I know that what I’m doing is wrong. I know that my judgment is clouded by the drugs I’m on. I know that this will come back to bite me in the a**, but I don’t care. I’ve decided that I love him, that there is nothing and no one that can make be as happy as I am when I spend time with him. I’ve decided this all while I am sitting up my face inches above his as he sit sleeping there wrapped up in his blue flannel sleeping bag.
There were five of us sleeping in the lounge of the boy’s dormitory at the boarding school where I attend. We had laid gym mats down on the floor beneath us so that we would be more comfortable as we slept. The three others had drifted off at different point during the action movie we had been watching on my laptop. A yawn escapes my mouth a few seconds after his. As everyone knows yawns are contagious.
He lays is head down upon his blue plaid patterned pillow and curls up is body, ready to drift away into sleep. He looks over at me, his long brown hair covering most of his sky blue eyes. I catch his glance and smile at him know from his expression he wants me to turn off the movie. I reach over and close the screen with a small thud and glance back at him, just in time to see him close his eyes and readjust his head on his pillow so now his face is turned away from me.
I settle back into my own sleeping bag, or beg, as he says in his Midwestern accent, something that I will never let him live down, but that I secretly love. I think about us, that is him and me. He is the first real friend I’ve ever had. The only person who ever asks to join me when I sit down for a meal, or go off to do homework, the first person I’ve ever cared enough about to give my life for.
I think I knew I loved him, but I don’t think either one of us knew how much. I don’t think he even had the slightest idea how much I cared. I could feel the Ambien start to take effect. Before it puts you to sleep, it makes you feel invincible, like you could do anything and get away with it. It sends a feeling down your body of pure joy and I started to think of how my life had changed since I had met him.
It had only been about two months since we had started our freshmen year, and it took me only about two weeks to fall in love with him. As I thought about this I found myself out of my own body. I shifted myself and my sleeping bag over, so I was closer to his. I reached my hand out of the bag and placed my trembling finger tips on the zipper of his sleeping bag.
I just held it there for two minutes, as the medication took more and more of me away from my body and placed it outside of myself, like a ghostly observer. I started to pull the zipper down. Slowly, but surely I hear the “zeep” sound has the flared edges of the zippers railroad were being dislodged from each other.
He started to stir at the sound of the zipper, and I rolled my sleeping bag over, creating some distance between us. About five minutes went by and then I found myself over next to him again, unzipping more of the sleeping bag. At this point he was lying on his side, but he turned over onto his back, most likely to keep the draft created by our open surrounding off of his tan stomach.
He wasn’t the most polite person in the world. He almost never apologized when he had done something wrong. He was not the type of person to say please or thank you. The most common of courtesies often escaped him, but I found a way to love this about him. Even though it drives me crazy, I found a way for myself to love it. It was like a secret code that only the two of us found a way to understand. When he would run into me in the hallway, I would say
“Excuse me.”
He would respond with “No problem.” Which really meant I’m sorry.
Or When He would ask me “Do you want to help me with the math homework?”
What I would hear is “Can you help me with my math please?”
At this moment, there was nothing more I wanted to do then be with him. To make him happy in any and every way possible. I wanted to protect him, to have him care about me. I wanted him to love and accept my every flaw as I did with his.
I crawled out of my sleeping bag and made my way towards his sleep glazed face. I was aware that what I was doing was wrong. I knew it was the medication that was giving me the false courage to do what I was about to do, but I didn’t care. I got closer and closer to where he lay, so sweet while in sleep. I made it so that my face was just opposite his. The scent was overpowering and exhilarating. It smelled like orange peels, that pleasant earthy citrus scent, but it wasn’t alone. The orange peel scent was combined with something that could only be described of as a hint of morning breath.
I looked down on him and in that moment of sheer weakness I pressed my lips down on top of his. I could feel the texture of his lips, so unearthly warm against mine. I could feel the hot air blowing out of his nose onto my sleep-deprived face. It lasted seven seconds and then I snapped myself out of it. I removed my lips from his and slowly backed away in utter shock and repulsion of what I had just done. I crawled back into my sleeping bag and started to close my eyes, but stopped myself as I heard a rustle from beside me. Scared to death I turned my gaze back to him, still sleeping, but now on his side, his head facing me. I could have made it up, but I thought I saw the shadow of a smile pursed across his lips.