Fucking Gravity
Chapter 10
"What the fuck did you drag me into?" I say after managing to shove the window open. It's somewhat difficult to do from the outside, but the screen has long been knocked out and it's manageable by pressing my palms flat to the glass and pushing upwards.
"Fay!" Kim gasps from the bed, breaking apart from Jared and quickly rolling off him. I roll my eyes as the giant man scrambles from the bed, dragging a pillow to hold over his junk.
Climbing through the window is almost as natural as walking through the door.
"Seriously? It's not even noon, yet. You," I point to him. "Out." I bend down to pluck up a discarder shirt by my foot and toss it to my friend.
"Wait a minute-" He catches his pants as I toss them at him, too. He has to drop the pillow to do so.
"Sorry, babe," Kim says, tugging on the shirt I tossed to her. She kisses his cheek as she stands. "I'll call you later, okay?"
He smiles oh so softly at her. Is this what a functioning imprint is supposed to look like?
"Alright," he murmurs, tugging up his pants. He finally drags his eyes away from my best friend after he's dressed. "See you later, Fay."
"Bye!" I wave, unlocking and opening the door in order to hurry him out. I close and lock it again as soon as he's past the doorframe, then spin to face my best friend. "What the fuck did you drag me into?"
Kim settles cross-legged back onto her bed. "Leah tell you?"
I flop across the foot of the bed with a groan of pain (half mental, half because I landed on my bruises). "Gods damn it, Kim."
"Technically, I didn't drag you into anything. And it was coming for you either way once Leah imprinted on you." There's a new panic from hearing it actually said out loud. Something that makes it truly real. "You're actually taking this a lot better than I thought."
I roll onto my side to face her. "Kim, I'm freaking out."
She bobs her head sympathetically. "Well, talk me through it."
I close my eyes as she drags one of her fingers over my forehead and down my nose. It soothes me a bit, her familiar touch, and I let out a shaky breath. "It's just a lot, you know? How can you shoulder it?"
"Shoulder what?"
"Being an imprint. I knew she liked me but, fuck, Kim- the way she looked at me. How am I supposed to deal with this?"
"Same way you would for anyone else who tells you they like you," she shrugs, and she doesn't seem to get it.
"I can't do that," I scoff. "The way they described it… it's literally everything I hate. Except it's real. I can't be solely responsible for someone else's happiness- I can't do it."
"That's not what-"
"That is literally how they described an imprint," I glare balefully up at Kim. "That 'everything else falls to the peripheral except for her. She is the wolf's perfect half, the one thing that now holds them to the earth.' The way they described it, they basically said that Leah would commit suicide if I don't love her back."
Kim stares at me, wide-eyed, for several long moments- like what I just said never occurred to her. Then, her face crumples in unwavering compassion.
"So, you really don't like her any more? I was so sure you still felt…"
I roll until my head is in her lap, and she threads her fingers soothingly through my hair. "It doesn't really matter what I feel," I sigh. "Feelings aren't everything. I can't be her everything."
"Who hurt you?" she looks down at me with a pitying face, and I snort.
"Shut up, I'm serious."
"I know," she nods, not pausing in her petting. "You know you don't have to love her back, right? She's not going to kill herself if you just want to be friends. And she'll be your absolute best friend. Probably a better one then I've been lately."
"Nope," I deny, turning my head to kiss her knee. "You'll always be my first most bestest friend in the whole wide world."
She chuckles, still soothingly tracing my facial features and smoothing out any worry lines as they rise with my storming thoughts. She sobers after a moment, her stare suddenly intense, and her cradling hand stills on my cheek.
Her dark eyes meet mine in a measured way, searching and soft. "…Sometimes, the way you look at me, I feel that pressure. Like I'm your everything."
There is a beat of silence as I stare up at her, trying to process her words. When I do, my eyes widen and my breath catches. Then I launch into a sitting position, almost slamming our heads together.
Cognitive dissonance rattles my senses as I try to connect my feelings with my actions. I've thought it before, haven't I- that it's unfair that I rely on Kim so much? I feel so strongly, so violently, that I can't be responsible for anyone else's happiness, all the while relying on her for my own. I stare down at my lap, dumbfounded as I realize that I have been doing exactly this. Our entire lives, I've been doing this, all the while scorning people who do similarly.
Fuck. I didn't mean to.
Kim's hand ghosts along my shoulder, and she simultaneously scoots forward and tugs me back into her. It's too much effort resisting her hold as she puts her entire body into the hug. It's a familiar embrace I've found myself in over the years when I get all broody and she can't get me to tell her what's wrong (it's usually about my dad).
"I just mean that, any real relationship, romantic or otherwise, carries with it a weight of responsibility," she buries her face into the back of my neck. "I'm happy to carry mine toward you."
Her arms, her words, bring far more comfort than I thought possible, and I relax completely into her hold with a relenting sigh.
"I love you," I tell her, staring at the ceiling as my pulse finally begins to calm.
"I know," she presses a kiss the side of my head. "And I love you, too. Always."
If Kim liked girls, we would probably be dating. If it weren't for our other crushes and pining throughout middle and high school, I would have asked her to marry me years ago. Actually, I think I did ask her to marry me years ago, but I can't really hold her to that childhood promise.
I suddenly wrinkle my nose as a thought occurs. "Please tell me you change your sheets before I sleep over."
She throws her head back with a loud laugh. "Yes, Fay, I change my sheets."
"Good. Go ahead and change them now, I'm staying over the rest of the weekend." I don't even feel bad commandeering the rest of their day today and tomorrow. I have, after all, just found out that the legends we grew up with were real and- "Oh my gods, the Cold Ones are real!"
Kim cackles, releasing me and falling backward into the sheets. "Just processed that, did you, Bright-Eyes?"
"Well, I was a little preoccupied with the whole wolf and imprint thing! But, Cold Ones are real!"
"Yeah," Kim nods, all amused now.
"This isn't funny, we're talking vampires." I flap my hands a bit, nerves frayed and a bit aggravated that she's not freaking out like me. She did that months ago, though.
"Yeah," Kim keeps nodding with a shit eating grin, "I know."
"Fuck you," I huff, letting my body fall sideways back to the bed.
"Nah, I'd rather you not. You sent my fuck boy out of here a while ago," she grins.
"Gross," I scowl, kicking out at her half-heartedly. She only catches my foot and drags her nails along the bottom, making my leg kick out more firmly into her chest. She only huffs out a laugh, though, and renews her efforts of tickling my foot, using her weight to pin it to the bed.
I shriek and thrash wildly as her nails scratch the soles of my feet. In the end, I end up falling off bed by rolling desperately toward the edge. My landing is cushioned only slightly by the pillow Jared used to hide himself behind.
"Eww," I groan miserably, dragging it out from underneath my elbow and chucking it at my best friend's head. "And change your fucking pillow cases, too."
…
Leah seems delighted when she finds me at her usual lab desk, still, on Monday morning, and I can't really blame her. While not terrible, things were left a little ambiguous Saturday morning, after I asked to have some time to process.
"You're still here," she says, pleased, and then pulls out her chem text and an empty notebook. I stare at the materials a moment before managing to drag my eyes away.
"Um, yeah. So far."
"I'm glad," she says so sincerely that I don't know what to do with it. "Did Kim manage to help? I heard you kicked Jared out."
"Yeah. She managed to convince me to not skip town," I say a bit deadpanned. She smiles a little uncertainly, like she's not sure if I'm serious or not. I decide to help her out a little. "That was a joke. A bad one. Sorry, I'm being awkward, aren't I? I feel like I'm being awkward," I ramble a bit. The more I talk, the more flustered I get, and the more flustered I get, the more I talk. It's an endless circle of babbling humiliation that I haven't experienced since middle school.
One good thing my prattling seems to be good for is easing Leah's worry. A smile slowly grows on her face.
"You're cute," she observes, and my eyes widen.
Thankfully, with his unfailingly perfect timing, the teacher calls attention to the start of the lesson. Leah further surprises me, though, when she picks up her pen and give him her undivided attention.
Each time her pen scratches across paper, it drags my attention to the girl beside me. She's writing practically the entire lecture, and I get another lost day of lecture notes. I've had a few of these distracted days the last couple of weeks.
At the end of class, Leah stops me with a soft, embarrassed, little hum. "Hey, Fay?"
"Yeah?" I watch as she puts her books away for the first time.
"So, midterms are next week, and I know it's a lot to ask, but would you, maybe, be willing to tutor me some? It's just… I've been thinking about what you said. A lot. And… You're right, I think. I shouldn't have stopped trying." She bites her lip, looking up at me hopefully as the rest of the class files out the door. "So, will you help me?"
I immediately wonder if this is just an excuse be around me, because surely she can ask anyone else. Then I remember all of her other friends probably have worse grades than she does and the teachers are either resentful or indifferent to the Specials.
"Sure," I finally say after a long moment (probably too long), and she grins widely. "Only if you swear that you're actually serious about bring up your grades," I amend, just to make sure it isn't just an excuse for more time together. But Leah's always been very respectful of not getting in the way of grades (aside from wreaking havoc with my nerves before a lesson and distracting me with her mere presence), and her excitement doesn't dim in the slightest.
"I promise."
"Okay then," I nod slowly. "After school? In the library?"
"I'll be there," she says eagerly.
A/N: I hope you guys can see Kim a little better the way I intended her in this chapter. Let me know if I've managed to change your opinions. Please review!
~Silver~
