean I wanted to talk about it while I was half asleep and rushing out of my apartment to get to work.

Whatever anxiety I had had about facing Harry that morning vanished when I walked out to find him gone, the pillow I'd lent him placed on top of folded blankets. When did he leave? I wondered. Did he stay the night and leave early, or did he wait until I was in my room last night to slip out? Whatever the case, I couldn't dwell on it. I hastily got all of my things together, grabbed a bar from my pantry, and went to take my keys from the bowl on my kitchen counter. Only when I reached my counter, I noticed a pair of sunglasses that weren't mine. Harry must have left them. Deciding that Harry could go a day without his sunglasses, I reached for my keys and hurried out the door.

Work was its own form of hell. When I got there, I was hoping I could get lost in helping out Georgia, my boss, and the other two physical therapists with their patients today. But that turned out to be a fruitless task when I came in and Georgia said we had a slow day. So for hours I sat at the receptionist desk, replaying last night over and over in my head and psychoanalyzing each and every detail that I could remember. Why had he kissed me in the first place? Was it just the moment? Was it more than that? If it was, how long had he felt that way?

What I tried my hardest not to think about was how right, how good it felt to kiss Harry last night. The softness of his lips, the feeling his hands had left behind when they ran up and down my arm, the little groan he made just before I ended it. No, if his disappearing act said anything, it was that he clearly wanted last night to be forgotten. That, or he didn't have the balls to talk to me like a mature adult. I mean, I felt awkward walking out into the living room this morning, but that didn't mean I was going to avoid him entirely.

Which was what Harry was doing. Avoiding me. I texted him maybe about an hour into my workday. Something about the music that was playing at work. Something normal. A safe, easy subject. But I got nothing from Harry. He had gone radio silent.

I even tried calling him during my lunch break when I realized that he wasn't going to answer my texts. To at least tell him that he had left my sunglasses at my apartment. He didn't answer. I took consolation in the fact that he didn't send me straight to voicemail. That way I could at least lie to myself and say that he was just busy, and maybe he was.

In between hooking up the few patients we had to E-Stim machines and walking them through stretches, I remembered that Mitch and I had exchanged numbers yesterday afternoon. I hadn't properly met him since that day at the diner all those weeks ago, but after yesterday I thought he was pretty cool. Great, can Mitch and I even be friends  now if Harry doesn't talk to me anymore? I texted Mitch on my way to my car, hoping to, at the very least, return Harry's sunglasses.

Me: hey, this is luz? you came to my apartment yesterday? i can't seem to get a hold of harry and he left his sunglasses at my apartment.

When I got back to my apartment, I checked my phone and saw that Mitch had texted me.

Mitch Rowland: hey Luz! I can swing by the apartment and pick them up if you're home.

I didn't know how to feel about that response. On the one hand, I had gotten a hold of someone. But on the other, it seemed like Harry couldn't even bring himself to do such a menial task like coming to get his own sunglasses from me, even though he'd been coming over to my apartment for weeks for less.