Halfway Girl by Tessa Bailey

Author:Tessa Bailey [Bailey, Tessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Tessa Bailey
Published: 2019-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Birdie

It’s dark when I wake up.

My hands fly to my boobs because the last thing I remember is having them plastered against Jerimiah’s chest and mooning over how good it felt. As far as I can tell, he is not in this pitch-black room with me, but I turn on the lamp and search anyway, as if my six-foot-a-thousand lover might have accomplished the impossible feat of hiding himself.

Nope, though. Not here.

My hands drop to the sheets bunched in my lap, unable to tell if I’m relieved or disappointed. Oh yeah, right, Birdie. Stop lying.

Fine. If he were here, I’d be cuddling him like a giant teddy bear. I’ve never fallen asleep so easily in my life and I must have slumbered through being carried back to my dorm and put to bed like a toddler. And I know why, too. During that stolen time with Jerimiah behind the mural, I escaped my own head. Thoroughly and completely. My usual insecurities didn’t exist. I was absorbed in Jerimiah and the way our bodies moved like they’d been crafted from the same mold. Designed to please the other. My sore muscles and the still-sensitive flesh between my legs is proof of that. While Jerimiah was inside me, I was lost to everything but him. Us.

Not once did I think about how my own desires were selfish.

Weren’t they, though?

This afternoon with Jerimiah was the longest I’ve gone without thinking of Natalie. Or considering what she would want. I let her go for so, so long.

I pull in a deep breath and hold it, closing my eyes and conjuring her image. It’s alarming to be disconnected from her for an extended length of time. I don’t think I’ve gone longer than a matter of minutes since she died and I’m immediately relieved when I can visualize her. Tension follows, though. Rapidly. The calm I fell asleep and woke with is gone and all I can do is let the strain overtake me. The strain of keeping both of us alive, fighting to do it. If I hadn’t been so thoroughly robbed of the tension, I might never have noticed its severity.

“It’s not good,” I whisper, glancing over at her picture frame. “She wouldn’t want this, would she?”

No, she wouldn’t. Natalie was a tension reliever by nature. Always dancing, always forcing everyone to join in family game nights and impromptu plays she made up in her head.

Those memories of her are how I should keep her alive. Not by denying myself happiness on her behalf. I’m tarnishing the person she was by only reaching halfway for what I want. What I need.

Who I need.

“Jerimiah.”

With a hiccup, I throw my legs over the side of the bed, searching the dim room for something wearable. Realizing I’m sticky from sex, I make a frustrated sound, grab my shower caddy and truck it to the bathroom. It’s empty for once, which is weird. The dorm bathroom is usually Grand Central Station. Where is everyone?

Football game.

They’re at the football game.

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