The two of us finished our pizza, and Trey took the plates, rinsing them off in the kitchen sink.
“So, do I live on your couch now? Or do I have some extended family I can stay with? I don’t really understand what happens now,” I admitted.
Trey stopped rustling around in the kitchen. I turned a look back at him standing at the counter; eyes glazed over as he stared off into space. When his eyes finally jumped to mine, he smiled.
“Let me show you something.” He approached the couch and stopped just before wrapping me up into him. “May I?”
I knew my cheeks were pink as I nodded and rose from the couch, now in his embrace, heavily leaning into him.
The most frustrating part about this whole day was my inability to walk on my own and the fact that everything in my body bugged me with an incessant, deep ache. All my body wanted to do was sleep, rest my cramping joints and stiff, almost non-existent muscles.
I had wanted to cry when we made it to Chelsea’s car outside of the hospital this morning. Just from the little exertion to get up and get into the vehicle, I had a migraine that threatened to collapse me.
As of right now, if I was being completely honest with myself, I wasn’t too far from experiencing that exact feeling, but I pasted on a brave face. I was far too curious about my surroundings and the boy whose warmth enveloped me to let my body’s exhaustion take the wheel.
Trey shuffled me out of the main room down a warmly lit hallway.
“Is this when you chop me up and hide me in the basement?” I asked.
His expression didn’t budge, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “We don’t have a basement—there is an attic, though.”
“Comforting,”
Leading with a wry smile, he guided me toward a doorway opening to a dark, unlit room. He held to me with one arm while reaching the other to flip the lights on.
The room was simple.
A small desk was up against one wall with a fun-sized twin bed against the opposite. The bed was quilted with a flowery pink bedspread, clouded with pillows and a plush periwinkle rug covered the center of the floor. There weren’t a lot of decorations ornamenting the place. Except for a small bookcase full of volumes, next to the closet and three picture frames that hung above the bed.
I focused on the pictures, taking a step toward them. Trey moved with me until we were directly before them and the bed.
The farthest picture to the left was of two very similar-looking women; one older, one younger, embracing on a beach. The middle picture was of the same young girl from the first picture, except the older woman was replaced by a young boy with bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair. The two were dressed in navy-blue graduation caps and gowns. The last picture to the far right had the same two kids, dressed in the same getup, but standing between them was Trey. He alsowore the graduation attire, looking a little brighter and younger than he did now.
I felt him watching me, just like he had when we first met, waiting for my reaction. I could guess who each of the individuals were, but I still asked, pointing to the middle frame at the young girl, “Is that me?”
“You still haven’t looked in a mirror?”
I rolled my eyes. “One, I’ve been a little preoccupied today. Two, I can’t exactly walk myself to a mirror. And three, you already said I was hot. What more do I need to see?”
Trey scoffed. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did, with your eyes,” I mocked as I batted my lashes at him.
He grinned, but before he could quip back, I quickly added, pointing to the last picture of the three graduates, “And it looks like even then you couldn’t keep your eyes off me.”
His attention darted back to the picture, and I knew he saw exactly what I meant. The camera had captured the perfect moment—him smiling while totally ogling the blonde, curly-haired girl he held to his side.
He shook his head and heaved a deep sigh, feigning annoyance, before he forced me to turn back to the rest of the bedroom with him. “This is yours. My mom and I put it together just after your accident, in case you needed a place to stay when you woke up.”
My eyes went wide, leaping to the bookcase of novels and then to the bed.
“This is all for me?”
His head bobbed in silent answer.
I gawked at the room as I moved backwards to sit onto the bed. Trey helped lower me, then sat himself next to me. The bed caved with his weight, dropping my light body completely flush against his side.
“It’s yours if you want it. We wanted to make sure you knew you had a home to come home to,” hebreathed.
