Many, many thanks to Reasons Lost for beta reading and his support!

Oh, sweet sleep deprivation.

I was so dead. My head hurt and the remaining parts of me felt alien.

I didn't know how long I'd been tossing about sleeplessly and neither could I get myself to turn and look at the clock, but judging from brightness in my room, it had to be late morning and I'd probably missed at least one class already.

Without any drop of motivation, I rolled to the side and faceplanted out of bed. It took me a whole three minutes to pick myself up and get into something that might have resembled a standing position—if you didn't look too closely. My body held it for about five seconds before dropping back down onto the bed.

Not that I wanted to get up, but I'd ignored the day long enough. At least it was so late that there was no way that Lara was still around. She must have left hours ago.

Forcing myself back into a sitting position, I had only one thought.

Coffee. Lots of coffee.

Which was in the kitchen. Requiring me to stand up and walk there.

My head fell into my hands. It felt like it was drifting away, detached from the rest of my body, and the only thing holding it down were those heavy weights called eyelids. I pressed my palms into my eye sockets and immediately regretted it; my eyes caught fire and tried to quench it by tearing up.

I'd hardly slept at all. Occasionally, I'd drifted off into some trance-like half-sleep accompanied by crazy nightmares that left me drenched in sweat and wanting to not sleep at all. My mind couldn't shut up because I'd been stressing about Lara all over again after the idiotic crap I'd pulled off last night. Ironically, it all had started with me rubbing off next to Lara so that I could get some rest.

That had worked out well.

And why the hell had I hit on Lara like that? God, I was so stupid. To cement that realisation, I smacked a palm against my forehead. The best thing I could do was to act normal, let things settle, and avoid Lara for a while. Again. Even though it was the complete opposite of what I wanted. But it served me right. Maybe I'd learn to control myself one day.

My self-loathing got interrupted by my wailing stomach. I gave the empty ice cream cup a frown and forced myself upright with a groan. Sitting around worrying was just going to drive me crazy anyway.

Dragging myself forward, I reached the door, and it creaked in tandem with my arm as I opened it up and stepped out—into Lara.

Our heads collided, cries of pain, flailing arms, clashing legs, shuffling feet. Lara's balance got lost in the confusion. She toppled backwards, her hands held onto me, she fell, so did I—onto her.

Why me? I sighed into her shirt between her breasts.

The one day I didn't want to see her at all, she had to be still around close to midday and cause... that. Couldn't she just vanish? Like right now? I didn't even want to look at her. Though, besides everything I had to admit that it was also kind of comfortable to have my face where it was. Wait. Hadn't I said something about controlling myself?

"Uhm," Lara said.

I looked up from her chest to see her rubbing her forehead while staring at me. "What the fuck are you doing here?" I said.

"I—I live here?"

"Shouldn't you be, like, gone?"

"I overslept."

Lara? Oversleeping? I raised an eyebrow.

"I couldn't sleep well," she added low.

I wonder why... Fuck my life. I rolled my eyes and crawled off her. After forcing myself yet again into a standing position, I held a hand out and helped Lara up.

"What do you want? Why were you blocking my door?"

I realized, I shouldn't have asked that. She wanted to talk. The talk. I froze when the realisation hit me. Oh, god. Please, no, I thought. I couldn't deal with that right then. Or ever.

Lara shifted from one leg to the other and moved a bang out of her face.

I should have fled before she could say anything. But part of me wished that she'd get out and over with it after all the stress I'd been in in the past weeks because of her so that I could finally jump out the window. Well, I'd probably had to hobble into traffic afterwards because we lived just on the second floor, or first floor as Lara would have said.

"I... You..." She stammered and tugged at her shirt to straighten the fabric.

The tension was killing me, I could hardly breathe.

Lara looked up at me and said: "My—My pen ran out. Can I borrow one?"

I exhaled at length and felt like collapsing to the ground.

Fuck you, I thought. Why had she tortured me like that only to then drop such bullshit? I felt the strong need to smack her over the head. On the other hand, I was way too dead to deal with anything at all, so I accepted her cheap excuse by shrugging and stepping to the side so that she could enter my room. At least I could live a few more hours or days with the illusion that there was still a way for me to fix everything.

Leaving Lara behind, I disappeared into the kitchen. When the coffee machine was set up, I grabbed a bowl of cereal and turned around.

Lara stood in the door frame and looked at me.

She startled me, making me almost spill my meal. "Geez, are you stalking me?"

"Wha—No, I... I just wanted to eat breakfast."

"With my pencil?" I pointed at her hand.

Lara was clearly not done with me yet. And I was still not ready for her. I had to eat my breakfast and get out of there asap.

I sat down at the table and shoved some cereal into my mouth.

Lara took some yoghurt out of the fridge and a seat across from me. Staring down into the cup, she poked around in the mixture with a spoon.

Here we went again.

I looked at my meal and felt sick. The fear of what Lara might have to say was wrenching my stomach. The spoon almost slipped out of my sweaty fingers. I was going to lose half my hair if that kept up.

I probably should have just skipped breakfast. On the other hand, I was renting that flat. I had the right to eat in peace in my home.

Lara had to leave then.

Looking down into the bowl, I stirred the milk as my thick wool socks slipped forward under the table. When they bumped into Lara's toes, she jerked up. I put my feet onto hers and started stroking hers gently. I had to suppress a chuckle when Lara cleared her throat nervously.

But she stayed. I had to up the ante.

I slipped out of a sock with the help of my other foot. My eyes wandered up and we looked at each other. I shoved a load of cereal into my mouth while my naked foot sneaked into her pyjama leg to inch up over her skin.

Chewing with relish, I watched Lara's spoon clattered over the table.

She jumped up from her chair and pointed at the door. "I... I... I..." she stammered and fled with the yoghurt in her hand.

I let go of a long breath of relief while sinking so deep into my chair that I almost slid under the table. When the sock was back over my foot, I forced the mouthful of cereal down my throat. I gave the bowl a frown and leant back to wait for my stomach to unknot itself.

That morning. Geez. I sighed.

Once again, things were not going the way I wanted them to. At least I had my peace for a while. But I should probably have worried about the fact that Lara fled from my touch instead of taking it lightly. Granted, I was exaggerating it on purpose. But what if I was really making her uncomfortable now? And she wanted to tell me to stop it, to stay away. And she was just um and erring because, well, because she's Lara and she was trying to find a polite way to tell me off.

Fuck.

I was doing it again: Catastrophizing. And it was working. I looked at my soaked cereal and felt like throwing up. So much for breakfast. Why did Lara have this effect on me? It was frustrating. I desperately needed some stress-relief.

I went to the door and carefully looked around to make sure Lara wasn't anywhere close-by, before dashing into the bathroom to calm down with a hot shower and get rid of the layers of sweat that had built up since last night.

Fifteen minutes of peaceful de-sasquatching later, I left the bathroom refreshed and wrapped in a towel. I was already standing in the living room when I realized that I'd dropped my guard and forgotten to check whether the coast was clear. Fortunately, there was no stressing roomie camping any door, so I got into my cave unhindered.

After choosing my outfit for what was left of the day, I heard creaking behind me.

Sighing, I slumped. "What?"

Lara hesitated. "We need to—"

"I want to get dressed. Get out!"

"But I—" She froze mid-sentence when I reached for the knot in my towel. Deadpanning, I tugged at the protruding ends of the cloth.

Lara raised her hands. "Can we please—" she tried again.

No.

The knot opened. Blood shot into Lara's face as quickly as the towel fell to the floor. One second later, the door got closed from the outside.

2 : 0

Once dressed and ready to stay away from Lara for the rest of the day, I grabbed my bag and went to the front door. Of course, Lara had to pop up in the corridor while I was putting on my boots.

"Not now. I'm in a hurry. It's late." I gave her a dismissive wave.

She sagged against the wall, sighing. "Just... Please be safe, okay? Don't do anything reckless."

What was that supposed to mean? I was close to snapping at her, but she was giving me this worried look that derailed my frustration. Why did Lara have to be so cute when she was so motherly and caring? And why did it have to give me fuzzy feelings? Also, if she was just worried about me for some reason, maybe she didn't want to talk about last night after all and I was fleeing for no reason.

"Yes, Mom," I said.

She observed me awhile with crossed arms. "You wouldn't be causing so much trouble if I'd been your mum." A smirk replaced the worry on her face.

"Kiss my ass!"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she murmured.

I stared at her.

When she saw my expression, she shook her head and put a hand on the back of her neck. "Sorry. You rub off to me." Her eyes widened. "On me. On me. Shit."

That was my cue to haul ass. So much for what was on her mind. In an instant, I was out of the flat, down the stairs, and out on the street.

2 : 1