Page 7 of Loverboy

Every ache only said one thing.

You failed.

The same way I failed to hold onto anything I’d ever loved.

“Okay.” He cleared his throat and brushed his fingers over my knee in tentative comfort.

“Sorry,” I apologized half-heartedly, shifting my leg away from his touch.

I had to be extra careful. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d given him mixed signals just because I needed a shoulder to lean on. It wasn’t that I was straight. I wasn’t. Where Oliver could love multiple people at once, I couldn’t.

I needed to be the center of someone’s world.

“Jasper said you need to eat,” he reminded me, gracefully accepting both the change in subject and my subtle rejection. “Why don’t I make you some instant ramen? You know I make it the best.”

Right. Before he left, Jasper had recited a long list of things Oliver would need to do to help keep me alive. A painful rumble spread through my abdomen, a reminder of my negligence. If I didn’t eat something soon, the acid would begin to burn through the lining of my stomach.

Maybe it already had.

“Fine, you’ve convinced me,” I agreed.

I dragged myself to the balcony for a routine cigarette and watched Oliver rummage around in the kitchen through the window. I had to admit, he did know how to elevate ramen. Half of the time, I couldn’t even be bothered to cook it. I’d crush the dry noodles in the bag before opening it and shake the contents of the flavour packet inside. I took to the whole self-sufficient adult thing ten times slower than everyone else.

My throat was still raw, protesting each time I took a drag. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to look at Tylenol again. The taste lived in my mouth, and tobacco did nothing to erase it. The hospital beds were shit, and waking up every couple of minutes to vomit did a number on me. Toward the end, I’d managed a shocking half an hour of uninterrupted rest, which, truthfully, wasn’t much different from how I slept on a good day.

Eating, I could tolerate. Sleeping?

The thought made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The only thing worse than being alive right now was being unconscious—too many unwelcome thoughts manifested into fucked up dreams, resulting in wildly unhinged nightmares. I hated the way my mind twisted things up until they were unrecognizable. What was my subconscious trying to say to me?

I inhaled sharply, nearly dropping my cigarette as the cherry burnt my skin. I quickly stubbed out the burning filter, shaking my hand and inspecting the bright red marks of irritation. I needed to get out of my head.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and my heart hit a restart.

Sofia?

Jasper: Eat.

I glared at the message. I considered responding to tell him I was eating, but all I wanted to do was fight his care. I was mad he couldn’t stay. Mad that he had to work. Mad that he had school.

Didn’t he know I was slipping away? Didn’t he see that I was dying? This was supposed to be more important. I was supposed to be more important. I tried to remind myself that the line of intrusive thoughts was unreasonable. I was being irrational—I knew that—but fuck.

Stuffing my phone back into my pocket without replying, I begrudgingly headed back inside to find Oliver serving his better-than-mine instant noodles on the coffee table. There was no dining set because Sofia and I hadn’t gotten that far. We’d only just started getting settled as a newly moved-in couple before shit went down. We hunted for free furniture online and grabbed odds and ends from discount outlets. At this stage, there wasn’t so much as a complete set of pots and pans. It was remarkable that we—that I—had a singular set of matching plates and bowls.

As it turns out, moving out of your family home for the first time isn’t as easy as I originally thought. Looking back, I wasn’t sure why I thought I’d ever be able to manage. I wasn’t exactly known for my independence.

No wonder Sofia left me.

I wasn’t a provider.

“Thanks, housewife,” I teased, sitting on the floor in front of the table and inhaling the steam rising from the bowl. My stomach growled again.

Oliver plopped in front of me with his own bowl, looking pleased. He shook the mess of auburn hair out of his face and gestured toward the food. “Come on, or we’re both gonna get yelled at.”

“Yeah.” I heaved an exasperated sigh, solemnly twirling my fork in the noodles. “He’s already texted me once to harass me about it.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Even though you're older, he’s got the big brother vibes,” Oliver said casually between shovelling forkfuls into his mouth.

I frowned, stabbing my fork into my bowl. “Are you saying I’m less mature than him?”