The Way This Feels

Chapter 8: Glass

I guess I forgot how much fear there really is. As we enter the party, and there's a surge of people around us, it's like all my instincts go haywire and I'm left completely in survival mode. I have been submerged underwater with no oxygen, I'm venturing alone into the lions den, no one to help, just me, as vulnerable as ever. But I'm not alone. Angel's arm carelessly thrown around my middle because she can't comfortably reach my shoulders reminds me of that. Micah's broadness like a large stone in the center of a rushing river, effortlessly parting the crowd before us is an immensely helpful reminder that there's people positioned willingly at my side.

The knowledge doesn't stop my heart racing like crazy, and it's like Micah can hear it. He looks at me closely as we stand around outside a kitchen, like he's reading me.

"What?" I snipe, as he smiles down at me. "Why are you smiling?"

"You can relax." He reminds me.

"Huh?"

"Nothing's gonna happen." He's still smiling this stupid childlike grin. 

But he's wrong. It can't be 10 minutes later when I catch sight of something odd, a black bomber jacket flitting among the crowd, a checker pattern, a tuft of gleaming white, and I feel all the oxygen being sucked right out of my body.

I wheel around, and I get to watch Micah's reaction to the look of pure terror on my face, and then his second reaction to someone just over my shoulder.

"Get behind me." He says evenly. Without question, I dart into the empty space just behind him where all these difficult thoughts start coming out of nowhere. If Echo sees me with Micah, he'll think he won, he succeeded in getting us together. If Echo sees me at all, he'll want to talk, I cringe painfully at this thought. If Echo doesn't see me... then I have to keep prolonging the inevitable...

Micah turns a fraction of an inch and says something to Angel as she passes that I can't make out over all the loud voices. But his face seems light and good humored, immediately as though he cast a spell on her, Angel turns to me and says, "Lets get you a drink!" She snatches my wrist and hauls me to the crowded kitchen area. Startled, I turn back to Micah who winks before I'm yanked violently out of his view.

Angel barges through people lined up at a long counter, splashes some random drinks together in a cup, and thrusts it into my hand.

"Drink up."

I take a tentative sip and then almost spill it on myself, coughing. "This is horrible." I nearly wretch, "Tastes like cough syrup."

"That's a good thing, right?"

"No!" 

She laughs. "You're such an innocent."

I'm fairly certain not liking whatever the hell concoction Angel just threw together for me doesn't somehow make me "an innocent" but I choose not to press the issue. I lean against the fridge, watching the people flow in and out of the kitchen while pretending occasionally to drink the horribleness in my cup but keeping my lips firmly pursed. My heart is still banging around, every hint of light colored hair, or a dark jacket, or his preferred checker pattern sends me nearly over the edge with worry, but I never see him. I wonder what Micah did, if he spoke to him, or if he was just being weird on purpose like always. I bring the cup to my lips and bite the curled plastic edge absentmindedly.

Violet wanders into the kitchen then, and when she sees me, she beams. "We have to hang out more!! I feel like I haven't seen you in ages!" 

"Only if you taste this." I hand her the cup, and she takes a sip.