The Look Of Knowledge

29. Along

Mika

I turned to watch Julian inside of his apartment, sitting on the couch, covering his face with his big hands. I freaked out a little at the thought of him crying. I've never seen him cry. As a woman I know we have a strange fetiche, more like a secret. We'd like to see the man we love cry for us, but weirdly at the second I saw Julian covering his face, my heart started racing and I wanted to jump from the balcony.

Now, said that, I hope you can imagine my relief when I saw him uncover his eyes and realized he wasn't actually crying but he was just.. covering his face, I guess.

Suddenly his eyes were on me. I forgot I was even looking at him so I had to quickly look away and turn around. I didn't want him to see me loving him.

I closed my eyes and and waited for the inevitable. Soon after that I heard Julian's footsteps getting closer as a warning.

"Can we talk?" He asked calmly opening the sliding door. His voice vibrated into my ears.

"If you want" I said opening my eyes but keeping them on the kids playing in the park below us.

"I seriously think you're not opening up to me. Or you're lying, because everything you say sounds like bullshit" he said resting his arms on the railing next to me.

"I'm sorry.." I said honestly. He turned to me but I still ignored his face.

"Mika, I don't need you to be sorry, I want you to be honest. That's all I'm asking."

I sighed and turned to him. I've always had a hard time talking about how I feel and what my purposes are. Mainly because I don't feel like I need to justify my actions to anyone, so maybe it's just lack of experience. But I had to talk to Julian, and I was a little buzzed so I thought it might come handy to keep it real.

"Alright, so.. I'm gonna be honest. I can't be what you expect me to be. I would love to be responsible and nice to you but I can't. I fucked it up. I can't even take care of myself, how am I supposed to take care of you too? I really think the best is that I don't interfere so I won't fuck you up all over again"

"I don't know why you see yourself like that. But I don't expect you to be anything. I just want you to be you because I like you in any form you come" he looked at me with those piercing eyes, that if you look closely enough you can maybe discover a new galaxy. "I want to be the one who wraps his coat around you, not the other way around"

"Jules, I don't know.." I loved him so much, I can't even begin to explain, but I had to turn away again, he was starting to get inside my head.

"Yes, you know. Why can't you let yourself be happy?" I felt his breath in my ear as he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. The warmth of his body on my back. His hands holding each other by my stomach. I didn't want him to let go.

Maybe I can do this.

Maybe I was able to be with someone who cares.

I felt a vibration coming from Julian's pants.

"What's that?" I asked. He lifted his head from my shoulder.

"...what? oh." finally all of his body got away.

"What's up?" He said picking up his phone. "Yeah, she's here with me. My place. Yeah, she's fine" he looked at me and suddenly his eyes widened. "Why, what happened? No, she didn't. Alright, we'll be there in 20. Alright, bye" he hung up and slipped his phone into his pocket.

"I'm guessing that was Albert" I said.

"He told me about Rich. Is that why you got drunk?" He asked giving me a judgmental look. I shrugged. "He woke up and he's asking for you" he added.

"Really? Thank god" I sighed relieved. Rich is okay.

"Thank the doctors, they do all the hard work. Let's go, I'll drive you" Julian said opening the door and allowing us inside again.

The heat of the stove hit me right in the face and I had to hold myself from Julian's shoulder to prevent the dizziness from making me fall.

"Woah, are you alright?" Julian asked turning to me.

Am I? I definitely need to puke.

"Where is your bathroom?" I asked already rushing to the hallway.

"First door to the left" he replied but he knew something was wrong so he started walking in my direction. "What's wrong?" He said opening the door. By the time he arrived I was already hugging the toilet and halfway through my vomit journey.

"Go away" I told him, but he stepped in anyway.

"Oh, no, it's alright. It's not like I haven't seen you before" he said and kneeled down next to me.

"You got a weak stomach" I pointed out. Plus I really didn't want him to see me like that. I felt his hands pulling my hair back.

"Yeah but don't forget I've been through this about a good 70, probably even 80 times before, so I kind of mastered the art of... puking" he said making me laugh but I tried not to because my head was starting to hurt and feel heavy.

Julian stroked my back and massaged my shoulders as I was in my business.

"I think I'm done" I said when I realized I wasn't puking anymore.

"You wanna take a shower?" He asked me as he helped me up.

"That'd be great" I said.

He turned the shower on for me and made sure the water wasn't too hot or too cold as I managed to undress myself.

"I think it's a nice temperature," he said referring to the water "but touch it just in c.." He turned around and stopped speaking when he realized I was halfway naked, except for my underwear. I honestly didn't gave it much though to the action of taking off my clothes in front of Julian, I just wanted to get in.

"Sorry" I whispered half smiling and walked past him to touch the water. "It's perfect, thank you" I said, to which he smiled too but kinda stood there looking at me.

"Oh!" he snapped when he realized I wasn't getting into the shower. "I'm sorry, there's warm towels hanging there and, um.. I'll just leave you to it" His voice was nervous, which made me chuckle, but he quickly rushed to the door and closed it behind him.

I took the rest of my clothes off and regulated the temperature of the water again because it was actually too hot, but I didn't wanna tell Jules, 'cause, you know, he's kinda too sensitive to handle certain simple things. Like, he would think 'I suck at everything ever' or 'I can't even do this shit right' and etc. I know it sounds like too much. But Julian is like that, he won't say it but something inside of him thinks that way. Probably the voice of his dad remains playing like a broken record. Yeah, that's the main reason he's like that. But, well.. the guys, you know, the band, me, Ryan... we all learned to work around that and to try to avoid certain situations which could trigger that kind of thoughts in him.

We all take care of each other. Or at least we used to.