* * *
Okay, so I’m not drunk, but I’m sure as fuck not sober either.
I’ve been lying on my bed, pissed off and torn up for I don’t know how long.
This isn’t how I want to spend what little time I have left with Leila, but I don’t know if there’s another option. She’s closing me out.
I get it. Really, I do.
It’s easier to leave if things aren’t going so well, but that doesn’t mean this has to be the end of anything.
That’s when it hits me: I should probably be talking about this with her.
I get up from the bed and take a moment to find my balance. I may be a little more inebriated than I thought.
At least I’m nowhere near as drunk as I was last night.
I set the bottle, which up until this point had been welded to my hand, on my dresser, and I open the door to my room.
Guess who’s sitting on the couch, talking to Leila as she wipes tears from her eyes.
I’ll give you one hint: it’s not me.
“Hey, Mike,” I say. “Leila, are you all right?”
“Maybe I shou
ld give you two a few minutes to talk,” Mike says, and gets up from the couch.
“Thanks, Mike,” I tell him. “I appreciate that.”
He nods and walks to the kitchen. He’s hardly giving us privacy, but now really isn’t the time for me to say anything about it.
“I know what we’re both doing,” I tell her. “We’re finding reasons to be mad because we’re afraid of losing each other.”
“It doesn’t seem like either one of us have had to look very hard,” she says, wiping her nose on her shirtsleeve.
I smile at her.
“I guess you’re right,” I say. “A lot is happening with both of us right now. Maybe this wasn’t the right time to start a relationship, but I don’t regret that we did.”
Her eyes are so wide as she looks up at me.
“I don’t regret it either,” she says. “But how are we supposed to keep going when we both know it’s all going to be over in a week?”
We keep going because we care about each other.
We’ll find a way to make it work.
We keep going because we make each other feel things we’ve never really felt.
“I don’t know.”
Of all the possible combinations of words that could have come out of my mouth, that was one of the worst.
“So what are we doing?” she asks, the tears again forming in her eyes.
“We’re getting to know each other,” I tell her. “That sort of thing takes time.”