In cahoots

They're heavy over my eyes, those eyelids, they're heavier than I've ever felt them before. They should be lighter now, no longer coating my eyes from my surroundings, but they aren't.

The curtains doesn't stop the light from disturbing the darkness that I've been sleeping in, neither does the door that is slowly opening into my room. I know it's not Glen coming in to check on me, his protectiveness over me appearing once again. I know, because I remember him leaving this morning, I remember him retracting from my grip, slowly placing my hands away from him and onto the mattress beside me. I know, because I remember him whispering lightly that he had to go, that he would be gone all day. I know, because he's written a note on my bedside table, telling me to call him if I need anything.
I know it isn't Paula coming inside the room once again to check my temperature, I know it isn't her because she walked into my room just hours prior, leaning over me and placing a kiss to my temple, telling me to call her if I needed anything, telling me she would leave work in a heartbeat if I was feeling worse.
I know the person opening the door right now isn't Arthur, because he didn't come home last night, he didn't fill this house with laughter and delicious aroma like he usually does. I know, because he's at a convention in another city, another state. I know, because he isn't humming his tune like he always does.

Still, I'm surprised to see the person standing in my doorway because I've never seen her there before. I've never felt her presence so close to my room before, it's different, it's more intimate, more intruding than I ever imagined it to be.

Her body is gently hugging the door, eyes scanning through the shy darkness and settling down on mine. It's too late to close my eyes, it's too late to pretend that I'm asleep. In my surprise of her presence, I forgot to put up those walls that needs to be standing whenever she's around, and now she's looking in on me. She's watching me, seeing me laid fragile on this bed, in this state. Sheets are tucked around me, hands grasping at the moist edges, proof of what I don't want to acknowledge. Proof of the emotions I don't want to remember, of tears in the night.

I'm no longer in fever, I'm no longer in pain. Those images and thoughts are no longer swirling through my mind at rapid speed, my head is clearer, more open. I'm more open, and with my defenses not awoken, I'm just watching her. Just watching her like I'm allowed to.

Her eyes leave mine for a few seconds as she looks down on something in her hands, but mine stay where they are, glued upon her face like I'm unable to look anywhere else. Her vulnerable composure and her unsure eyes does things to me that I can't explain, I'm seeing those things I've only ever seen from her when I've been watching her in secret. It astounds me as much as confuse me that she's going it deliberately. Letting me see.

I would be a liar if I told you I didn't notice her closing the door behind her, I would be wrongful if I told you my arms didn't get goosebumps as she slowly neared me on my bed. When her toes is close enough for me to reach out and touch them, she slowly lowers her body onto the ground, one knee hitting the soft carpet before the other one soon follows. I'm watching every move happening, my eyes having left hers the minute she turned around to close the door. After that, I've just been watching her, completely, the way her left hand self-consciously cradles her neck, the way the glass of water sloshes around between her fingertips before she at last settles it down on my nightstand, out of her hands and ready for mine to take their place.

No eyes have met mine yet as she's sitting on her heels before me, waiting for me to accept her silent offer, to grab the water she so thoughtfully brought me at a time I'd love nothing more.

But I'm not thirsty anymore.

The curtains don't allow all light to hit her, only small portions of her frame being hit by it, and I wonder if she's used to it. Always having light touching her skin in some way, manifesting her features, proving her beauty.

I know she can see them, those backstabbing eyes of mine dancing over her face as easily as the light seems to do, but she doesn't stop me, she doesn't turn away. Instead her hand seems to find their way onto my mattress, laying there awkwardly next to my head, hovering in a state it's not supposed to be in. My eyelids are still heavy from sickness and sleep but it doesn't stop them from blinking rapidly at the sight of her so close to me, her hair sitting to her right side, head barely tilted.

"I don't-"

And her finger is touching my lips, silencing a sentence that has been passed between us before, one we both need to voice but neither can bare to hear.

I don't understand you.

"Shh, don't talk."

And I don't.

I'm completely still, afraid any movement will break this, will break what I don't understand, what I can't grasp. What is happening right in front of me, around me, with me. Fingers no longer touch my lips, eyes no longer lingers on my own. She's not here anymore, and I don't know if she ever were. I can still see her, she's still touching me, fingers reaching out for my hair, lightly stroking it in a soothing manner, but she's not here.

When I don't succeed in my attempt to lure her eyes and mind onto me again, I instead decide to join her, join the world behind my eyelids because they have something in common, the world she sees in my bedroom wall and the one I see in utter darkness. They both lead us somewhere else. Somewhere away from this reality that surrounds us that we don't want to participate in.

Fingers entwine with my curls, getting stuck now and then when she runs her fingers through them. Her gaze is no longer thrown onto the blue walls of a room that was meant for a boy. It has crossed my mind before, that this room wasn't meant for me, wasn't prepared for me. It was always meant for someone else, and for every night I've laid down onto this bed, I've thought about who it was really meant for. Who's place I took, and when it will be given back to them and away from me. They're inappropriate, these thoughts that have crept into me before her gaze shifts from the wall and onto me again. I shouldn't think these thoughts but they're always around me, manifested in the walls that cage me, hug me.

"Sometimes I hate you."

And they are not her words, those deceiving words that could break us, that could break us in ways I'm not even sure are possible, because we were never whole. We've never been anything at all.

I'm the person who uttered these word of honesty, I'm the one to blame for a sentence voiced at the wrong time, to the wrong person. But however much I want to, I can't regret it. I just can't. Because sometimes I do. Hate her. Hate what she represents in general and especially what she represents to me.

I won't lie and tell you I enjoyed watching her blue eyes turn blurry at my words, because I didn't, I didn't enjoy it one bit. It didn't give me a sick – but human – kind of pleasure to see something sting her just like she's stung me over and over again. I wasn't even hoping for it, it wasn't my intention. Because I didn't have one.

"Okey..."

The hand in my hair slowly retreats like she's not allowed anymore, like my words shunned her for finally acting human, for finally showing something else. And I wonder if she punishes herself, I wonder if my words make her cringe inwardly, shun herself for breaking her demeanor down and laying herself bare. I wonder if she regrets.

"Sometimes I do too."

Her eyes never meet mine at her whispered confession and I'm not entirely sure what she means. I'm not quite at arms reach of what her words are telling me. So it scares me, this hovering state of ambiguity she's left the sentence – and me – in. So I ask her.

"Hate me?"

"No."

I know they're dancing again, those eyes of mine, because her eyes are doing the same, they're dancing with me. They're tiptoeing over my face like she's mapping out the landscape of my face but not quite comfortable with settling anywhere.

I visibly shiver when her eyes finally do, finally settle down. And it's not because they land on my mirroring eyes, it's not because they linger on my lips like my own eyes begs me to do with hers. Because they settle on my jawline, slowly following the trails down to my chin and her hand reaches out to touch it.

And it's the last thing she does before her hand drops down to the edge of the bed, her other hand joining it several inches to it's left and her body shifting in my direction. I'm so scared by the action and what it might represent that I close my eyes, I close them so tightly that it hurts but I don't care, I just can't look at her while she leaves. Because she's hoisting herself up from the floor, whispering "you should sleep" hurriedly in my direction before the pads of her feet can be heard clasping with the cold floor away from the carpet and away from the bed.

And I never hear the door close because there's a ringing in my head, there are loud screams and inquietude invading my senses and it causes those forgotten nightly rituals to reappear, it causes those almost dried edges of the sheets to again be soaked, again be the only comfort this house seems to provide.

And I'm not sure I will be able to forget these tears.