Lighter

t w e n t y - e i g h t

everything's okay,
that's what we tell ourselves
all the t i m e . . .

⚡️⚡️⚡️

I'd slept at Ronnie's house for the entire weekend.

For it being the middle of Spring, it was unexpectedly cool outside with sinister-looking clouds airbrushed across the sky. That kind of weather made me want to stay inside all day, where it was undeniably homely with the guy who'd been cautiously taking portions of my heart for the past few months. Someone who showed me that I had the ability to sleep through the night without a wretched part of my history coming back to gnaw at me.

It was new. It was some sort of holy ground for me. Nothing I'd ever experienced before, with or without the only person I thought I loved. I wasn't sure if I should embrace the feeling or run from it.

It only took two days for me to get used to the way things worked around his house. Forty-eight hours for me to fall into a routine I didn't even realize would be so inviting to me. It was all habitual to me now – the showering schedule, when and how he liked his coffee, brief phone calls with his dad, and the time he'd set aside for school work.

Sometimes I forget that Ronnie goes to school and within a couple of weeks, he'd be done. For good. It was the only thing he rarely opened up about, and I never pressured him to do so. I'd be the pot calling the kettle black if I complained that he hid things from me. I practically make a living off of being distant.

We took a step forward in our relationship this weekend, willing but sort of unaware about it. I'd taken us both over a hurdle by laying my disorder out on the table for Ronnie to review, as if it were my hand in a game of poker. At least, a partial part. The other undiscovered part was my PTSD which we hadn't explored yet, and I sure as hell wasn't ready for it. Just like I wasn't ready to tell him about the rest of my life – little did he know we barely scratched the surface.

But, we were taking things one at a time, and if I told that to myself enough, maybe it'd be okay.

When we woke up early on Monday morning, I took yet another step. I'd been considering inviting him along to come with me and visit my dad at the hospital, since he was still there. One week and I hadn't seen him since Friday night when Aunt Farrah traded places with me by sleeping over. I couldn't help but feel tendrils of anxiety weave around my organs because I just wanted to be with him already, and no matter what, my mind wasn't focusing on anything else. I figured by bringing Ronnie along, it might put me at ease and best of all, my dad really likes him.

By nine o'clock, we were in Ronnie's kitchen. He was showered, leaning against one of the counters and sipping from his coffee which always had just a splash of half and half in it. No flavored creamer, no sugar, nothing fancy. His gray t-shirt adhered to him like a tapestry on a wall, hair still slightly damp on his head. I couldn't take my eyes away from him where I was sitting at the small dining table, my legs crossed, an empty plate in front of me that had an English muffin on it moments before.

"What time are you thinking to go see your dad?" Ronnie asked out of the blue. His gaze connected with mine instantly, for I had already been looking at him.

"Maybe lunchtime, a little before," I told him, stealing a sip from my own coffee that was packed with sugar and vanilla creamer. Always contradicting with whatever Ronnie had that seemed much simpler. "My first lecture at two got cancelled for today, so I only have class at four now, thank God."

"Nice." He nodded, and I did the same.

I set my mug down on the spotless surface of the table, thickly swallowing and averting my eyes from him. "Do, uh... do you want to come? I'm sure he'd like to see you," I asked, the question coming out quieter than the follow-up sentence. My fingers were busy tracing the cursive letters on the mug that spelled out "Chicago" to see his initial reaction, so I looked up at him when I heard him start to speak.