Sasha ducked into the bushes when she saw them. A lot was on her mind tonight and she couldn't sleep. She was on her way over to Michelle's, hoping to clear her thoughts, and join Michelle in what had become their occasional unspoken late-night ritual of watching terrible infomercials while sharing red vines and Ben and Jerry's.
She was just outside the guesthouse when she heard giggling. The noise wasn't coming from inside the house, but rather somewhere in the yard. She looked around to see if any of her younger classmates were hiding in plan of some kind of ridiculous toilet paper prank.
Instead she finally traced the giggles back to Michelle's car. It was dark, but Sasha instantly knew her mentor was currently preoccupied in some kind of midnight hanky-panky.
From the bushes, Sasha watched as a car door opened and Michelle all but almost fell out of the tiny vehicle. She half-laughed, half-shrieked as her not-so-mystery companion caught her lower back before she could hit the ground headfirst.
Michelle unceremoniously flipped over on her stomach, and proceeded to crawl out of her car, and then stand. Dressed in a black mesh bra with her lacy crimson dress down around her waist, she swayed, not from alcohol, but sudden lack of grace in five-inch heels. She yanked them off and held them in both hands, flashed a Cheshire cat grin, and murmured something that sounded like, "There's more next to the peanut butter jar!" She then started dancing backwards provocatively toward the guesthouse.
Had Sasha not been hiding, she probably would have laughed at her teacher's performance.
Godot rolled out of his side of the car and didn't even bother shutting the door. He followed the tall brunette quickly and eagerly, not seeming to notice or care that he lacked pants.
Sasha didn't move until the front door shut, and Michelle and Godot were safely inside the guesthouse.
And THAT is a sex palace, Sasha thought, rolling her eyes in memory of a recent conversation she had with Roman.
Sasha was annoyed. She was irritated that there would be nothing to distract her tonight. She would have to go back to her empty apartment and deal with her convoluted thoughts alone. Godot would be sleeping over at Michelle's instead. Maybe. If those two slept at all.
Sasha crossed her arms with a huff. She truly felt that she had dibs on Michelle's couch. For rare nights that she was really upset, she even had dibs on Michelle's bed. Kind of.
oOoOo
The only time Sasha had ever really slept in Michelle's bed was the night her mom abandoned her with the house keys. She had been so distraught; after her mom had gone to bed, she zombie-walked to Michelle's well-after 10:00, which resulted in a sleepover.
That was also the night that Sasha was first overcome with a floodgate of emotion that was extremely unusual for the girl. After months of pushing Michelle away, building up walls, and establishing boundaries, something snapped when Sasha picked up those house keys.
Loneliness and rejection washed over the dark-haired girl, and as the initial shock of the situation diminished, all Sasha desperately craved was to be wanted. She wanted someone to love her, or at least like her enough to stay around for her. The fill for the growing tear in her heart was less of a want and more of an acute need.
In that moment, Sasha needed to be wanted. She needed to be validated as a human being. She needed to be hugged, and she needed to be held.
Sasha had been too afraid to ask for that. As bold as she could sometimes be, she could never ask for someone to hug or hold her. Neither Sasha nor Michelle grew up in homes that displayed affection physically with pats on the back, gentle hand squeezes, hugs, or kisses. Michelle, being equally as non-touchy-feely, didn't initially sense the young girl's need for physical comfort when she found the teen sopping wet on her doorstep.
While processing the girl's abrupt and concerning news, Michelle had awkwardly pulled the side of Sasha's head into her shoulder – a stiff exchange from both parts, and they silently looked on into the rain.
Sasha didn't know how to ask to be hugged properly. She didn't even realize she wanted to be hugged properly until her neck got a crick and she recognized that what should have been a comforting moment, was not in fact comfortable. Asking for a hug can be a strange request, and a hard thing to ask for if you're not used to physical expressions of affection.
Michelle was lost in her own thoughts, trying to sort the logistics of how a sixteen-year-old could truly live on her own, and cursing Sasha's parents for being assholes.
After both girls were nearly numb from the rain, Michelle took the panic-stricken dancer inside, and handed her pajamas. When Sasha had changed, Michelle pulled back the sheets on her bed, and ushered the young girl inside. It was the closest Sasha had ever been to being tucked in. Michelle grabbed a spare pillow and threw it next to a blanket on her couch. It was after she turned out the light and snuggled completely into her loveseat that she first heard the sniffles.
The sniffles turned into barely-there puffs of someone trying very hard to control their breathing and not cry out loud. Michelle wasn't sure what to do, particularly because she herself was bad at handling serious emotions, and this was Sasha. She'd seen the kid whine and huff, but she'd never seen Sasha this emotionally exposed.
Shots would be great right about now, as long as she wouldn't be a sad drunk, Michelle thought to herself. Being a responsible adult is hard. The teacher debated her options. Should she let Sasha cry it out? Give the kid her space? Sometimes people just wanted to be alone when they were upset. Michelle usually wanted to be alone when she was upset. But Sasha came to her. Sasha came to the guesthouse for a reason.
What am I going to do!? Michelle could still hear the question Sasha had cried clear in her mind. The kid was alone. Abandoned. Michelle felt alone through much of her teen years, but her severed ties from her mother had been by choice, and manifested later in college. She also had Scotty, rebellion, dance, and various boyfriends that got her through the crappy years of high school. She saw so much of herself in Sasha.
As the light cries grew more obvious, Michelle slowly sat up and turned to the teen. Sasha was facing the wall, curled into a ball, trying to muffle her tears with Michelle's pillow.
Michelle quietly padded over to the twin-sized bed and lightly laid her hand on Sasha's shoulder. The girl flinched at the contact, but didn't look up. Instead she curled even tighter into a ball, as if wishing that if she squeezed tight enough, that she could disappear.
"Hey." It was the first thing Michelle had spoken aloud since she brought Sasha inside.
Sasha's tears fell harder in silent response.
She's going to ask me to leave, Sasha thought. I'm probably keeping her up. She can't sleep. I'm in the freakin' way - I need to go. Sasha suddenly sat up and faced Michelle, but still avoided eye contact. "I get it, I'll go," she mumbled. "Take your bed. I'm sorry, I…"
"Woah, Sasha." Michelle grabbed the teen's shoulder to halt her urge to flee. "Scoot over."
"What?" Sasha finally looked at Michelle, her eyes alternatively dashing from her teacher to the door.
"Scoot over. The bed fits two."
"Don't need details," Sasha replied smartly.
Michelle smirked at the teen's flash of attitude.
"There she is! Now scoot."
Sasha slowly sat down and rolled back closer to the wall. Michelle slid into the bed and repositioned the covers. Sasha was not sure why Michelle moved, but it made her nervous. She was kind of glad that Michelle wanted to be closer to her, but she was also mortified that she had been caught crying. Sasha clearly wasn't good at feelings in general, so she half-heartedly flipped over and re-faced the wall to feign sleep. Her eyes betrayed her as they welled up with a fresh batch tears as she remembered that no one should want to be close to her. People fled from her for a reason.
Michelle stared at the ceiling and debated if she should say something. She knew Sasha wasn't really sleeping. The recurring slight shake of the girl's shoulders was a tell sign that the teen was still fighting tears - and losing.
Michelle looked at Sasha. The nimble dancer that was usually so strong and poised looked so small and broken.
"Sasha." No response.
In a split-second decision, Michelle carefully rolled onto her right side and moved closer behind the girl. She extended her right arm under Sasha's pillow, and used her left hand to gently secure Sasha's arm, and ease the girl back toward her. She felt the teen immediately tense at her touch.
"You're okay," Michelle whispered as she lightly tightened her hold on Sasha's trembling shoulder.
"It's gonna be okay." She carefully swept some stray hair away from Sasha's face, and caressed the back of the girl's hair with her fingertips. Sasha sniffled, but finally surrendered, relaxing into Michelle's semi-hold.
Sasha tucked her head further back into Michelle's neck and closed her eyes in emotional defeat. Michelle rested her chin over Sasha's head and dropped her arm back across the girl's shoulder. Several minutes went by and the distressed teen gradually calmed.
"Nobody wants me," she suddenly confessed, barely audible.
"Not true," Michelle emphasized with two taps of her finger.
"I'm a screw up."
Michelle almost laughed. "Welcome to my world: The Little Screw-Ups That Could."
"Could what?"
"Screw… things."
"UP," Michelle added, popping the "P". "We screw things up. Like relationships, and friendships, and lives, and dreams, and career paths, and coffee orders, and wardrobe choices. The 90's really did not work for me."
"Great."
"I think we can, I think we can."
Sasha debated hitting Michelle with her pillow, but that would require too much effort.
"Michelle, I'm being serious!"
"And I'm not!"
Michelle rolled closer to the girl and got comfortable. "You're not a screw up, kid. Trust me. I know screw ups. I am The Queen of The Screw Ups."
"Well Your Highness, if I don't hail from your kingdom, I must just be intolerable."
"Only some days."
Sasha didn't laugh.
Michelle gazed down and saw that she had lost her again. Sasha's brows were furrowed deep in concentration, and her jaw was tight. Michelle poked her shoulder. "Kidding!"
Sasha wasn't listening. She was trapped back in her thoughts.
"They don't love me enough to stay," she finally stated.
Michelle had a lot of things she'd like to say about Sasha's parents. She sighed.
"Sometimes parents really suck. I won't sugar coat the douche-baggery of their actions, but they do care about you enough to let you stay where you're happy."
Michelle paused.
"We care about you here. If they took you away… we'd miss you, kid."
Sasha wanted to glance up at Michelle and sass that "douche-baggery" wasn't a word. She blinked and continued staring through the wall instead. Sasha also wanted Michelle to hold her more definitively, and to not let go. She would never ask for that.
"I couldn't leave," she finally whispered.
That's all she could say. That's all either one of them could say for time being.
The next morning Michelle woke up and Sasha was gone. This was not the least bit surprising to Michelle. She did worry when Sasha failed to show up for ballet that afternoon, until she was informed by Boo, Mel, and Ginny that the absent ballerina was emergency apartment hunting.
When Sasha woke up that morning prior to Michelle, she knew her teacher would likely sleep in and not notice her absence if she fled. She was overcome with embarrassment and confusion from being so vulnerable the night before.
Intrinsically, she wanted nothing more than to stay at Michelle's where she felt safe and more than just tolerated. But Sasha loved to deny herself anything she felt she didn't deserve. Sasha wasn't sure what she deserved anymore. While she deeply craved companionship and comfort, when provided, she simply didn't know how to accept it.
oOoOo
Now Sasha was standing outside of Michelle's guesthouse, rolling her eyes. She found it ironic that she literally had an appointment to discuss sex with Michelle in less than two days, and here she was almost witnessing the very act from her worldly teacher. She turned around with a sigh. Let Michelle have her fun. She deserves to be happy and get laid.
Sasha's disappointment quickly grew to self-annoyance. She hated herself for not being able to sleep alone, and for feeling like she couldn't sort though her problems by herself.
She hated her stupid fear that her parents would forget about her and never come back.
She hated the thought that Michelle could leave again, or get cast in some Broadway tour that would take her away from Paradise forever.
She hated the idea that she might finally push her friends away to where they would finally move on, happily without her. Already, it seemed that her friends were pulling in separate ways toward boys, family, roller derby, theatre, and college planning.
None of them seemed to really notice the severity of what Sasha was going through.
Sasha also hated her hesitations in her relationship with Roman. He was so patient and eager to love her, but she didn't know how to receive that love without offering something physical in return - something physical that she wasn't sure if she was ready or willing to give.
All of these thoughts kept her up at night and made her days hazy with constant dread.
It's terrifying when a person finally stops caring about everything and just feels empty. Empty is the worst feeling to experience. Recently Sasha found herself teetering between feeling so much that she thought she could shatter, to feeling hollow, and staring through things and people instead of engaging in life.
Sasha needed to talk to Michelle and apologetically interrupt her sexy times, and tell her that it was all starting to be too much. That she didn't recognize herself anymore and that it was beginning to scare her. She needed Michelle to hold her hand, or wrap her in her arms, or shake her, and remind her why she should even bother trying to figure it all out.
Sasha started the walk back to her apartment. She hated that tomorrow she would stand tall in class, smile, and pretend that everything was fine. Mostly, Sasha hated that yet again, she was afraid to ask for what she needed.