𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚆𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 || 𝙰𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗 𝙱𝚞𝚝𝚕𝚎𝚛

03 - Close Call Clause

𝙱𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚠𝚎'𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚞𝚙 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐

𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍

𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚍𝚘 𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚒𝚏 𝚒𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞

Song Suggestion: Confessions – Nadia Kamrath

AUSTIN

I was awoken by the morning sun burning my eyelids. The sound of the bustling city outside seemed almost soothing for a second. My eyes struggled to open but soon shot wide.

The last thing I remembered was sitting next to Elsie while eating some chips and being wrapped in a blanket.

The drunken memories trickled in. It seemed as though we fell asleep- on each other and somehow ended up sharing the same blanket. It wasn't much really, we just fell asleep. Nothing to feel guilty about. But it always felt like we had broken some sort of invisible law.

I shot straight up, immediately scanning the modern loft for traces of Nox. If he saw this, he'd absolutely lose his fucking mind. I couldn't tell if he had never came home or if he had seen us and just left. It was hard to decide which would be worse.

Hastily pulling myself from the dark gray sofa, I began to speed clean everything, grabbing all the snacks, cups and bottles.

The glaringly white apartment was what I could only describe as a loud silence. A low chill hung in a balance. It was the type of morning that didn't feel real, like the world was paused. I wish it had been.

Elsie slowly woke up, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

The faint smell and warmth of her lingered on me and for whatever reason it made me feel... empty?

She pressed a palm against her eye, "What happened?"

Her voice was still raspy from sleep. I could tell that she already knew the answer right after she asked.

I bit my lip, debating bringing it up. But it wasn't like it was the first time this had happened.

"We fell asleep." I rushed around the kitchen spraying cleaner all over the peppered granite counter.

Maybe if I cleaned enough, it'd erase the feeling of her lingering on me. Maybe it would fill the void it caused.

The lemon disinfectant spray triggered my temples to pulse. The morning light filling the kitchen was suddenly overbearingly bright.

"Oh." She knew what I meant.

Over the several years of friendship we had situations similar to this. I think of them as "close call moments". This looked like- falling asleep on each other during a movie, getting too close when we weren't sober, hands "accidentally" finding places they shouldn't, etc.

Sometimes it felt like there was a silent compromise of things we didn't address. A "close call clause". A contract in which if anything happened that muddled things, it just didn't happen. It didn't exist.

We would wake up the next day and just pretend it never happened. But just because we pretended it didn't, didn't mean we forgot.

At least I didn't.

The mornings after always came with the feeling of my intestines tied into sailor's knots.

But it was innocent, right? Nothing happens. It didn't mean anything. It never meant anything. It was harmless. We're just friends.

But- do friends do the things we do? Do friends feel empty when the night is over?

This frigid morning was no different. I didn't even want to look at her. I couldn't. Not when my body ached to meet her back on the couch, under that blanket.

"Did Nox come home?" Using her hands to smooth out messy chestnut curls.

There was a familiar song and dance required in these close call moments. It was like a script, and I knew it like the back of my hand.

As I tried to piece together the answer, something overwhelming caused her to double over, gripping the glass coffee table for support.

All the questions must've delayed the realization that she was hungover. Suddenly a visibly overpowering urge came up through her body. She rushed towards the kitchen trash can and threw up what seemed like every ounce of alcohol she had drank.

I dropped the cleaning supplies and instinctively went to pull her hair back. Both index fingers hooking her hair back. This was also not new to me. I had been her drinking buddy all through college after all.

These were also 'close call moments'. Whenever either of us passed our limit we would take care of each other.

It was me carrying Elsie to bed and making sure she was hydrated. Or it was her creating a makeshift blanket-bed on the floor for me and making sure I had a trash can nearby. It was Elsie pulling me down to sleep next to her in bed and it was me asking her to stay on the ground with me.

Neither of us could say no but never spoke of it again.

Close call clause.