MICHAEL
The second I fall asleep after talking to Kate, it seems that my phone is ringing again. When I glance at the screen I see that it’s Luke, and I hit ignore immediately.
Fucking Luke.
What a prick.
He calls again and I ignore it again, finally powering down my phone. Kate might call, but she can just call her own home phone if she really needs to reach me.
I groan and roll over; despite sleeping through the night and most of the morning, I am exhausted. My head is pounding and my body aches. The dim light that shines through the thick curtains of Kate’s bedroom hurts my eyes, but the more I blink, the less painful it becomes.
My head whirls when I sit up, but the longer I remain upright, the less nauseas I feel. I’m actually kind of hungry, so I make my way to Kate’s kitchen. I know the coffee that is already brewed in the pot is for me, because she wouldn’t drink it. Why does she even have a coffee pot? So many things about this woman confuse and intrigue me.
The smooth, hot coffee seems to soothe my headache instantaneously, only increasing my appetite. I rummage through her pantry for a while before coming to the conclusion that she doesn’t actually eat. Like real food. All that’s here are boxes of macaroni and cheese, an untouched loaf of bread, and a box of goldfish crackers, which I suspect are stale.
I close the pantry door and move on to the fridge, which seems more promising. Right away I see the leftover pizza from last night, and that’s as far as I have to look. Still, while I am heating it up, I find myself poking through the fridge, just to make sure that she has actual food somewhere in this house.
I’ve never done this before, I’ve never cared about what girls I’ve dated were eating. Not that I ever dated anyone long enough to get to that point anyway. There’s a lot of things I’ve done with Kate that I’ve never done with anyone else, but I guess I knew from the beginning that she was different.
She was fiery, she was funny, and she was not even the slightest bit shocked or scared by my appearance. She was…different.
I liked her in spite of myself. I tried to stay away from her, but I lasted less than a day. She was stuck in my head, and true to her nature, she wouldn’t shut up.
Out at the airfield, well that whole day really, that’s when I knew I was in over my head. She surprised me endlessly that day, first by agreeing to come with me, and then again and again afterwards. God, I loved her then. The second she scaled that damn fence, I knew it.
And now here I am, alone in her apartment. She trusts me so fully, though she has barely a reason to. I keep things from her and she knows it. But I also trust that she knows it’s for her own good.
Suddenly I feel weird alone in Kate’s apartment. It’s not home when she’s not here. Well, it’s not home at all, technically.
I do my best to clean up after myself, knowing that clutter drives her crazy. When I stand up after eating, I feel almost completely back to normal. Some of my muscles still ache, but that’s easy enough to ignore.
