ALMOST DOESN'T COUNT
Chapter Six: Happily Mistaken
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This chapter is in ELLIE'S POV, because I just couldn't get this chapter right without going through her eyes. It didn't make much sense. I warn you, those who are not fans of fluff, this chapter is a wee bit fluffy. You'll understand later, when the happy seems to take a little vacation for these two. That's all I'm gonna say about the future, but you've been warned. ;)
Another huge thank you for all the reviewers out there! You're amazing in the best way. I hope that the story is still pleasing in a different, more personal point of view, though I'm not sure if it will stay in Ellie's eyes, for good. Give me suggestions on that!
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LAST CHAPTER:
"I'm going out. Don't wait up," he mumbled, grabbing his keys from the door side table. "And don't do anything stupid," he added warningly, turning and disappearing out the front door of the apartment, leaving Ellie a little grateful that she didn't have to explain her slip to him, no earthly idea what she could say to make what she'd done any better. She was worried plentifully over where he was going, what he was going to do, and if he'd be okay, but after what she'd said, she was truly in position to be calling any shots.
And so, she did exactly as he'd instructed her to do, and made her way to his bedroom, falling asleep in a bed that smelled exactly like him, and not the slightest thing like Sean, wondering exactly what the hell she had done to whatever dynamic she and Jay had been working at, before.
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I couldn't remember sleeping so well on my own after one of mother's incidents. Normally, I'd have left every window in my room unlocked and cracked so that Sean might have an easier time getting in than sneaking up the stairs or afford me a better opportunity to sneak out to him. I never understood why, but there was just something about her drinking, especially when it got violent or destructive, that shook me to a point where insomnia would set in if I didn't have someone there to protect me. I chalked it up to the room and the apartment, a place that, while it had been refurnished and updated to Jay's liking, had belonged to Sean. We had shared a bed more than once in that room, and so it only made sense to me that my subconscious worked overtime to build a dream about Sean, for me.
The hazy, dreamlike quality was gone, but I was positive I was still asleep. An arm was draped diagonally across my chest, holding me tightly to someone else, whose breath I could feel on the back of my neck. I'd always hated when Sean did that, breathed down the back of my neck while I was sleeping, but I was too afraid to move at the moment, too afraid I'd will away whatever good luck had brought me a dream like that. Dreaming of Sean didn't happen often, a rarity that I was sometimes happy didn't happen every night.
I laid there for God knows how long, poised right on the edge of waking up it seemed. The dream was so much more lucid than the ones I normally had; I could smell the person, feel the person, hear the person… But they didn't seem familiar in sleep, as Sean might have. Sean smelled like the cologne he bought at the general store, like the Old Spice shower gel he had kept in the shower. This person, however warm and comforting, smelled like alcohol, like sweat and Clubman Pinaud aftershave. Apparently, I wasn't dreaming of Sean, at all.
After another six or seven minutes, I hesitantly opened an eye. When my vision finally adjusted, the room became familiar to me. Sean's. No, Jay's, my mind reminded me. Still, it was the same room I had fallen asleep in, safe and sound. Alone, even, despite the fact that I could still feel the phantom arm strewn across my chest, a leg entangled with mine. The only rational explanation to that was temporary insanity, and I was strangely comfortable with that. My mother was crazy, Sean was apparently insane, Jay didn't seem to rank high on the list of mental stability – I was beginning to feel left out of the club.
"Too cold to swim, man," a voice lamented sleepily, interrupting the silence from beside me, the gravelly tone sending a chill up my spine. It wasn't Sean's voice, wasn't a voice I'd heard in my dreams before that moment. The husky, coarse sound of the person's voice was familiar, and in a way, frighteningly like Jay's. I slid my hand down until it made contact with the solid form of someone else's arm, not dreamlike, but unyielding and real. My heart was in my throat, and I tried to recall what had happened the night before. I hadn't been the one to get drunk, had I? It was almost impossible to tell, with the dry way my eyes rolled in their sockets and the throbbing pain in my head. Of course, I hadn't actually been drinking. I wouldn't have done something so stupid after the night I'd just been through.
I took in a deep breath, turning over slowly, fearfully although I suppose I logically already knew who I was turning over to see. I'm not sure how it came as a surprise to me when I turned over in the arms of the persons sharing a bed with me and came face to face with a sleeping image of Jay. He hadn't come to bed with me the night before, hadn't even been home when I'd gone to bed. Taking one inhale, however, I knew exactly how he'd ended up there – his breath reeked of booze, enough so to make me cringe away. Despite that one flaw, his face was a mask of calm, his lips parted ever so slightly as he mumbled in his sleep. He hadn't shaved and probably had not bathed since I'd last seen him and yet, devoid of his baseball cap and smart ass grin, I couldn't help my eyes lingering, just slightly.
But I paused – it was supposed to feel wrong that I was there, even more wrong that I was staring unabashedly at him in his sleep, wasn't it?
I again made excuses for myself. I'd simply had a long night and, again, I felt bad for him. I didn't pity him, the world implying I thought I was somehow in a much higher and mightier situation than he was, but I did feel bad. I'd hurt him somehow, for no apparent reason, on more than one occasion. In fact, I'd done so much I regretted involving Jay Hogart the previous evening that it made my head hurt to process a tenth of it, and sex wasn't even involved. It was definitely it's own special brand of messed up, and I couldn't stop myself from feeling just a little guilty over pissing him off so badly. It was especially easy not to be mad at him when he was sleeping. His mouth was figuratively shut for once, and the endless bubbling sarcasm was just shut off, so the burden of the task was a little less heavy.
Until my mind rolled around to certain instances of the night before. He'd gone out after I'd called him by another name, something I couldn't hold against him for a moment, but I couldn't help wondering what, if anything, he had done. If Allison Kippling had been involved. If they'd taken precautions. If he was still angry with me for the night before. There were a lot of thoughts that went through my mind, but I was surprising myself completely with the monopoly Jay seemed to have on them. It all related back to him somehow, for better or worse, even if I was only concentrating on what was right in front of my eyes.
I couldn't, in good conscience, just lay there and allow Jay to think he'd fallen into his own bed or better yet, into bed with his flavor of the moment. Edging away from him slightly, I nearly squeaked in surprise when his arm tightened around me, crushing me to his chest. I couldn't recall us ever having laid there in that way, peacefully and with our clothes on, and if the term didn't sound awkward considering I'd already been physical with Jay, it felt a little too intimate. I wasn't his girlfriend, he wasn't any property of mine, and I knew I shouldn't have been there like those things were mysteries to me.
Pushing away from his chest gently, I whispered his name. "Jay… Hey, Jay, wake up."
He stirred slightly, worry lines puncturing the calm that had been his face, as he heard my voice. It took a few more of the same attempts and more than a little shaking, but eventually, blue eyes peered out from behind their lids, staring at me in confusion. He had to be feeling the same way I had, wondering why his arms were entangled around me, why we were sleeping in a shared bed, at all. We'd been in beds together, but sleeping was amongst the new experiences we'd yet to have in one, and we both seemed perplexed by it.
"Ellie?" he questioned in confusion, narrowing his brows as if he wasn't completely sure who or what he was seeing there, in his bed. His eyes were bloodshot and bleary, a sure sign that he was every bit as hung over as I knew he would be, and I tried not to think about what else I'd been correct about. He ran a hand over his face roughly and examined me through hazy blue eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"You told me to sleep here. You must've forgotten last night," I murmured, feeling an uncharacteristic blush come over my cheeks, caused by his proximity and the general feel of the situation. He seemed to think over what I'd just said, trying to remember, but apparently failing. He'd no doubt gotten drunk, or worse, the night before – too much so to actually remember the small detail of having told me to go to bed. Perhaps, I thought, I should've just crashed on the couch, despite the fact that I had no logical opposition to what was going on, at the moment.
"It's early," he groaned in disgust, looking over at the bedside alarm – 6:02 AM. I still had time to get back to school, to go against my plan of skipping the last day before winter break and escape the awkwardness of what was going on between Jay and I, at the moment. I hadn't planned to try and brave a day at school, especially considering that the last day was typically filled with nothing but busy work and free periods, and given the way I still felt, hung over from a serious overload of emotion. For a moment, I was actually considering going to school, if only to figure out a better way to deal with the situation at hand. With Jay so close and the difference in his behavior and look, it was a bit difficult to think clearly, for whatever reason.
"I was thinking about going to class," I offered lamely.
"Red," he chided, burying his face into his pillow and saying something else under his breath. Obviously he wasn't a fan of the idea of driving me to class, that morning. I couldn't say I blamed him, considering that he probably felt like hell. It was still dark outside, and I had to admit, sleep did still seem tempting. "Can't we just go back to sleep?"
'We'. Funny word. The kind of word that made me swallow the knot in my throat compulsively, and yet, the kind of word I was finding I didn't mind so much, just then. It was wrong, but so was everything else; my mother's behavior was wrong, Sean leaving was wrong, my sleeping with Jay in the more figurative sense of the word was definitely wrong. One more item ticked on the list didn't seem as though it would throw the whole world out of proportion, and if I was being honest, sleeping next to Jay wasn't the most awful or uncomfortable experience in the entire world. I was already going to be in trouble for sneaking out if my mother ever sobered up enough to remember, and I'd already dug myself as deeply into a hole with Jay as I imagined was possible.
Did I really have anything to lose?
"Y-yeah, why don't we?" I agreed, nodding despite the fact that I wasn't completely sure of what I was saying. Did I really want to go down this path, again?
"Great. 'Cos I can't move, yet," he mumbled, seeming either too self confident, too hung over, or too asleep to really care what my motivation or true colors behind the answer was, and accepted it at face value. Seeming satisfied enough, he merely tossed his arm around me and pulled me back towards him from where I'd edged away, until I was flush against his chest. I breathed in his scent as he rested his chin on the top of my head, and listened to his breathing as it evening out in moments. He was back to sleep as quickly as he'd woken up.
And I wasn't long after him, not giving my mind time to process that I'd just willingly agreed to go back to sleep Jay's bed, wrapped in his arms, no less. I was getting the feeling that I'd made a big mistake, still a little too wrapped up in it to care, just yet.
It could wait until we both woke up, I supposed.
