Chapter Ten
Brock
I woke up sometime during the night. I wasn’t sure what time it was. The movie had gone off and it was too dark to see the clock. I started to sit up to grab my phone when I suddenly realized that Molly’s hair was tickling my nose. I blinked a few times, adjusting my eyes to the dark. I could finally make out her pretty face. She was lying on my chest, and with each breath I took, I could see and feel her chest rise and fall, and I admit, I smelled her hair. I had wanted to do it all night, but I think it might make women a little uncomfortable for a guy to just stick his nose in her hair. Besides, she hadn’t let me kiss her. Smelling her hair after that would have just been weird.
I honestly couldn’t remember going to sleep though. As nice as this was, and as much as I liked it, I sincerely did not plan it. We were watching the movie after I had embarrassed myself by going in for the kiss and she was really quiet. I thought maybe she was just uncomfortable because of the whole kiss thing at first, but then I realized that she was asleep. I did take her head and lean it over on my shoulder softly. I had the most honorable of intentions though. I didn’t want her to wake up with a kink in her neck. Then I must have fallen asleep, and then we must have just stretched out. We were laying on the couch with me on my back and her alongside me with her head on my chest now. I panicked a little. The last thing I want her to think was that I staged this and I’m some kind of pervert. I can be, but that wasn’t what this was about, I swear.
I had the strongest urge to rub my face against her hair, but that would seem a little…desperate and weird, if she woke up and caught me doing it. Instead I settled for the hair smell again. She always smelled so good, I thought to myself, just before falling back to sleep.
I woke up again when the sunlight started coming through the blinds. I had hair in my face now. I knew it wasn’t mine; it was too soft and shiny. Molly was still in my arms. Sometime during the night I must have pulled her in closer, because now she had her leg just slightly draped over my knee, and her left hand on my chest. I was still trying not to move. I was afraid…no, I knew that if I woke her, it would break the spell.
I lay there like that for half an hour or so before she woke up. When she did, she looked surprised. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, that much was obvious. She was looking around the living room with wide eyes like she wasn’t even quite sure where she was. I hoped that she wasn’t going to be upset. It was not a big deal really. We had slept together, but that was it. The pervert in me liked that I phrased it that way. I tried to change it to something less perverse in my head, so when I opened my mouth I didn’t piss her off. I threw caution to the wind and said, “Good morning.” Scary stuff, I know.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m guessing I fell asleep?”
“Yeah,” I told her. “Right before Arnie ruined the cake.” She smiled at that.
“That’s good, I hate that part. Gilbert smacks him around then, right?”
I nodded and she said, “What part did you fall asleep during?” She was testing me. She wanted to know how long after she fell asleep that I did. If I said right away, she wouldn’t believe me. But if I said I finished the entire movie then she would wonder why I didn’t just wake her up and take her home.
“Right after Gilbert smacks him around,” I told her. It was the truth.
She moved her neck back and forth and smoothed down her hair. I wanted to tell her that she’s gorgeous in the morning, but that sounded more like a boyfriend and less like a friend. I had no problems admitting that I wanted to be her boyfriend, but I was so afraid of scaring her away now and having no relationship with her at all.
“Want coffee?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Please. I’m going to use your bathroom.”
While she was in the bathroom, I put the coffee on. Then I started making my juice drink. I have a combination of vitamins I put in it, so I was doing that when she walked back in. I sat a cup and the creamer next to the coffee pot. She poured herself a cup, left it black and took a big sip of it without even making a bitter face. Awesome girl!
“What are you making?” she asked me as she took a seat at the counter.
“It’s a juice drink. I put some vitamins and herbs into it. It gives me energy.”
She was nodding. She didn’t seem to think it was too weird. “What kind of vitamins?” she asked.
“Um…there’s B12, Vitamins C and E, and some electrolytes too, magnesium and potassium.”
“What’s in the powder stuff?”
“It’s protein.”
“For muscle?” she said.
“Something like that,” I told her. Actually Molly, I imagined myself saying. I have a tumor in my brain. Because of that, my body doesn’t absorb vitamins and minerals the way it should and I get sick. The increased protein helps my body to do what it should just naturally do. I didn’t say it out loud. If she wasn’t ready for a kiss, she wasn’t ready for that. I poured some in a glass and said, “Would you like to try it?”
She took it and smelled it. It reminded me of Jake saying it smelled nasty.
“How does it smell?” I asked her.
“Good,” she said, “Fruity.” I knew she was smarter than Jake. She took a sip and said, “Hmm, it’s really good.”
“You want a bagel to go with it? I think I’m going to have one.”
“Sure,” she said. “By the way, I’m sorry for falling asleep on you last night.”
I smiled and said, “Are you sorry for falling asleep on me in the middle of the movie, or literally falling asleep on me.”
She shook her head and then with a smile she said, “Both, I suppose.”
“Don’t be,” I told her. “It was the best night’s sleep I got in a while. Do you want cream cheese on your bagel?”
She smiled. “No thanks,” she said.
After our bagels were done, we took them out on my little balcony. It overlooked the back lawn of a dilapidated, should-have-been-torn-down-years-ago house and across the street from one of those fortune teller places with the big neon palm out front. Needless to say, the view is not what we’re paying for here. While we ate I asked her, “So how long have you known Megan?”
“We met in kindergarten and bonded over our first haircut.”
“Your first haircut?”
“Yeah, you know she cut my bangs, I cut hers. All kindergarteners do it. Didn’t you?”
I thought about it for a minute. Part of what my cancer treatments have done to me is mess with some of my memories. I don’t really have short term, or long term problems, per se. It’s just harder to remember things then it used to be. Good old radiation zap to the head about thirty times will do that.
“I don’t remember doing it,” I said. It was as honest an answer as I could come up with.
“How about you and Jake?” she asked.
“Jake moved into the neighborhood when I was eight and he was seven. I acted like I didn’t know him at school, but at home we played together almost every day.”
“Why did you act like you didn’t know him at school? Was he already a little weird?”
I laughed at that. I loved the fact that she liked Jake, yet she also loved to pick on him. She never did it in a mean way, just funny.
“I was eight,” I told her. “I had just started third grade. Third grade is a big step up from second. It was about my image, my reputation. I couldn’t be seen running around the playground with a seven-year-old.”
“Of course,” she said. “What was I thinking?”
“What about high school?” I asked her. “Were you a cheerleader, prom queen or all of the above?”
She smiled one of those far away smiles that said the memories were either bad or bittersweet. Her eyes looked kind of sad as she said, “I wasn’t much of a socialite in high school. Megan did all of that our junior and senior year and I lived vicariously through her.”
“It’s hard for me to imaging that you didn’t have a hundred offers to go to the prom. Were you an emo girl, against all of the establishment and the gender and societal norms?” I was kidding, sort of. I really couldn’t wrap my head around this beautiful girl not being the most sought after, popular girl in school.
“No,” she said with a smile. She got that it was mostly a joke. I liked that about her too. She had a great sense of humor. “I was too cool,” she said. Then she grinned. I thought she was kidding, but I wasn’t sure.
She finished her bagel and we carried our dishes back inside. She washed her plate and her cup and sat them in the drainer. I needed a roommate like her. Jake lets them ferment until one of us gets home from school or whatever and can’t stand the smell any longer.
“I should head home,” she said. “I could really use a shower and my toothbrush.”
“Okay. Let me get my boots on, I’ll take you.”
“I don’t mind taking the bus.”
“I don’t mind taking you. I’ll be right back.” When I got back, she had folded the blanket we left on the couch, and straightened up the living room. It was funny how much we were alike sometimes. “You ready?” I asked her.
We rode back to her dorms on Susie, so conversation was pointless. I don’t know about her, but I was enjoying her arms around me again, even if she only did it to keep from falling off the bike. I thought about my failed kiss attempt. Then I thought about the night we danced in the rain. I think she would have kissed me that night. I was beginning to figure out that Molly’s a thinker, and if she lets herself, she can think of a reason to talk herself out of anything. I think some guy must have hurt her in the past. She tries to put up this wall around her heart. She likes me though; I can see it in her eyes and her smile. I feel it…in my heart. I’m not ready to give up on this being more than just friends. I wasn’t going to pressure her at all, but I was still hoping if we hung out enough, she might start to feel it too.