TWEEK:
Craig was always coffee.
He always knew how to calm me down, and I was always the most comfortable by his side. Probably because he was always so calm himself. I swear I never saw him freak out. Sure he got mad but he usually shrugged it off in record time. I bet if there was a record for the fastest anyone could get over themselves Craig would be the sole record holder.
I always just thought that he took pity on me, ever since that time in grade school when we put each other in the hospital.
That was the first time anyone ever saw me go through my night terrors.
He didn't call me a freak, or hit me some more. Instead he climbed out of his bed and pushed into mine, wrapped his steady arms around my trembling body and whispered soothingly into my hair.
That must have been the first time I got more than an hour of sleep at night in as far as I could remember.
In the years to come there was at least one day a week where we slept like that.
I told him he didn't have to keep doing it, but he insisted he didn't mind.
Besides, he would always say, I was more bearable to be around when I got a proper night's sleep.
I forever pondered why he would want to be around me in the first place, but I never pushed the subject.
Why would I? I loved Craig. Being able to sleep wrapped up safe and warm in his steady strong arms was more than I could have ever dreamed would happen to me.
The day I had to start dreaming bigger, was just like any other Friday night…
I was sitting cross legged on the floor in Craig's room watching him play the newest assassins creed he had got for his birthday.
I started to feel that all too familiar sensation in the pit of my stomach, as if my intestines were being stretched in between this dimension, and the one that my mind had suddenly fallen into. My hands drained of all warmth and feeling, as my esophagus tightened and shrank in on itself.
All I could hear was harshly amplified into overlapping echoing waves and accentuated by incessant buzzing that seemed to be coming from all directions, like a demonic swarm of hornets closing in on me. Time slowed and I could feel my heart smashing against my ribs, my throat, my ears, desperate to leap out of my disconnecting body.
The floor fell away unnaturally as I stood, my brain not registering the movement, giving me vertigo and causing the edges of my indistinct vision to black out. I couldn't hear my breathing. Was I still breathing? I tripped toward Craig's bedroom door, legs light as air, yet clumsy and heavy as lead, as if wading through water.
Craig looked up, concerned, his lips moved, probably asking if I was okay.
My stomach twisted somewhere in the distance and my head lurched looking at his expression, as if my brain couldn't process what information my eyes were feeding it.
I looked away feeling the urge to heave from far away wherever my stomach was.
I fumbled for the door knob, cold stiff fingers useless, numb tongue feeling foreign in my mouth, mumbling something about the bathroom, coffee… I felt like I was underwater. I still couldn't hear myself breathing. Was I drowning? My brain refused to process.
Suddenly there was warmth, enveloping me, dissipating the numbness in my chest. I blinked, clinging desperately to the pleasant sensation.
"Tweek."
The sound shattered through my distorted existence, surging through my veins breathing color into every fiber of my being. I took a ragged breath.
I heard that.
My eyes shut, the overwhelming sensations of warmth and relief spilling out their corners. I laughed, and started bawling my eyes out like a toddler.
I could feel myself being turned around and arms wrapping tightly around me.
"Tweek…"
That sound again. Choked this time, muffled. Craig's voice? I opened my eyes to a familiar blue hoodie.
"C-cra-aig?" I managed through hiccupping sobs. He pulled back and met my red rimmed eyes. his usually calm ice-blue eyes now a tearful, stormy, ragged sleet gray.
I was speechless, never had I seen Craig look so broken, so vulnerable and desperate.
I stared into his beautiful eyes, so filled with pain and worry as if echoing my own.
We stood for what seemed like an eternity, his hands on my shoulders, eyes locked, speaking volumes of vague, indistinct emotions, silently, in front of his bedroom door.
He finally broke the silence with a sharp sigh, closed the distance between us and covered my trembling lips with his soft, gentle, warm ones, wrapping me in his arms again.
Lightning set fire to my dead veins and my stomach turned several cartwheels, as he angled his head to the side and pressed deeper. Something popped open deep in my chest, and I was suddenly filled with a gentle warmth, seeping out to the tips of my fingers and toes, banishing all of the cold and numb and dread, replacing it with blinding bliss.
This was better than coffee.
He told me he loved me that day. He held me so close and whispered that he loved me, over and over.
I was so happy I thought I would die. Maybe I had died, drowned in my own fluids.
That would explain the heaven I'm living in now.