slumber talk

6: Stage Fright

no gif for this chapter - just a song ⇑

comment and vote for ada's mental health pls

Jeremy was in my house. He'd come over by himself.

He was in the kitchen when I trekked down the stairs at half past 11, sitting on a barstool by the island in a black denim jacket that slid over his wrists and thick chunky motorcycle boots that could probably crush a kitten. Axel must have taken him in after they finished up at the party. The wardrobe looked a lot different on him.

His beautiful, beautiful eyes stared up at me as I froze half a centimetre away from the tiled floor, hands tucked under my elbows, dressing gown suddenly disintegrating into my skin to leave me completely naked. Or at least feeling that way.

I remembered thinking Mum must have let him in, before going off to whatever she was doing on this bleak Saturday morning, and that she could have at least given me some notice. And also that I was in no way prepared for a confrontation with my boyfriend less than 12 hours after –

I shut my eyes, tight. Trying to blind myself against the memories.

"Adz?"

"What are you doing here, Jeremy?"

My voice was quiet, and I'll admit it, a little too wavery. The thickness of my throat seemed to cover it pretty well; I was severely dehydrated after passing out on my pillow around 4.

"I wanted to see you." I heard his footfalls getting louder, the clunk and matter of his boots causing the tiles to squeak to each other as he passed over them. "See if you were okay ... and all that."

Eventually his sharp and woody cologne was invading my nostrils, and he was so close I could picture exactly how he stood in front of me without having to acknowledge him at all.

His breaths were quick and rapid. They spun a current between us.

"Jeremy, you ..." I swallowed. I couldn't find any words.

"Adz, listen, I know I screwed up." His whisper fizzled out on a shaky breath. He touched my shoulders. "Can we talk about it?"

Finding my head bobbing before I could control it, my eyes pried themselves open to meet his – and in them I saw the fear and gravity I was scared I would find there, along with raised blood vessels and throbbing veins floating through a white sea. He looked like he hadn't come down yet. He looked like he still hadn't slept.

"You want a coffee?"

"Please."

~

For someone who apparently wanted to talk, he had very little to say.

"So ... what happened?"

Jeremy dug his teeth into his bottom lip. I wasn't sure if it was voluntary or not but his cheeks billowed out all the same, like sails filled with wind. In this case it might have been a fortified exhale or words he hadn't assembled right yet.

We were in the conservatory now. It was deadly cold and a mindless venture from the depths of the kitchen; just somewhere else to host a difficult conversation. The coffee in my hands stung my dry skin, burned at Jeremy's chapped lips, as we looked bleakly out over the dreary landscape of the back garden. It came alive in the spring and summer but currently it was an unperturbed mess of sprawling grass and scruffy topography – thick trees at the end of the uneven acre moulting dead foliage into the dew that had collected overnight.