I'm completely and utterly bored out of my mind. I've gone through and counted things out of boredom. This is the conclusion I've come to inside my eight hundred square foot apartment: I have nine pillows and four blankets scattered between the bed and the couch. I have three windows, eighty-seven books-half I've never even read- six plates and bowls, one television, one laptop, one phone, eighteen dresses, thirty-two shirts, and fourteen pairs of shoes excluding my staggering pile of ballet point shoes that have accumulated in the corner of my closet.
In all honesty, this sucks. I can't distract myself with dance because I can't dance, and even worse, I can't do much of anything with my arm stuck in this sling. However, it has become a handy phone pouch. The most frustrating thing of all might be not being able to put my hair into a ponytail.
Ollie tried to help me do it once, but he failed to wrap the band around my hair three times, so it fell the first time I moved my head. Ollie stayed the first week, but the tour was already set, and the backup dancer was taken through a quick crash course during the next week before they had to go back out on tour. So not only am I bored out of my mind and unable to be on electronics, dance, or do pretty much anything, on top of all of that, I also have no one to keep me company.
I've spoken to Cam and Liv a little bit since the accident, finally having time to catch up with them. I've missed them a lot, I realized.
My life has come to ordering my favorite Chinese every other day, and then I attempt to make a salad on the days I don't order. Still, I can't cut the tomatoes without them rolling onto the floor, so my salads consist of just lettuce, spinach, and very little dressing for some kind of flavor. Oh and naps; lots and lots of naps.
The sensitivity to light has gone away, but I still don't enjoy sitting in a completely lit room. I think the last time I was this bored was in rehab.
Thankfully, I've felt well enough to start attending my weekly meetings again. The temptations are stronger than usual due to my lack of purpose.
There's a knock on the door, and I jump up, jolting my shoulder and sending a dizziness to my head. I'm a little curious as to who would be knocking on the door considering Ryan has a key? All of my other friends are on tour with the company, live in different states, or at work?
I walk through the kitchen and grab the first thing that I see, which happens to be a soup ladle before opening the door hesitantly with the ladle in hand. "Hayes? What are you doing here?" I'm thoroughly stunned to see him standing there in a button-down and slacks. He clearly came over straight from work.
He chews his lip, looking me up and down, his eyes stopping on the sling. "Are you okay?"
I open the door wider to let him come in, "Uh yeah, I'm fine-ish?"
Hayes takes a step through the door, but his eyes never leave me, and I feel very self-aware of the fact that I haven't taken a shower in three days. It's been even longer since I've washed my hair. "What happened?"
"It's not a big deal," I try to brush it off, but Hayes doesn't buy it. I turn around and walk towards the kitchen, "Can I get you something to drink? All I really have is coffee and water, but we can go to the store that's down the street if you want something else-"
"I'm okay, but thanks. I want to know is what happened to your arm." Hayes is right behind me and rests his hand on my back.
I suck in a breath and tell him everything, "Ollie dropped me. It was during our Toronto festival routine that had the move I didn't want to do. He didn't mean to. I just fell, landed hard on my shoulder, dislocated it in the process, and hit my head pretty hard. I get to take the sling off any day now, and the concussion is practically gone, but I can't dance," my voice wavers but I ignore it, "I can't dance again for a while."
"I'm sorry." I force a smile onto my face, so when I turn around, I don't have any kind of unhappiness on my face, but it doesn't matter because Hayes sees right through it. Instead of questioning it, he just hugs me carefully to avoid my shoulder, and I wholly melt into him. "Is there anything I can do to help?" He offers, and an idea pops into my head, and I pull back, unable to keep the mischievous grin off of my face.
"How good are you at washing hair?"
Hayes's eyebrow raises in surprise, "Montgomery, you realize there are easier ways to get me naked, right?" Well, that's certainly one way to change the mood in the room from somber. It makes glad he hasn't changed that much.
My jaw drops and my cheeks feel hot, "That's not what I was getting at. Like at all."
"Alright," His stupid smirk from high school is back, and I know he doesn't believe me.
"Will you help me wash my hair, please?" The short chuckle that escapes his mouth lets me know that I still didn't word it right, "In the sink where we both have clothes on."
"It'd certainly be more enjoyable without, but yes, I'll wash your hair." Only Hayes could take a simple, innocent question and turn it into an innuendo.
*********
I touch my now clean hair, and it instantly makes me feel so much better when I don't feel the greasiness anymore. "Thank you so much. I haven't been able to lift my arm to do it yet, and Ollie helped me do it before he left, but it's felt so gross ever since."
"Yeah, of course, do you by chance have a shirt I could borrow? I rolled my sleeves up, but I didn't expect to get soaked," He jokes, and I nod going to get one of Ollie's t-shirts I've collectively stolen over the years.
I grab a random one off the shelf and head back towards the living room, but I stop in my steps because Hayes is unbuttoning the last few at the bottom of his shirt. Yeah, he isn't allowed to be shirtless, I think to myself. "Sephine?"
"Sorry," I cough awkwardly and hand him the shirt, trying to look anywhere but him.
Hayes chuckles, "You don't have to look away; it's not anything you haven't seen before."
Just because I've seen him before, doesn't mean it has any less effect on me.
Thankfully a knock at the door is enough of a welcome distraction that I don't have to respond.
I'm thoroughly stunned to see Liv on the other side of the door, considering I haven't seen her in person in six months. "Seph! I figured that since you were stuck by yourself, you wouldn't mind some company?" She offers still dressed in a business suit.
Shit.
"Uh, just give me one second to clean up," I briefly explain before essentially shutting the door in her face.
Shit, if she sees Hayes, then she'll tell Ollie and just shit. I run into the living room where Hayes is folding up his button-down looking mismatched in Ollie's t-shirt and his slacks. "Who was it?"
"Liv, and you need to hide. Like right now."
"What?" Hayes questions, but I'm already pushing him towards my bedroom with my good arm.
Why is everyone picking today to come see me?
"If she sees you here, she'll tell Ollie, and they'll both have a lot more questions than I'm willing to answer. Don't come out, please." Then I proceed to shut the door leaving Hayes in my room by himself before hurrying back to the door the best I can without jostling my shoulder.
"Shit, sorry, Liv; here you can come in now."
There's a look of bewilderment on her face when she steps in, "Are you okay?"
I chuckle nervously, "Yeah, I'm fine. Kind of, but I'm doing better. What are you doing here?" I resist the urge to look back at my bedroom door because I know I'm acting weird enough already.
Liv tilts her head in confusion, "I'm in town for a conference, and figured I would check in on you. Now, what the hell is going on with you?"
I shut the door behind her as she walks into the apartment, waiting for an explanation, but I'm just hoping that Hayes listens to me. "Do you mean other than the part where I'm an addict, and I can't dance?"
"Wait, you can't dance?" I hadn't told her this part over the phone. I haven't told anyone. She just knew that I'd fallen and was taking a few days off.
I look down at my arm in a sling, and it's a lot easier to tell Liv how long I'm out than it was for me to tell Hayes. Except I'm not sure why it's easier for me to tell Liv? "Not for at least six months."
"No way." Her eyes are wide with surprise, and I glance away to see that Hayes left his button down on the couch. He must have set it down before I shoved him in my room. By the time I look back at Liv, she's already spotted the button down, and a look of curiosity is on her face. "Whose shirt is that?"
I freeze and try to think of something that I could explain because I'm sure as hell not telling her about Hayes. "Uh-"
"Are you and Ezra back together?"
Well, shit. "I don't know," I say hesitantly because I'm not sure how she will react. Hopefully, it's a least better than she would respond if she knew Hayes was in the bedroom.
Liv beams a smile at me, "How could you not tell me you were even considering it! I always hoped it would work out between you two. Ezra cares about you; I just think he was afraid of losing you." Fuck. I do not want to have this conversation right now.
"Yeah, uh, he left a voicemail when I was in Toronto, and came to check in a few days after I got back." It's not a lie because he did leave a voicemail, and he did come here after I got back because Ollie needed someone to babysit me. I had made the mistake of telling him that Ezra called before the whole shoulder dislocation.
She smirks, "It must be going pretty good if his shirt is here."
Just kill me now. It'd be okay. I swear to god that if Hayes heard what Liv said, I don't know how I could explain it. I don't even know why I care if he heard.
I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear as I force a smile on my face, "Yeah, I guess it is. Helps that I probably won't get to go on tour for a while." Except I didn't tell him I wanted to get back together with him. I told him that all I could offer was friendship because I needed to focus on getting better. But still, the lies keep coming.
Liv surprises me by wrapping her arms around me, "You need to do what makes you happy; if Ezra makes you happy, then I'm happy for you, and I think you should go for it."
"Thanks, Liv, I missed you."
She laughs lightly, "Didn't really seem that way with how you all but slammed the door in my face."
"In my defense, I had no idea you were coming."
"So I have to go check into my hotel and go to a few meetings, but did you want to get dinner tonight and catch up?"
I try not to let the relief show too much on my face when I hear that she's leaving. I mean lord knows how I'm going to explain any of this to Hayes if he did hear what she said about Ezra. "Could you bring it here?"
"Are you sure you aren't going to slam the door in my face again?" She teases, and I don't even know how to respond other than to laugh.
"No, I won't," I promise, smiling widely at her.
It's not until she's left, though, that I feel some sort of relief because I have no idea what I'm doing.
Hayes's face however, is unreadable though once I open my bedroom door hesitantly. "I'm sorry for shutting you in here; Liv would just have a lot of questions, and I'm not ready to deal with all of that," I babble, trying to find the words to explain.
He's chewing on his lip, a habit he had years ago, but his crystal eyes don't leave mine. "How much of that was true?"
"What?"
"How much of what you and Liv talked about was true?"
I glance down at my socks, "Most of it."
And then he doesn't say anything about what Liv said regarding Ezra, instead he just nods and smiles, "Are you hungry?"