I sigh as the soft, skinny and familiar arms snake around my body. The tip of her nose is nuzzling my chest with a steady rhythm. My fingers graze her messy locks and the other resting on her lower back. The atmosphere feels forgiving and no longer cold and empty.
She finally looks up at me with her pearly white rows of teeth gleaming at me, “I’m so glad you didn’t go anywhere.”
I smile at her, “I’m glad you didn’t hold a grudge against me.”
She hides her face in my shirt and chuckles uncontrollably.
This is the person I knew years ago.
***
“Can you please just go to bed?” I pant while I watch her make laps around the room in her pyjamas. My hands clutch my knees as I pant heavier, taking in all the air. I’ve got to get back to jogging.
“Not until you catch me first, David!” she stops in the middle of the room, jumping like she had bouncy shoes on. I glance over at the wall clock. It’s almost midnight and she’s still jumping around.
“Aren’t we a little too old to play these types of games?” I straighten my back, slumping after that.
She suddenly stops her jumping and pouts, “But… Isn’t it like our tradition or something?”
I huff out a mouthful of air before I say, “I know… Maybe we should just skip only for tonight?”
My head was throbbing moments ago and my legs felt like collapsing. Then, I see an image that I didn’t wish to see today, not when it’s her first night back home: her hands on her hips with pursed lips and eyes like daggers, staring into me.
“You said that months before I left too! And the few months before that!”
My posture sinks. I walk towards her as I give out a sigh, “You must be tired from the hours of being up in the air, am I right? Jetlag?”
Really, I’m the one who’s tired. Not her.
She sighs too and let her hands fall below her hips, “Okay, message conveyed.”
“Now, come on,” I swoop my arm just over her head and onto her shoulders then beckon her to the bed that is laid out in front of us. She plops herself onto the covers and reaches for the switch by the bedside table and the lamp glowed in the colour of ember. I walk over to the door and flip the switch off, letting the lights die out. The lamp showers the walls of the room in the dim colour.
I shuffle my way to my side of the bed while she goes under the covers and rolls onto her side, facing the curtains.
I do the same—going under the covers, and facing the curtains. I watch the light engulf itself onto her hair and her shoulder.
Suddenly the realization of how much I miss her comes full circle. Even if she’s here, I still miss her. She seems quite distant to me. A cold fear grips my heart that made me shudder. Has she gotten bored of me? What if she secretly is holding a grudge against me?
The thoughts that haunted me during the first few nights without her are coming back and this time, it’s even worse. Something stirs in my stomach that makes me want to vomit out my dinner. I sink into my pillow, struggling to push away the insecure thoughts.
Just when I was about to reach to the point of over thinking, she turns around and sees me with a soft, sleepy stare.
The stir in my stomach fades and my thoughts go dead like a grave.
“Good night,” she mumbles with cracked lips.
“Good night,” I whisper. My throat was tight when I said it.
When she came back, she was in one piece. Thank God. Although she had a few bruises and healing stings, she came back safely and that’s all I’m happy about.
Right now, I’m worrying over the fact that she’s probably on to me or something like that. I mean, get over it, David; it happened a few months ago. I should stop being so worried.
She grabs the side of my shirt and yanks me in. Her arm isn’t long enough to hug my entire body but she manages to half-hug me. Her forehead squishes my cheek, leaving my lips all squeezed up together in an uncomfortable manner. She squirms for a few moments, finding a good sleeping position to sleep in. When she finally does, her foot subtly strokes mine from time to time. I jump at the touch. She snuggles herself onto my chest and returns back to sleeping. I feel the constant lift and fall of her chest and her hands gripping on my shirt.
I let my arm corral her into me and close my eyes.
“David?” Her warm breath is exuding warmth my skin. A blush forms on my cheeks as soon as she called my name. My eyes fling open.
“Yeah?” I mutter.
“What do you want to do tomorrow?” she asks with a gentle tone.
I think it’s kind of a… dense question right now but just to entertain her, I say, “Anything you want to do—you call the shots, okay?”
“Okay,” her voice drastically changes from gentle to shaky.
Is it me or is our relationship getting worse by every conversation? She must be thinking the same thing I was a few minutes ago.
“Maybe we could… I don’t know, go… hiking?”
I wish I could take that back right now. I’m pretty sure the last thing she wants is to go hiking. She had done that plenty of times in the past few months already.
She hums while thinking, “Don’t you think that’s a little tiring for me? I’m trying to not get sick of it for my career’s sake.” She laughs weakly.
“For all I know I just want to have a nice lunch with you,” I look down at her messy hair that is tucked underneath my chin.
“Then… Maybe we can have a road trip? Don’t you like road trips?”
“To come to think of it, I haven’t been on a road trip for a while. What do you have in mind?”
Somehow I feel her stiffen as I run my palm down her back.
“We can just head down to Denver. I hear it’s nice there in the Fall.”
I nod, “Mhmm.”
Then airy silence comes and I suspect she has drifted off into a deep sleep.
“I missed you,” she murmurs with her warm breath spreading itself across my collarbone again. I feel goose bumps forming on my arms for a while.
“Yeah, me too… A lot.”
Her grip tightens, pulling herself even closer to me. We’re basically pressing on each other.
“It scared me to come back, you know?”
I don’t say anything or make a peep, I’m afraid whatever comes out of my mouth would make her cry.
She continues with a shaky voice, “I thought you’ve changed your mind about me or something and it’d be weird to come back to the apartment and have you watch me pack up and go somewhere else.”
This is the first time I’m seeing her be vulnerable since the accident back in Iceland.
“Are you getting bored of me?” she then breaks the suspense she’s been building all this while.
The stir in my stomach returns, making me wholly uncomfortable. All of a sudden, holding her feels unsafe and frightening. I loosen my grip slightly and suck in some air before speaking.
I was just thinking about that too.
“I’m not, honest.”
“I know I sound like the over-reacting type of girlfriend right now and I hate it, but seriously, I kind of have this feeling that you don’t really want me to be around so much anymore.”
My heart sinks to my abdomen; my smile is wiped off from my face. Have I really been that way?
“It’s just a couple of times that I said I didn’t want to play around. And lately, I’ve been working on my music and the sleepless nights I have…trying to get the creative juices flowing, you understand right?”
“Well yeah…”
“Maybe it’s all in your head. You think too much, that’s a really bad thing. Plus I don’t recall you doing this before,” the smile reignites but the stir doesn’t go away.
“Yeah… yeah, perhaps you’re right. Sorry,” she looks up at me with a sad look. “I’m sorry that things got really messed up between us.”
“Hey, it’s my fault for implying things wrongly,” I touch her cheek that’s soft against my rough thumb. “I’m really happy that you’re back.”
Our lips collide with each other for a few good minutes until we break apart. She tucks her head under my chin again and sigh, “Good night, for real this time.” We laugh in unison.
“All right, good night,” I kiss her hair before closing my eyes.
After that came the most wonderful feeling in the world. The whole thing is cleared up and it feels refreshing. The fact that she wasn’t hesitant about what I said to her proved to me about how much she values the trust I’ve established and vice versa.
I slept the whole night through, not letting her slip away from my grip and so did her. Everything feels whole again but not perfectly whole; just mended gaps that leave a couple of silly, accidental cracks and that’s perfect.