The Summer I Learned to Breathe

fifteen

☼ fifteen ☼

The following morning, I wake up around seven. My eyelids slide open to reveal the sun peeking through my curtains and lighting up my room. It's bright, and I blink my eyes several times to adjust to the sudden light. I'm not quite blinded by the sun's rays, but I'm certainly not used to the light after several hours of deep sleep. As I struggle to grow accustomed to the brightness, I try to fall back into a slumber for a few more hours. The events of last night flood my brain, and I just want to hide away under the safety of my bed sheets and forget about everything. However, I can't drift off to sleep again, and I blame my restlessness on my constant thoughts.

By eight thirty, I toss the sheets off of my body, and I slowly get up. I release a yawn as I begin making my way downstairs, and I don't waste any time in pouring myself a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. As carefully as possible, I take slow steps toward the game room and focus on keeping the milk from spilling out of my bowl. Thankfully, I don't make a mess, and I lounge on the couch and watch music videos on CMT. It's a fairly brainless thing to watch, and I can allow my mind to wander as I stare at Dierks Bentley singing "Drunk on a Plane".

I focus less and less on the goofy music video, and I think more and more about Sam. I'm glad I opened up to him last night, but I hope I didn't ruin our friendship. If I had known it would make things between us awkward, I wouldn't have told him everything I did. It's just not worth losing him even if it felt great to get it off my chest. Nothing is worth losing my friendship with Sam.

My phone buzzes against the brown leather couch. It startles me, and I glance down at the text from Sam.

Morning :) Are you, Gabe, and Mads up for lunch today?

I'm caught completely off guard by the casual tone of his text; it's as if nothing happened last night when both of us clearly had a rough night. I reluctantly accept his offer anyway, and I hope I'm just misunderstanding and overreacting to his actions last night. I'm still afraid it will be awkward, but I would only make things worse by declining his offer.

Morning! I don't know about the others, but I'm in, I type.

I push the doubtful thoughts from my mind and I invite Madison by shooting her a quick text. As I await her response, I leave my empty bowl in the kitchen and I wander up to Gabe's room. I knock and enter, and he's still lying under his navy sheets in his bed.

"You wanna go out for lunch with Sam and Mads?" I ask.

He glances away from his phone and looks at me, shaking his head. "No, I think I'll just stay in bed today. Have fun with Sam!" he says, and looks back at his phone again. Apparently something on his iPhone is more interesting than I am.

"Suit yourself," I mumble as I spin around and return to the game room. I unlock my phone to see Madison's response. She, too, declines the offer, claiming she's busy watching a baseball game. My eyebrows crease in confusion; Madison hates baseball, so I don't see why she would tell me she's watching a game. Also, there aren't even any games on until noon. I shake off her lame excuse, and I can't help but wonder what she's up to and why she's acting so secretive about it.

I shrug it off and text Sam to inform him it's just the two of us, and I realize we're going to be alone. Just Sam and I.

I'm still afraid the situation will easily become uncomfortable, but I also have hope that being with him will reassure me that he really does care about me and that his reaction to my venting last night was simply a fluke. Maybe I unloaded too much information on him in too short of an amount of time, and he became too overwhelmed and at a loss for words.

I relax in the game room for a few hours, switching between the CMT channel, ESPN, and The Weather Channel. After a while, I decide to get ready for the day and stop wasting time. The last thing I need is for Sam to show up for lunch when I'm still in pajamas and not looking presentable whatsoever.