When we hung up, I hugged my phone to my chest, turned over, and didn’t even bother showering or changing. I just stared at my window across the room and waited for sleep to take me over. I don’t even know when it happened, but next time I blinked, it was the morning, and all my work awaited me in the studio.
I bite my lip, now staring at that phone and thinking of that hot night several days ago, and I debate whether I should call him.
We might talk. We might laugh. We might say a sexy thing or two … but it always ends with hanging up, returning to work, and nursing an inconsolable, unseeable wound in my chest.
I even looked at myself in the mirror the other day, searching my eyes for an answer.
Invisible scars … They’re all over my face.
Salvador can be wise when he wants to be.
Talking to Chad does help me a bit. Knowing there’s someone in this world who really cares for me and would devote every part of himself to my happiness and wellbeing. Knowing I’m not alone in all of this burden. Knowing he’s mine.
It also hurts, too.
He is this constant reminder of what I can’t really have—not completely, at least. He’s like the dream I woke up from, yet can’t find my way back to. Such is the way of the stubborn mind, which refuses to be controlled when you close your eyes to sleep, and instead of Chad, all I dream about is being robbed in a dark alley, navigating strange cornfield labyrinths, or vampire bunnies.
Last night was a little different.
I dreamed I was in high school again.
And I was passing by Chad in the hallway again, on my way to the bathroom, the hall pass dangling from my hand.
We locked eyes, just like we did in the real memory.
Except this time, we both slowed, then came to a stop.
Teenage me looked at teenage Chad. Neither of us moved. We just stood there in the hallway staring at each other. His blue eyes were shining and beautiful and terrifying. I fought an instinct to shrink against the lockers behind me. Instead, I felt strong.
I was expecting us to crash into each other and kiss.
Or throw fists into our faces, angry and pent-up and confused.
There was curiosity on our faces, curiosity playing in both our hearts, curiosity that seduced every inch of our bodies down to our very fingertips.
But all we did was stand there and stare at each other.
And then I woke up.
And I screamed out: “I should have fucking kissed him!” so loud, the walls of my bedroom seemed to shake. “I should have kissed him and made him see who he is! I should have given us the life we both wanted instead of waiting ten fucking years when it’s too late! I knew what he was! I knew it! I fucking knew it!”
I stuffed a pillow against my face to stop the shouting.
The shouting turned into tears.
Then reaffirming silence.
Then nothing.
Yeah, that’s how my morning started, by the way. Today is certainly not my shining example of a glamorous fashion-designer life in LA. I’m a mess who can’t even decide what to eat for dinner, and whose brain is such a cocktail of worries, I can’t bother to put on matching socks.
And now I’m staring at the screen of my phone.
Debating what to do with the love I’ve got, weighing it one way and the other.
Like it’s just another choice of what to eat for dinner.
Like it’s just another mismatched sock.
I shut my eyes and fight another urge to cry—only to realize my eyes are so dry from lack of sleep, there’s nothing more in me to come out but a rasp and a jagged sigh.
The phone is set back on the nightstand where it belongs.
I return to the studio.
Snip, snip, snip.
Clip, clip, clip.
Press my foot down. Noise, noise, noise. Let my foot up.
Like driving, but more terrifying.
Inspect the dress form again, dead-eyed and uncertain.
Bring the fabric to my table, stick a pin between my lips, and reinvestigate the length of a sleeve.
Notice a few loose threads.
Snip, snip, snip.
And then I’m thinking about Chad’s sleeveless plaid shirt I held in my hands on that first night back in Spruce. ‘Hey! Don’t pull the thread like that! You could cause a snag and ruin the shirt!’ I see his cocky smirk. ‘Why don’t you fix it?’ I feel the material as it crushes between my fingers.
His rippling abs and smooth muscles … which for some reason don’t seem as sexual in this context, but rather just look like a lot of hard work he put into his body. Evidence of his commitment. Evidence of his strength. Evidence of his loyalty.
A lot like the hard work I’m putting into these garments.