Sleep Magazine (Completed)

The Shoe: 2

Squinting under the florescent lights, Celia sat up on the kitchen island while AJ opened the refrigerator.

"I think I have low blood sugar," she said quietly.

AJ took a bottle of water from the fridge and set it down on the island next to Celia, then turned back to rifle through more of the fridge's contents before presenting her a carton of orange juice, which she pulled from his grasp hastily, gulping down its sparse remains.

"So gross," he said teasingly, shaking his head back and forth.

She let out a satisfied "Ahh" and smiled up at him.

"Aren't you gonna ask me how I know?" His voice sounded huskier, the slightest hint of arrogance in attendance at the beginning of his question only to have disappeared completely by the end of it.

She held eye contact with him as she took a small sip from the water bottle and swallowed. "Know what?"

"About you and Ben."

Celia shook her head and bit the inside of her cheek to keep her smile from spreading. "I know exactly how you know about me and Ben."

"Oh yeah?"

Celia nodded her head slowly.

AJ took the water bottle out of her hand and leaned forward against the island, one palm flat against the counter on either side of her thighs. "How's that?"

"Because I know about you and Anna Vargas."

AJ's eyes went wide but he stopped the shock from spreading elsewhere on his face.

A moment later, he had pulled Celia off the island and they were headed up the narrow staircase and into a bedroom, Celia's back landing on the soft mattress as AJ continued to kiss her eagerly. In a whirlwind of reciprocated pants and grasps, his hand on her cheek sent a shock through the corner of her jaw.

"Sorry," he whispered, lightly dragging his lips over the spot.

Celia felt warm and content and just dizzy enough to forget everything she had ever thought about; for now, all she could perceive were tongues and fingertips and the pleasant heaviness of static electricity on her skin as AJ ran his calloused hand over her abdomen. 

Her mind was so blank and buoyant that she did not consider where to put her hands before they were on him, grazing up his arms and over his shoulders to twist in his hair. Flexing her muscles under his touch, she relished the feeling of pure, uninhibited existence that she had craved for what felt like half of her adolescence. Her self-abandonment satisfied her into an oasis so abstract that she heard the soothing sound of AJ's voice in her ear without knowing the words he spoke.

Then she opened her eyes.

A few feet over her head, glowing against the dark, low ceiling, were dozens of stars. Celia looked up at them with hazy eyes, her head still swarming from the buzz of AJ's mouth as he kissed patterns across her throat. 

She remembered, very clearly despite being so long ago, the day when Grace and Matty helped her put up glow stars on her bedroom ceiling. The three of them had stood on her bed for hours, Grace holding the astronomy book open for her and Celia to view, guiding Matty's placement of the stars to mimic the constellations precisely. He would reach his long arm, a deep shade of tan from working all summer, up to smash the stars flat against the sheetrock. Sometimes they would stick and sometimes they would fall down onto his head, making the girls laugh. He would make up his own names for the constellations too, making them laugh harder, finding few moments for reprieve in between their stomach-wrenching spells. 

Celia realized that he must have loved the sound of their laughter.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing her mind to return to its thoughtless state as she pulled on the collar of AJ's t-shirt, wanting his lips against hers again. She slipped back into a blissful oblivion long enough to imagine that the stars above her head were real, and soon she could even feel gentle snowflakes falling from the sky to land serenely on her exposed skin.

"Oh shit," AJ mumbled. Celia fluttered her eyes open to see him holding his nose above her. She lifted her shoulders off the bed to look down at her stomach, speckled with red dots of blood that trailed up her body, over the bunched up sweater and along her neck.

"I'm so sorry," he said, sitting up on his knees over her.

"Oh my God," she said softly, her mind still too dreamy to react in earnest. She swiped the sleeve of his sweater across her cheek, eyes going wide at the amount of blood on her face. "Jesus, AJ," she laughed out.

"I'm wicked sorry," he laughed nervously. He held his blood-soaked hands out in front of him, leaning to the side to prevent himself from dripping onto her.

She sat up and pulled his sweater off her body, bringing it up to his face. "Here," she chuckled, squeezing his nose with the fabric.

Once the bleeding had stopped, AJ folded over the soiled part of the sweater and used a clean section to wipe the blood from Celia's face and stomach, which made her giggle incessantly. He smiled at her amusedly and shook his head, then palmed the side of her face.

"Hold still." He wiped the sweater roughly across her chin. She continued to laugh sweetly, her emotions and sensations coming down now from their heightened state.

"I feel so dizzy," she said between giggles.

"You feel dizzy? I just lost a gallon of blood." He balled up the sweatshirt—red stains shaded a deep purple against the dark blue fabric—and threw it onto the floor.

Celia sat up quickly and began to fall sideways off of the bed, blood rushing to her head as AJ caught her waist and steadied her. He reached for the pillow she had been laying on and flipped it over to conceal the spots of blood, revealing a dinner plate with a half-eaten sandwich on it. This sent Celia over the edge, literally, as she fell to her knees on the floor in laughter.

"Okay," AJ chuckled in disbelief. "Time to go home."