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As I stumbled back to my bedroom, his arm around my shoulders, I suddenly found myself wishing I could fall asleep like that. I could fall asleep like that, I knew it. I wanted to wake up next to him.
That thought almost startled me awake. I had never acknowledged my feelings for him—confronting those thoughts was frightening. If he didn’t feel that way I’d lose my best friend, you know? I never wanted to take that chance.
But, in that hazy, dreamlike walk, my heart hijacked my brain and decided it was worth the try.
He walked me all the way to my makeshift cot, probably thinking I wasn’t conscious enough to not fall on my face. He flinched when I reached up and grabbed his hand as he turned to leave.
“Don’t go,” I heard myself say, my voice thick with drowsiness. His hands are perfect, my brain notes, rehashing what I already know.
He turned back over his shoulder, squeezing my hand. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered.
“I’m cold.”
He paused, silhouetted in the faint blue-grey light of the door. I started shifting under the blankets—pulling them back so he could climb in beside me when he reached under the cot and pulled out the fire blanket I used when I went out in the snow. He let go of my hand and shook the blanket out over me, the heaviness settling like the pain after a punch to the gut.
“Please,” he said, his hand hovering awkwardly at my shoulder for a moment. I couldn’t see his face. “Please go back to sleep.”
So I pretended to. I pasted on a faint smile and closed my eyes. “Okay,” I said, knowing that if I said I didn’t remember this in the morning, we’d both play it off to a misunderstanding. It would reset the awkward meter. We’d probably even laugh about it.
But as he walked out the door and I pulled the blankets around my face, I knew I would remember.
