MEDICINE

07. white lies

"Hi," Luna said once entering the room. She was trying to act chill after the truly awkward incident on the roof, but found that was nearly impossible to do.

"Hey," Michael replied, "did the doctors run some tests on you today?"

He looked relaxed and it didn't seem as if he was thinking about how tongue-tied Luna got. Maybe he didn't notice. Or maybe he did, and he thought she was a weirdo. Even with all these contradictory thoughts wrapped around her brain Luna still managed to answer.

"Yeah, still sleepless as ever," Luna laughed light-heartedly.

"Me too," Michael said and motioned for her to sit next to him on the couch.

She put her glasses on and plopped down next him. They watched a movie, or maybe three, neither of them minded that they weren't talking. They liked the company.

Somehow, neither of them will be able to tell you how, during the second movie Luna's leg shifted a little to the left, and Michael's a little to the right.
Left, right, left, right, left, right.
Left and right until their thighs were pressed against each other.

Michael didn't know if Luna was leading him on or was just simply being nice. He knew enough about girls that liked to party to stay away from them. But he never had met a girl that liked to party as much as she liked to read.

"How's your project going?" Michael asked trying to ensue a conversation.

Shit, she at this point she had two options: continue to lie or tell the truth.
Now, her whole life she was taught never to lie, but if she told the truth, Michael would want to know why she really was up on the roof. White lies never killed the cat. Curiosity did.

"It's going great, almost done actually," Luna replied cheerfully. Michael nodded and turned his head to the movie. "We should go out tomorrow, do something fun," Luna said changing the topic.

"Yeah, but not a party. I don't think I'm completely ready to interact with other teenagers," Michael replied.

"We should go bowling with a couple of my close friends!"

"Yeah, okay sure," Michael agreed a smile crawling on his lips.

He began to slowly drift of to sleep and rested his head on Luna's shoulder. Luna too began to feel her eyelids become heavy. Only when she opened her eyes she realized she couldn't move a muscle but was wide awake. Sleep paralysis. It was frightening, terror infrastructure and she feared sleeping because she feared experiencing the awful side effect.

Her eyes darted back and forth, her breathing became ragged. But just as quickly as the paralysis came, it left. Her heart was racing when Michael's hand hit her across the face. Luna got up just before Michael started flailing his arms everywhere. Dr. Prim hadn't informed on what to do in this situations so she did the first thing that came to her mind. Splashed some water on his face.

He woke up gasping for air and Luna crawled back onto the couch and hugged him. He shook, not from the cold water but from how scared he was, she could tell. He rested his head on her chest, and cried. She cried too, because she knew how it felt to be scared shitless.

After a while, they both calmed down, neither said a word. Nothing needed to be said. They ended up curled up on the sofa together. Feet tucked under thighs and arms around shoulders, watching the kind of crap TV that only airs at 3am. They didn't want to untangle from each other and lay down on the bed. Maybe it was because they didn't want to risk falling asleep, but maybe it was simply because they liked having each other nearby.

(( this is so cute omf. I was gonna get them to kiss in this chapter but then I was like mmm better not. This chapter was an emotional roller coaster though oh my))