Far From You

24

A YEAR AND A HALF AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

After the party, I’m drunk and still high, lying on the floor of Trev’s living room next to Mina, each of us tucked into a sleeping bag. I can hear his roommates’ snores all the way down the hall.

The floor is hard, with thin carpet that has mysterious stains I don’t want to think about, in this apartment full of boys. I’m restless, shifting back and forth, staring at the beer caps pressed into the ceiling. My eyes are heavy, but I don’t let them shut.

Mina’s awake, but she’s pretending not to be. She can’t fool me; years of sleepovers have taught me when she’s faking.

“I know you’re awake.”

“Go to sleep” is all she says. She doesn’t open her eyes, doesn’t even change that annoying exaggerated slow-breathing thing she’s doing.

“You still mad?”

“C’mon, Soph, I’m tired.”

I play with the zipper on my sleeping bag, jerking it up and down, waiting for her to answer me, knowing she might not.

“Is your back okay?” Her eyes pop open in concern as she breaks her self-imposed silence.

“I’ll be fine.”

I won’t, though. I’ll wake up stiff tomorrow. My good leg will be numb, but the bad one will ache like a bitch where the scar tissue is tight in my knee.

I should take another pill. I deserve it.

“Here, have my pillow.” She leans over and tucks it underneath my head. “Better?”

“You haven’t answered my question,” I remind her.

Mina sighs. “I’m not mad at you,” she says. “I already told you, I’m worried.”

“You don’t need to be,” I insist.

It’s the wrong thing to say. I can see real fear in her. It bothers me more than I’d like to admit, makes me want to hide, to numb myself further from this, from her.

“Yes I do,” she hisses, sitting up, half out of her sleeping bag. She grabs my arm, pulling at me until I do the same. Then she’s leaning into my space so fast that I’m startled into letting her.

“You’re taking too many pills. You’re hurting yourself.” She swallows and seems to realize, suddenly, how close we are. Her fingers flex around my arm, tightening and loosening, then tightening again.

“Sophie, please,” she says, and I can’t tell what she’s asking here. She’s too close; I can smell the vanilla lotion she rubbed into her hands before we went to bed. “Please,” she says again, and my breath catches, because there’s no denying what she’s asking for now.

Her eyes flicker down to my mouth, she’s pulling me toward her, and I’m breathless, so caught in the anticipation, in the oh my God, this is actually happening feeling that spikes through me, that I don’t hear the footsteps until it’s almost too late.

But Mina does, and she jerks away before Trev comes down the hall. “You two still awake?” He yawns, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.

“We were just going to sleep,” Mina says hastily, lying back down.

She won’t look at me, and I can feel my cheeks redden. My entire body’s gone hot and heavy, and I want to squirm deeper into my sleeping bag and press my legs together tightly.

“Night,” Trev says. He leaves the kitchen light on so Mina doesn’t have to be in the dark.

Mina doesn’t say anything. She settles in her sleeping bag next to me and tucks one hand under her head. For one long moment, we stare at each other.

I’m afraid to move. To speak.

Then Mina smiles, just for me, small and real and on the edge of wistful, and her other hand slips into mine as she closes her eyes. Her silver rings, warmed from her skin, are smooth against my fingers. The scent of vanilla swirls around me, making blood rush beneath my skin, and the hot pull inside my stomach twists and revels in the contact.

When I wake the next morning, our fingers are still tangled together.