Out of Nowhere (Middle of Somewhere 2)

“You coming in here?” he asks, lifting the covers.

I nod. “Lemme just brush my teeth.” I don’t want even the slightest taste of beer to linger if Rafe’s going to kiss me again.

In the bathroom, I risk a glance in the mirror. Dark circles are under my eyes, which look almost violet from the redness of crying, like an old bruise. There’s an actual bruise on my cheek from where Daniel hit me earlier. My hair is the longest it’s been since high school and it’s a mess. I’ve only seen myself with a buzz cut for so long. I look like a different person with it longer. Softer, maybe.

When I slide under the covers with Rafe, he plucks at my hood. “You’re sweating.”

I kick off my sweatpants and pull my sweatshirt over my head, feeling better when the cold air from the open window hits me. My landlord sets the heat way too high.

“You not been eating?” Rafe traces my collarbone with his finger.

“I dunno.”

His gaze immediately goes to the cuts on my chest and he runs a finger over them, jaw tight.

“It’s been bad,” he says, and I nod, closing my eyes. He leans over me and presses a kiss to the cuts on my chest. “Okay.”

He pushes the blanket all the way off so he can look at me. He runs a finger over the scratches Shelby left on my arm, and I throw my other arm over my eyes. There are warm kisses on my stomach and my hipbones. Hair brushing my thighs.

Looking down my body in the light from the window, I can see that he’s right. I have lost weight. My stomach muscles are almost cartoonishly defined and my hipbones jut unhealthily beneath them. The muscles of my thighs are tight, but my knees look knobby and too big. I’ve never liked the way I look, but at least I’ve always felt strong, ever since the summer before high school, when I started lifting weights. Now, though—god, I look a mess. I move to pull the covers up so Rafe doesn’t have to look at me.

He lets me pull them up, but he keeps a hand on my stomach, stroking gently. He kisses my cheek, then rolls onto his back next to me, relaxing into the mattress.

“Who hit you?”

“What? Oh. Daniel.” Rafe tenses. “I deserved it.”

He shakes his head but I guess he’s not going to fight me on that right now. I turn over and rest my cheek against his shoulder, wanting to absorb as much of his presence as I can before the inevitable moment when he leaves.

“I was terrible to him. I just—I don’t know why he makes me so mad. Even when he doesn’t do anything. He—I look at him and I….” I shake my head. “And he brought this guy. His boyfriend. They were standing there, in Pop’s living room. Like it was nothing. Like, now that he’s gone, Daniel can—fuck, I don’t know, man.”

Rafe runs his hand along my ribs. When he speaks his voice is gentle. “Maybe you get so mad at Daniel because he gets to have something you don’t.”

“I mean, his boyfriend’s handsome and all, in a lumberjack-y way, but you’re way hotter.”

I can feel Rafe’s smile. “I mean that Daniel gets to be honest about who he is and who he cares about to his brothers. He accepted the consequences of the truth and he told it anyway.” The words cut, but Rafe wraps his arm around me, pressing me against him, and kisses my temple. “I think sometimes the people we get angriest with are the ones who have the things we want the most.”

“So, then, who do you get angriest with?”

He rubs my back, shifting me closer against him. “My sister,” he says finally.

“Gabriela?”

He shakes his head. “Luz.”

“But I thought you guys got along really well?”

“We do. But when she calls me to fix something for her or she wants me to give her advice…. It’s not that I mind fixing things for her. I don’t. And I like that she wants my advice.”

“So… what, then?”

“I guess I’m jealous that she has me to go to,” Rafe says slowly, like he’s still thinking it through.

“You mean you’re jealous because you want… yourself?”

“No. Well, yes. I’m jealous that she has me to call because I know that I’ll always be there for her, and I…. That’s what I want. Someone I know will always be there for me.”

His voice sounds smaller than I’ve ever heard it, and it puts a lump in my throat.

“My sisters are there for me. I know that. But they have their own lives. They have kids. They’re not….” He shakes his head again, dismissing the subject. “So, the funeral’s tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to come?”

My heart starts to race. I don’t want to fight again, but I… I just can’t deal with worrying about Brian and Sam asking questions about who Rafe is, and I—