Falling Apart

Chapter 6

It's early when I wake up, I can feel it. So I keep my eyes closed. I'm so warm that it sickens me. But then I remember what it is. I remember last night. I remember how he wrapped his arms around me and how I felt like it's the safest place in the world after I snuggled my face into his chest as well. Now it's a different position though.
Both of his arms are around me, one around my waist, holding me close to him and another one under my neck, his hand in my hair. I feel shivers, but I'm not sure if it's the fact that he touched my hair, or the fact that my head can feel his fingertips tingling against its skin.
My head is rested on his biceps with my one bandaged hand holding his arm on place, but my other hand is still gripping the collar of his shirt, what is close enough to me for feeling the sickening desire of pulling him towards me and pressing my lips against his, just to touch him with my lips one more time.
I can feel that he's up. His energy is flowing into my body. His eyes are on me for sure and his fingertips are tingling. I start opening my eyes slowly but the exact second he opens his mouth to say something to me, I need to throw up.
I push him off and jump up from the bed. I was lying down yesterday the whole day, ever since we got here, and my brain doesn't have the energy to accept all my nerve system signals, telling it that I'm up. So I start falling.
It seems as if I'd be doing it in slow motion. I see the floor slowly approaching me and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the hard fall, pain everywhere, and most of all, all the puke to fly out of my -at the moment- closed mouth.
None of it comes though. Instead, two warm arms snake around my waist and catch me. “Come on Betts,” he breathes out and helps me to go to the bathroom rapidly, his arms still around me, my feet moving in unison with his, working together.
To my big surprise, he actually stays with me and holds my hair. He gets it that I'm tense and don't wanna let any of it out, so he starts rubbing my back. “Relax,” he whispers. I do what he told me to and let all of it out, tears boiling in my eyes.
After I'm done, I basically collapse next to the toilet, on the cold black tiled bathroom floor. He demands me to rinse my mouth, so I do it, while he's helping me stay up on my feet. He walks me back to the bed. I climb under the covers as he puts his pillow behind me as well, so that I could lie down while still sitting up a little.
I look at him sadly and so does he. Our faces are like exactly the same at the moment. I think he can get it too, ‘cause we both burst out of laughing. He sits down next to me and brushes the hair off of my forehead again. “You’re still burning up,” he murmurs. His eyes look like he's going to kiss me. But he doesn't. Instead, he gulps and looks at me pleadingly, “Can we please take you to the hospital? I don't know how to take care of you. What if you got infected and that's what the fever's coming from?” he asks worriedly.
“You’re worrying too much,” I say to him. “You cleaned my cuts, right?” I ask, kind of reluctant. He nods and tries to hide the horrified look in his eyes. I push the duvet off a little, push the grey hoodie sleeve up and start unwrapping the bandage around one of my arms. He grabs my hand. My head shoots up and I look at him. Now he isn't hiding it. He's horrified for me to see my bruises and cuts, and maybe he doesn't want to see them himself either. “Relax,” I mumble and undo the bandage on my left arm.
I sigh sadly, seeing that my wrists are getting purple again. Every time he hurts me someway, he always squeezes my wrists, making my blood stop and leaving bruises onto my skin. Every single time. Tears boil in my eyes.
“Betty,” Jug says quietly. I gulp and shake my head, not looking at him.
“This one's not infected,” I say quietly and keep unwrapping my arms and hands. With every scar I see, -what my dad has done or what I've done to myself, doesn't matter- I get sadder and sadder. When I get to my stomach, I'm afraid to look, honestly.
“I can help you,” Jug says. I turn my head a little and look at him with all the tears in my eyes. He has looked at me all that time, that's probably why he doesn't look surprised by my sad face. “Come on,” he sighs and waits for me to pull the hoodie and my pajama shirt up a little. I gulp and do it, taking it really slow, so that I wouldn't get scared myself.
His warm hand touches the bandage. Even though it's not my skin, it sends shivers to my body, making me pull my stomach in a little. The hair on my arms raises up and the goosebumps appear.
He has now gotten all of it off. His face is tense and wrinkled up as he gets up from the bed, taking all my bandages to throw away probably. They're all bloody. My eyes don't even look at the cloths he went to throw away. They’ve found another point to focus on- my own stomach.
I've was punched and kicked with all the strength he had that exact moment. His ring has left me so many new cuts, next and on to my old scars from it. My ribs are blue, clearly gotten beaten up as well, and… My lower stomach looks so bad that I don't understand how I'm even alive.
“Hey,” Jug says quietly. I lift my head up and look at him for a second and then immediately back at my stomach, remembering the tears in my eyes. He sighs deeply and sits back down on the edge of the bed. “I found some medicine what we could use to clean your cuts.”
I gulp down my sobs, not answering anything to him. He doesn't pressure me into saying anything either, so instead, I pull the covers down to my knees. They are so beaten up, that's exactly why I wanted to look at them. They're all covered in bruises. Black, red, yellow, blue, green. Most of them are purple though.
"Betty," he says quietly and places his finger under my chin, raising it up a little, so that I'd look at him. His other hand cups my cheek, his thumb wiping away all the tears my eye has produced just a second ago. "You're gonna be okay."
“Why are you helping me?” I sob.
He sighs and his head falls onto his left shoulder, tilting it. “Because you seem like a cute girl, who has forgotten about how beautiful she really is. I wanna prove you, that life doesn't always suck,” he says softly, his thumb caressing my cheek.
“I'm not beautiful,” I say quietly, my cheeks and neck pale. Usually I blush every time someone gives me a compliment; it can be just as easy as 'you did your homework great' or 'I like your hair', it doesn't matter, it still always makes my face go as red as a tomato. But this just seems unreal at the moment. Impossible.
He sighs and shakes his head a little, “You are for me.”
I gulp and look into his eyes. They're soft, blue like the sky or the ocean when the water is very warm. They're full of sadness and admiration. They're full of hope and doubtfulness. They're smiling at me.
The air between us gets thick and I find it hard to breathe. I know he wants to. He wants to kiss me. But I also know he wouldn't. And I wouldn't either. Not right now at least… This is the pure example of what sexual tension feels like. You want to, but it's not the right time and place. It's not the way, you'd want it to be.
My cheeks go red now and I shut my eyes for a moment. When I open them, he's holding his grin back. “You're not infected.”

The night comes pretty quickly. He orders some food, which I totally disagree with, but he says he's always hungry and I'm starting to believe it, seeing how he ate at least 8 burgers today plus every other food. Since he ordered the food from Pop's, I drank two of my now favorite milkshakes- vanilla. And he forced some fries into me. Of course after I puked them out with less than an hour, he just got a banana from the café downstairs and some chicken broth.
We spent the day talking about different stuff than yesterday. Yesterday, our topics were family based and sad, today though, he wanted to know about the things I like and told me the things he loves to do as well.
I told him I’m obsessed with reading and writing and also binging TV-shows and doing movie marathons for myself. And comes out that he is interested in exactly the same things; he likes to read and write when he's alone and watch movies with his friends.
Then came the embarrassing part, he asked about my friends and if I've ever had any boyfriends or girlfriends, because he also wanted to know my sexuality. I told him that since we move a lot (he knows why), I don't really have friends. And also because of my dad. I told him about the boys who have screwed me over only because they wanted to meet my brother or something. He looked so thankful that I'm still trusting him with all my secrets even though I've had such a bad experience with guys.
We asked the basic questions: favorite  food, color, animal, drink. What do we wanna study in college, etc.
He wants to take a course on writing and I wanna be a journalist, reporter if I can.
So comes out we're not so different after all.

When the night comes I'm pretty tired, so he tells me to get some sleep. I gulp and look at him. His eyes are looking between the bed and the ground. He does that for about a minute after what his eyes find mine. I start blushing a little, making him smile, but at least he knows what I want.
He turns the light off and gets into the bed, leaving a huge space between us at first. In just a few seconds, he turns onto his side, facing me. He better not have cat sight or anything or I'm doomed. I really hope he can't see me blushing.
He puts his arm over the pillow between us and the other one he drops onto his side. I see his eyes searching for me. He clears his throat a little awkwardly, but what he says next, shows that he isn't at all. “I’m blinded by the dark at the moment, but I can still feel that you're not here yet, you know.”
And I go red as a tomato. “I’m… Me,” I say quietly, changing the word ‘shy’ because I'm too shy to say that.
He chuckles quietly and I feel him moving on the bed, towards me. I tense up a little when I feel his hand touching my chin. “Sorry,” he mumbles and stops on the middle pillow. I'm still not moving. “Come on,” he says, letting out a quiet annoyed groan and comes next to me on my pillow, taking me into his arms.
“You’re… Confident,” I mumble, earning a soft peck onto my hair. “Can you tell me just one more thing before we fall asleep.” I ask.
“And what's that?” I practically feel him smiling as I hide my face into his chest.
“What's your biggest fear?” I ask quietly.
“My biggest fear?” he asks with a surprised voice.
“You know, what are you afraid of,” I tease him. He laughs into my hair.
“Well,” he says. “I’m… Terrified of spiders.”
I roll my eyes, even though they're closed. “I asked for your biggest fear you jerk, not if you're afraid of these creepy animals.”
“Can’t spiders be someone's biggest fear?” he asks with fake offended voice.
“No, there are so many other things,” I protest.
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
I roll my eyes, “You idiot, I asked you, not you me.”
“One second I think you wanna cuddle with me and the other, you're throwing insults at me. Great,” he tells me sarcastically.
I chuckle and turn my head to look up at him, “Sorry, you're easy to talk to.”
“‘Cause you've already spilled too much, right?” he smiles sadly.
‘Cause I like you. “Exactly.” He rolls his eyes at me and pushes my head back down to his chest. I chuckle and rest it against him.
We lie in silence for a while. Soon, I feel his fingers twirling a strand of my hair. I start smirking a little, but stay quiet. And then just in about a minute, he starts humming some tune. Gosh his voice. He seems so careless and just enjoying himself. I feel his fingers brush through my hair. And then again. And again.
“You’re making me tired,” I mumble to him.
He stops suddenly. “Sorry, I uh…” he tries to find the right words. Just like I thought. He didn't even realize he was doing anything. He was thinking about something else. Now his body is tense and I'm kind of disappointed.
I try to find words as he is totally frozen, shocked from his own behavior. Should I turn it into a joke? No. “I didn't say stop,” I murmur.
A careless laugh comes out of his mouth and he relaxes again. “You’re hard to understand,” he mumbles.
“Goodnight,” I just say quietly.
“Night.”