Being Blinded

Chapter Six

The shrill ring of my phone is the thing that yanks me from the peaceful sleep I finally claimed after being tucked into bed by Claudia, while Alfie watched cautiously over her shoulder. The feel of his eyes sweeping over me as Claudie stepped back to admire her drunken tucking in, the world didn't seem entirely sturdy, but I knew they are real.

Nothing felt quite that way during the car ride home, calm silence stretched between us, only broken by Claudie's incessant and off-beat humming that kept me from falling asleep. Alfie's body was like a pillow I could feel myself falling deep into, surrounded by nothing but his comfort and the reminders of how he came looking for me.

Rationality would claim that I shouldn't have been surprised, I haven't found myself in any dastardly situations over the year and anything that meant I needed a little help. Well, that was fixed by whoever was keeping my body company at the time.

Virginity club with Imogen feels so long ago, just cresting on a year and it feels like an eternity instead. Miles stretch between the two parts of me, that remain stationary in my chest but feel so detached from now.

I couldn't imagine falling apart at the seams if Alfie found himself another girlfriend, I think it would pull and maybe shatter the remains of our friendship if he disappeared. I don't even like getting my hopes up for this weird rebuilding stage we have found ourselves in now.  

It's fragile. He's afraid of letting me in but losing the friendship entirely, something I am sure has come from the creeping end of our college days.

Meanwhile the thought of cutting him of forever still hurts my heart and yet, knowing that he has the potential to nurture and destroy old and new feelings. Well, that makes me want to shrink away until there is nothing, but hollowness left but I know a life in the shadows isn't worth living.

Avoiding the things that hurt is never worth missing out on all the things that make your heart soar.

My fingers knock ungracefully against the two pills set against the wood next to an untouched glass of water, both of which I will need if the sharp ringing of my phone doesn't cease in the next two seconds.

It's my own hand that quiets the room, slapping my phone down against my cheek and giving in to the heavy pressure against my eyelids. Weeks of poor sleep finally catching up to me, I could sleep through the next day but the whine of trembling breaths down the line dispels that possibility.

Perhaps I should have checked the caller id, not that I need to verify it now because I have become all too familiar with the painful sound of Phoebe's tears over the past two years. Any left-over exhaustion is swept away for me to uncover in the early hours of tomorrow morning, my eyes peel open with keen alertness.

Fingers scrabbling along my bedside table for the water and Panadol that can't be pushed out any longer. "Pheeb's? What's going on?"

I can feel her panic seep down into my bones, the sharp and scattered inhales as she tries to articulate whatever has rendered her speechless.

"T-t-hey se-sent my stu-stuff back" Phoebe wheezes, her admission makes my fingers curl around my comforter in a firm grip. The burn of anger slides through my veins, a familiar feeling that I never would have thought to associate with them at the start of Sophomore year, but by the end of it, the feeling was too normal.

Here's the thing about Jessie and Anthony Cruz, they worked their arses off to get themselves to this place in their life. As much as they had the ambition for all of it, and this inherent need to succeed they also wanted to give their children- us- the kind of life they never did. I would never have said that they didn't, everything I have ever wanted was a possibility that I earnt from them.