Daydream (Maple Hills, #3)(75)
I appreciate that she isn’t trying to give me a speech on how teams sometimes lose games like everyone else seems to want to. “Thank you.”
“I’m going to leave because you look like you need to rest. I’m fighting all my natural urges to try to find the solution to your problem, because I know you don’t like to be smothered with attention when you don’t feel great,” she says, smiling softly. “Call me if you need anything, okay? I’ll try not to overwhelm you.”
She doesn’t hug me or try to kiss me. She just gives me a small wave goodbye, turns around, and climbs into her car. There’s a huge part of me that’s relieved; I don’t want to be touched and asked to talk about my feelings, not even by her, who really, at this point, is the only person I do like touching me. But as I watch her drive away, I start to miss her.
Robbie has lived with me long enough to know he should give me space when I feel like this. Russ has a sixth sense for any kind of negative atmosphere and leaves me alone after making me a cup of tea.
I judged Aurora at first when she said a good cup of tea could solve a multitude of problems, but as much as I hate to admit it, it is comforting. As soon as she bought us a kettle so we’d stop boiling water in the microwave, everything changed for the better.
I still feel like my Word document is laughing at me and my four hundred words as I stare at my laptop screen. Usually an impending deadline would give me the stomach-turning anxiety to produce something quickly, but apparently even knowing Thornton is expecting something from me tomorrow is not enough to get me moving.
I really fucking hate myself for not concentrating when Halle was here to help me earlier in the week. She warned me that I would struggle if I didn’t complete it with her because she was adamant I wouldn’t be able to do anything while away with the team.
I don’t know why I’m like this and it makes me want to tear my hair out.
In my head, I have an ideal scenario of how things will go. Whether that’s how I act, how my day goes, what I eat—everything works together in perfect harmony, and I thrive. I don’t feel like I’m hyperaware of everyone around me and yet equally completely oblivious. I don’t have to concentrate so hard on people’s mannerisms and behavior and choices so I can do them, too. I do things in advance, so they aren’t something I have to worry about later. I’m a good friend who doesn’t struggle to keep up with the people he loves.
In my head, I just exist peacefully and that’s enough. I have a routine and it’s fucking great.
I tell myself I’m going to work harder to be the version of me in my head, and I’m so frozen by the prospect that I do nothing at all, not even the things I would have done before, and I make everything worse.
Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I ignore the hundreds of messages in the various group chats that I don’t have the energy for and click Halle’s number.
“Hey,” she says when she picks up a few seconds later.
“I can’t write my essay. I’m really struggling to get out of my head.”
I expect an I told you so or it’s your own fault; it’s what I deserve under the circumstance. Aside from the other stuff keeping me permanently sexually frustrated, I spent our time together last time drawing the painting I was supposed to be writing about on her thigh.
But it’s Halle, so what I assume isn’t what happens. “What can I do to help you?”
“Are you busy?” I ask, hearing background noise that sounds like she’s out somewhere.
“I asked first. What can I do to help you, Henry?”
I can tell she’s somewhere doing something, but there’s a selfish part of me that desperately wants her to make me feel like this isn’t an impossible task. “Can you come over and help? If you’re not busy.”
“I’ll be twenty minutes,” she says. “Have you eaten?”
“I’ve had a cup of that tea Aurora gets from England and a protein shake.”
She laughs, and even hearing it over the phone gives me the same serotonin boost I get when I see her do it in person. “That’s a no then. Healthy or unhealthy?”
“I want crunchy stuff like cucumber and chips. Nothing sticky.”
“Coming right up. I’ll be with you soon, so try to relax for now. We’ll get it done, Henry. We haven’t failed yet, and I’m sorry this one is taking more energy than you have.”
“You’re the best.”
* * *
I STARE AT MY CEILING for the thirty-five minutes it takes for Halle to turn up at my house, and as soon as I see her standing on my doorstep everything instantly feels more manageable.
She struggles to hold up the grocery bags since they’re so full, but she attempts to show me anyway. “I bought everything that looked crunchy.”
I lean forward to take them out of her hands, kissing her cheek gently as I bend down. I want to tell her how much better she makes everything, but Russ and Robbie appear from the den like two dogs responding to a rustling treat bag. Robbie stops next to the kitchen island. “Did you get them?”
I think he’s talking to me until Halle responds to tell him yes. Putting the bags on the counter I look between my friends. “What?”
“I need beer if we’re going to get through this study session,” Robbie says. “But Halle was scared to use her fake ID that isn’t fake.”