I'll Be Holding on to You

sorry, not sorry

I woke up in the early morning and Erika was in bed with me. I thought I was dreaming. But she smelled a little like sour sweaty alcohol and I couldn't imagine putting that into a dream so I raised my eyebrows but didn't look a gift horse in the face.

I had to pee so I tried to get out of bed as quietly as possible but she opened her eyes. "Mmm," she said, closing them again. "Hi."

I had a lot of feelings going on so I just went into the bathroom and used it and splashed cold water on my poor face. My eyes were barely open. We kept hemorrhoid cream for just that reason and I dabbed some on around my eyes. It worked pretty fast, thank God. I took a quick shower to rinse off the stale sadness and wrapped my hair in a wet bun.

I didn't want to hear about her night in any way but I am a sucker for punishment so I got back into bed. She stayed asleep though for another hour before finally opening her eyes. 

"Keep your sexy time deets to yourself," I said immediately, hoping I sounded like a regular person. Or at least a regular person who also had a crush on the guy she had spent the night with and so was good naturedly saying the above.

"I didn't do anything," she mumbled into her pillow. "At least not what you're thinking. What do I look like, a slut?"

Relief washed over me and I got a little giddy. "Like I care, or want to know," I said, hugging her suddenly.

"Yeah, right. You totally want a copy of the movie." She rolled over, putting her arm over her eyes. I had the curtain open because I'd been smoking in the windowsill.

"He wishes there was a movie." I was glad my eyes were back to normal and really glad I hadn't broken my phone. Foolish.

"He would have totally brought me home last night but I gotta say, his place is really cool. Like, really cool. I actually felt, and you maybe have never heard me say these words in conjunction with each other when not talking about somewhere you are, but comfortable. I know, crazy." She put her hand up. "I know. But it was all warm, and cozy, and shit like that. You're gonna love it, dude."

Somewhere I was. Win. I knew she meant "you", as in all of us, but I would take it. Try not to run with it. "Well, when we're sister wives I guess we'll need something bigger but until then it sounds good."

She shoved me, checking her phone. "He had to go to the deli at nine. My brother's there too, and Freddy. We should probably check on them at some point and make sure they haven't burned the place to the ground."

"Yeah," I said, though I had no plans of going into that place ever again after the bungee cord icing on the cake.

"We don't have to go there," she said. "Anyway, I told him it was probably cool if he comes over here later with Mara though," she said super casually as she nonchalantly checked her social media.

I wasn't buying it. I just stared at her.

Finally she looked at me. "I think it's okay, bb," she said, much nicer than I expected. "We know them well enough. I gotta say, I know them both a little too well after all this shit with Tom dying. People's true colors show quickly when they're grieving or under duress . . . but I guess we know that."

"It's tricky for us because all of our colors are true," I said absently, picturing them in my living room. Weird.

"For sure." She smiled like she knew something.

"What?"

"What, what?" She tried to look innocent.

"Oh, no," I said. "You have that look."