Zero

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

 

It's late, or early I can't really tell the difference anymore. I'm reading some book from the office shelf. It's not anything very interesting or particularly enjoyable to read. There were a few novels mixed in on the shelves, but most were textbooks or law books. I don't know why I gravitated toward the boring text over the flowering, adventurous novels. Maybe my life is too much of an adventure for me to care about the tales of anyone else. It's nice to read about something a plain as the law.

Truth is, I kind of prefer the boring literature. It's keeping my mind off of Hunter. I want to kiss him again. I haven't, but as we all cooked and ate the dinner he managed to catch for us, it was all I could think about. He'd catch my eye and his lips would curl up into a brief knowing smile. It's like he can read my mind. Or maybe I was completely obvious. I'm not quite sure how to navigate things like this. I don't know how forward to be. I'm not forward though, if that's what he's suddenly expecting.

Yeah, the reading hasn't helped much with the clearing of my mind. I'm not sure what to do about Hunter. He wanted me to sleep with him last night. Not in a sexual way, I don't think. I'm sure he wouldn't have minded that sort of thing, but he's been very true to his word that he won't rush me or push me. I just worked up the nerve and ability to kiss him and that was in the heat a moment with adrenaline rushing and I had been thinking he was dead. We've slept together before, in the tents. I don't know why it felt so different last night though.

But it did. It felt huge. Intimate. Terrifying.

So I stammered looking for a way to say no, a tiny part of me wanting to take his hand and let him hold me all night. He noticed my awkwardness and let me off the hook. One quick, short kiss and a whispered goodnight, and he left me here to the law books and my own company.

Eventually Braces joins me in the office. He grabs the jar of peanut butter and scoops some into his mouth, loudly smacking down the gooey deliciousness as he lies out on the couch making himself comfortable. He watches me for a couple minutes, while I attempt to read but between being plagued by thoughts of kisses and green eyes and now being stared at, I've been stuck on the same page for quite some time.

"You've been quiet lately," Braces says to me in the quiet of the morning. The sun hasn't risen above the horizon yet, so just the soft glow of dawn filters through the blinds. He's up early out of habit I guess. We haven't had someone stay awake to keep watch all night and instead rigged alarms that would alert us to any entry and hopefully be loud enough to wake us up. We haven't really needed them though, I've been up.

I haven't been able to sleep much. The bed, the comfy house, it's so strange. I thought it would be wonderful and to everyone else I think it is. But all I know is sleeping on the ground really, and the beds here seem too soft. The house feels too safe. Falsely so. It keeps me on edge, mostly because no one seems like they are as well. We live in a world where we should constantly be on edge. But we aren't.

"I'm always quiet."

He smiles enough to show off the brackets still glued to his teeth. A couple of them have fallen off, the cement holding them on weakened from lack of care I suppose. I kind of miss them though. Braces has that sort of smile that's contagious though and I find my lips turning up of their own free will.

"Not around everyone," he says meaningfully.

"Is it bothering you that I'm not talking your ear off?"

He shrugs.

"I don't really know what to say to you," I opt for the truth. "I'm worried you're getting your hopes up and I don't know how to stop that because I can't understand that possibility."