Benevolence

Chapter 22: Sifting Weeds

Crisp blue sheets and warm bare limps are the first things to greet me when I peer open my eyes to Drew's room. The sun blaring through his thin blinds, says we slept late into the afternoon. And for the first time, I can say, we awake as a collective. Having to face our recollections of last night together, and bench our pleasure and possible regret...together.  Neither of us is ready to face whatever that was, but this isn't new territory. We've come long past the point of evading, and this time Drew takes the stand.

"...She's my cousin," he says playing with a lock of my hair. "You met her before. Her name's Phoenix."

We're naked, entangled in each other's arms, and proudly laying in our mess. He can't see my face, for it's buried in the crook of his neck, but I'm angry, more so at myself. Once my memories came back, vivid and urgent, pushing at the surface of my lids, I couldn't believe what I'd done, less who I'd done it with. I remember losing to him last night, but I don't remember why I gave up on myself.

Then, there's that contradictory feeling of accomplishment, after knowing I had my needs catered to, and a full night's rest. No flashbacks turned nightmare. No discomfort. Just a blissfully uneventful black abyss of cognitive peace. I want to believe that what Drew and I share is normal. But the more time I spend trying to convince myself of that, the more evidence there is building against it.

"Lai, I could never bring myself to cheat on you; you know that."

It seems the roles have reversed and I'm overreacting over a conversation I heard between him and one of the twins, Phoenix; the one I met the first time I visited his suite. He's comparing their relationship to me and Bryan's but it doesn't feel right. Maybe he's trying to be funny. I don't trust him. Then again, is this the same doubt that sabotaged our relationship in the first place? I exhale softly, closing my eyes at the feel of his hands in my hair. I don't want to think that way.

Thinking with my heart rather than my head is easy. Being here with him instead of in that house--alone—is...easy. The old me would never be here after being disrespected, lied to, and embarrassed. Yet, here I am lying in his bed, his own personal fool. What is he doing to me?

"If it makes you feel any better, everything you heard prior to her bringin' you up.... it had nothin' to do with us."

I draw small circles into the palm of his hand with the pad of my thumb, following the dizzying cycle of my thoughts.

"I told you I'd never do that to you," he says. "And I meant it."

Of course, he did. "...I don't know what to think, Drew," I say honestly, my voice hoarse from all the yelling and drinking I'd done last night. "I don't know if I should be on guard about the way you handled us having 'time away' from each other. I don't know if I should be scared, knowing you have a history of manipulating people." My fingers glide across his skin, falling between the slight dips and clefts of his chest. "I--I don't... know you, Drew. I don't think I ever really have...and though everything in me is screaming to run the other way...I'm here."

I worry my lip, happy that I'm not able to see his reaction to my words.

"You have every right to wanna end things," he says. "Shit--I feel like we've been battlin' the same problem since the semester started, and we're almost at the halfway point. I shouldn't have been so cold towards you that day in the lab. I mean--you laid some pretty heavy shit on me, and I... I brushed that shit right off-- here." He sits up, rolling onto his side to pull a shirt from the bedside drawer.

"Thanks," I mutter. 

He uses the time I take to slip on the shirt to sit up against the headboard. It falls past my breasts and pools around my waist, telling of our size difference, and I sit with my legs crossed, pulling a scrunchie from my wrist to tie up my hair.