If You Miss It

16. truth

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

TRUTH

—

Tariq's body was warm.

Throughout the night, any time Dmitri got cold, he would just move closer to Tariq, and his arm would instinctively wrap around him, yanking him even closer and providing him with warmth.

In fact, he was so incredibly warm that if Dmitri didn't know him, he would have been worried that he had a fever.

That was how the entire night went. Dmitri trying his best to keep himself warm under the blankets, and Tariq constantly switching between keeping his arm on Dmitri's body and off.

Time had gone by so fast that Dmitri didn't even realise that it was six in the morning, way earlier than he was used to waking up, but he couldn't sleep anymore.

His mind was racing with thoughts of Tariq, and how fucking pained he had looked that night, and how much he missed sleeping next to him and being able to fall asleep without overthinking, and how ridiculous it was that they were even in the same fucking bed, and that they had broken up for a fucking reason, multiple reasons, and everything.

The fact that they were just acting like everything was normal when it so obviously wasn't, was so fucking unbelievable to him.

"Dmitri," Tariq mumbled under his breath, groaning, his voice hoarse, cracking from just that one word. "Dmitri."

"Hm?"

Tariq groaned again, squinting slightly. "Gonna need you to fuck off now."

Huh?

"What?" he asked, trying his best to ignore the spike of shock that those words sent through his chest. "Uh— what the fuck does that mean?"

Tariq just shook his head, slowly sitting up in bed and hunching over, his eyeliner slightly smudged on his right eyelid. Then, he sighed, before saying, "Last night was a one-time thing, I already told you this," and adding a firm, "So if you could leave now, that would be great."

Always. Tariq always fucking did this.

It hurt every single time that he did it, though.

His apathy was always his biggest flaw, or rather, his pretence of apathy to cover up any other emotion he was feeling. It was one of the reasons for their relationship to crash, and it was the reason Dmitri was about to snap at him now, too.

"You're saying it like we fucked or something."

He didn't even crack a smile at that. He just said, "Can you please get the fuck out now? I called you in a moment of weakness, but I'm fine now, and I'm thinking clearly. Clearly enough to tell you to fuck off, because even though we were chill yesterday, we're not anymore."

There was no fucking way Dmitri was about to leave without letting Tariq know just how much of an asshole he was being. It just wasn't possible.

"So you can call me whenever the fuck you want, and I'm just supposed to show up?" he sneered, getting out of bed and grabbing his keys and his reading glasses from the table next to the hotel bed, shoving them into the pocket of his sweatpants. "Seems a little familiar."

Tariq scoffed, rolling his eyes as he hobbled out of bed— his muscles always got sore the next day—, wincing with each step. "You didn't have to show up. I asked you if you could, you said yes. I didn't force you to do shit."

Before Dmitri could say anything else, Tariq was snapping back again, his words fire burning Dmitri's skin, making its way right into the hole in his chest.