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Chapter 5: Fine

"Hey Taite," I call out while staring at the blackened hand prints on the carpet.

"Little busy!" He yells from the shower. I opened my mouth before shutting it again, he normally took long showers. Like freakishly long showers though I couldn't complain. Other than that he was a great room mate.

I curled up my nose and sneezed with a sharp yelp as I felt a shooting pain in my nose. "Riley?" He asks concerned though I was too busy trying not to bleed onto the carpet as I held my palm against my nose. I bolted to the sink before taking my hand away and grabbing for anything to wipe my nose with. I managed to grab the roll of paper towel and yanked a piece off, sending the metal rack skittering across the kitchen tile and onto the living room carpet. At that point I didn't care and wadded up the paper towel and pressed against my nose tightly as I clenched my jaw.

"I'm fine!" I yell in a muffled tone. "Just don't leave the bathroom."

"Wait why?" He asks quickly as the water shut off.

"Just don't okay?" I got on my knees with a cloth to wipe up the bits of red on the tile. Thank god I didn't get any on the carpet. The second my head got lower than my waist all sense of balance I had was gone. A gale force migraine coursed through my head as I clumsily fell onto my hands and knees panting. My vision blurred before finally resettled and I was left curled up in pain.

"Can I come out yet?" He asks hesitantly.

"Give me a second!" I yell. It came out way angrier than I had intended.

"Riley?" He asks in a worried tone. "Are you okay?"

"Fine! Fine!" I yell while pressing a fisted hand into my right eye in an attempt to get rid of the pain.

"Riley, oh god. Are you okay?" Taite uncurled me having not believed my previous statements.

"I said I was fine." I waved him off and tried to avoid get wet from his dripping hair.

"You are not fine. Unless fine means curled up on the floor and almost hyperventilating." He knelt down into my field of vision and tilted my chin up gently.

"Let's just pretend that for once that does mean I'm okay." I stiffly sat back onto my knees. "it's just a headache."

His eyebrows furrowed in from concern, "Riley..." The rest of the sentence seemed to die off as he chewed on his lip and nodded. We had established it early on in our relationship as roommates that things would not get pushed past a certain point as long as that point was relatively discernible by both parties involved. In the end what that really boiled down to was once somebody was ready to scream at the other the topic was dropped. 

I took a moment to just breathe before half pushing half pulling myself into a shaky form of a standing position. "Wanna just order a pizza and call it a night? I've got chem stuff due and you've got pre-cal..."

"How did you find out about that?" He hesitated grabbing for the phone. "I'll be honest I specifically did not tell you so as to avoid you trying to be a good influence and actually getting me to do it. I've fully accepted that I will be taking the L on this one..." Shaking the water droplets off the take-out menu he handed it over before doing the same with he phone. 

"You left the syllabus on the table, I don't necessarily want to pay the rent all by myself so I would prefer if you did not fail out of your freshman year..." At one  point he had in fact let a course syllabus on the kitchen table, and I may or may not have glanced at it. However that syllabus most definitely did not have this project on it, but Taite was organized enough to still have said syllabus and he wasn't one to go print another off either. His stressed thoughts gave him away instantly though, as many times as he had assured himself he was accepting that he was going to fail this midterm he wasn't ready to accept it. 

Taite nodded slightly and left the room in search of the shirt he had flung across the bathroom after hearing me hit the floor. My phone skittered across the kitchen table as a text popped up on the screen. 'Outside. Now. -C'.