“Shh…” Mayra’s fingers drifted through my hair and stroked it backwards, away from my face. “It’s okay. I’m going to go get you some water. I’ll be right back.”
“My teeth are furry,” I said.
“I’ll help you.” I heard Mayra’s soft snicker.
Mayra maneuvered me to the bathroom and helped me get toothpaste on the brush. I tried to figure out just where my teeth were while she brought me a large glass of water and two ibuprofen tablets.
“Drink it all,” Mayra commanded.
“That’s a big glass,” I told her. “I don’t need that much to take pills.”
“You need that to get yourself rehydrated,” she said. “You’ll feel a lot better tomorrow if you drink it all.”
I argued a bit, but it hurt to argue, and I really needed to lie back down. I stumbled into bed after drinking the full glass, and Mayra followed me. She wrapped her arms around me, and I snuggled into the place between her shoulder and neck, which was really quite a nice spot to be.
Just having her here this way in my bed at night was quite a nice thing, too.
“You should live here,” I told her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mayra laughed.
“I mean it,” I said. I tried to move a bit so I could look up at her, but as soon as I did, my head got all swooshy again. I swallowed hard and tried to steady myself. “I like you being here.”
“I like being here, too,” she said. “But Matthew, we graduated from high school a few hours ago. Let’s take things a little slower, for the sake of Henry’s heart if nothing else.”
I had to think about that for a minute, imagining how Henry might react if Mayra said she was going to move out of his house and into mine. It would be quite a shock to him, that was for sure. Would he still like me if he thought I was taking Mayra away from him too fast? But she was planning to move to campus at the end of summer anyway.
“Will college be hard for him?” I asked. “I mean, when you go away?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think he’s already kind of freaking out a little. He worries a lot. Staying in town
helps since he can keep an eye on me. I think you going to the same school actually makes him a lot happier about it.”
“It does?”
“He knows I’m safe with you,” Mayra said quietly.
“I love you,” I told her.
“I love you, too,” Mayra responded. “And I think Henry does in a way as well.”
“Henry?” My eyebrows lowered and scrunched at the top of my eyes. I reached up with my fingers to try to get them to stay in place.
“I think he sees you like he would a son, you know?”
“I think so,” I said, but I wasn’t entirely sure I did. Love was weird and confusing. Outside of my parents, Megan, Travis, and Beth, I had never really thought about loving anyone else besides Mayra. Now that she was in my life, I couldn’t imagine it being any other way.
I didn’t sleep well. My head went from spinning to pounding, and I kept waking up every hour or so. There was the slightest tickle against my neck where Mayra’s fingers rested as she cradled my head to her shoulder. I sighed against her skin and wrapped my arms around her. I still felt crappy, but having her close made it bearable. The only problem was, the huge glass of water had gone straight through me.
I wriggled around a bit, but it didn’t help. I was still dizzy and really, really didn’t want to leave either the comfort of the bed or the comfort of Mayra’s arms. The pressure on my bladder soon became too much, and I had to get up.
As I washed my hands, I glanced at myself in the mirror. I looked really rough. My head still hurt, so I headed down to the kitchen for another large glass of water.
Throughout the day, I slowly recovered physically, but I was still quite embarrassed. When Mayra woke up, she made me fried eggs and toast, which settled my stomach. I vowed to never touch alcohol again, and Mayra laughed.
I didn’t understand the joke.
With school out, we spent most of our time over the next week planning for the move to Columbus to begin college at Ohio State University. I was worried about moving even though it really wasn’t very far. Knowing Mayra would be there with me made the idea a little more palatable.