The Reclamation

2

The sound of a door closing startles me awake. I open my eyes in an attempt to make sense of what's going on, where I am, and what year it is. Before I can take in my surroundings, though, the light is flicked on and a soft pounding starts in my head.

"Oh hey, sorry," I hear from across the room. It's Mia. I squint as I look around, discovering that I was in Mia's bed. The darkness seeping through the window means it has to be after eight p.m. "I realized that I still had to shower after dance," she continues. My eyes follow Mia's voice. She is wrapped in a towel with her wet hair slicked back and sitting in waves on her shoulders. I get a strong whiff of the conditioner she uses.

"How long was I out?" I ask, falling back into the pillow and shielding my eyes with my arm.

"A little over an hour. It's like 8:20," she replies, pulling out clothes to change into. "I only got up like fifteen minutes ago. Food?"

"Please," I say, noticing the emptiness in my gut, and the spinning sensation left behind in my head.

The events of the day come back to me as I lay in Mia's bed. By the time Mia had bandaged me up it was a little after 5:30. We moved to her room with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and Mia's laptop. We drank glass after glass of wine and watched YouTube for around two hours before Mia passed out, and I guess I followed soon after.

I roll on my side and glance at the nightstand where the bottle of red wine sits with barely half a glass left. No wonder why my head is pounding.

"What are you in the mood for?" Mia asks from her closet behind me. As I open my mouth to reply, I hear the towel fall. My eyes widen and I feel my face get hot as I realize that she's getting dressed right next to me. I keep my eyes on the wine bottle to respect her privacy. I hear a lotion bottle open and smell the subtle fragrance as she rubs it into her skin. I hear her clothes rustle from behind my back while she takes her sweet, sweet time slipping into her outfit.

"I- what- uh, whatever you're in the mood for," I choke out. Smooth, Vada.

"Um... Chinese?"

"Sounds perfect."

Mia is still pulling on her clothes, almost tortuously slow. I want to steal a glimpse so badly, but I know I can't. We just had the conversation about 'us' last night, and it wasn't even remotely definitive. We simply agreed we 'wouldn't ruin anything'. We don't have a label, and we definitely haven't tried anything... physical... since that one night. I want to respect her boundaries and keep myself from overstepping. But she keeps inviting me over, and she feels comfortable enough to change in front of me, which both feel like good signs. I can never be sure with her though, because it's hard to get a good read on her. Mia and I talk about things by not talking. We like it that way. But it makes things very confusing when I have no clue how she feels about me.

And when I'm head over heels for her.

The only reason I was able to kiss her the first time was because my drunk ass thought I saw signals and decided to make a move. We were both into it, and neither of us regret it, but we were both crossed as hell. I don't know if I should push us any further. Mia has been just about the only thing that makes sense in my life lately, I can't fuck it up. We flew too close to the sun last time and I don't want us to get burned.

Mia came around to my side of the bed, fully clothed. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I sat up and joined her on the edge of the bed as she scrolled through the Chinese restaurants in the area. "Are we Postmating?" I ask.

"Duh," she smiles. I watch her contemplate each option before choosing Panda Express.

"Really? You said you wanted Chinese and you pick Panda Express?" I ask, shoving her shoulder playfully.