Chapter Eighteen Prue
Eighteen
Prue
“I want to go home,” Mom says again as I tuck her into bed. “No, no,” she whines softly, “I want to go home.”
“You are home,” I whisper to her, folding her sheet in a crisp line over the top of her duvet before I sit next to her hip. “You are home,” I repeat as her fear-filled eyes meet mine. “It’s okay…You’ll feel better after you sleep.”
She looks so young like this. So young and sweet and terrified that it stirs a need deep in my heart to fix what I can’t. The fear is all in her mind, and no matter how much I want to, I can’t get in there.
“Stay with me,” she whimpers, looking at the door as if she’s afraid I’ll walk out of it. “I want to go home,” she tells me again.
I don’t know what home she means. This room was her childhood bedroom, as it was mine. This home has and will always be hers. But the mind is a tricky thing and, clearly, it’s telling her otherwise. There’s no use fighting it. It will just upset her more.
“Okay,” I tell her, shifting to narrowly fit next to her on this twin-sized mattress. “We’ll go to sleep and then tomorrow we can go home.”
“Okay,” she agrees, sniffing. “Okay.”
Once her breathing has lulled to a rhythmic, slow pattern, I sit up and move into the chair in the corner.
I grab a striped blanket off the dresser and wrap myself in it.
The lamp on the dresser casts a warm glow, just bright enough to read by if I strain my eyes the tiniest bit.
But just as I begin, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket.
I pull it out and discover an onslaught of missed messages from Dad and one new message.
Dad: How is she? Do you need backup?
Dad: Dinner is in the fridge when you want it.
Dad: I’m calling it an early night. I love you, sweetie.
Dad: But if you need me, wake me.
The one that came through only a minute ago was from Milo.
Milo: hey are you home?
Prue: Yeah, with my mom. She asked me to stay with her.
I watch as three dots appear, disappear, appear, and disappear once more. Something in my gut twists as my eyes narrow on our sparse conversation from today.
Prue: How was your day?
Milo: Fine. You?
Prue: Honestly? Hard.
Milo: I’m sorry
Milo: want to talk about it?
Prue: Is that okay?
Milo: of course
Prue: Mom was super emotional today and I feel like I didn’t do a single thing right. I lost my patience with her when she insisted she was getting a delivery today and wanted to walk to the post office. After I snapped, it was hard to win her trust back. She was super upset.
Prue: I hate that I’m not patient with her.
I bite at my thumbnail, waiting for him to finish typing his reply.
Milo: she asked you to stay with her, right?
Prue: Yeah?
Milo: that shows how much she loves you. How safe she feels with you. You’re going to slip up sometimes, you’re human. But you’re a good human and she knows that
Prue: You think I’m good?
Milo: I think you’re great.
Prue: Thank you, Milo. I needed that. Especially with the punctuation.
Milo: anytime
I wonder if I should drop the conversation there, at what feels like a natural stopping point.
But, admittedly, I want to keep talking to him.
I spend over a minute mulling over the wording of my next text, trying to decipher a lighthearted, flirty way of keeping his attention. Plus, inquiring minds want to know…
Prue: Was this a booty call?
Milo: lol what?
Prue: Texting me after nine and asking if I’m home…
Milo: no, killer. it wasn’t
Milo: disappointed?
Prue: Mildly.
Prue: What was it then?
Milo: the lights in the a-frame are all still off, so I thought I’d ask
Milo: I’ve been on your dock for a few hours now and the mosquitos are feasting
Prue: What?? Why are you on my dock?
Milo: is this not where we go to get drunk and sad?
I scroll up to double-check that he did, in fact, just tell me his day was fine. He did. Which only adds to my confusion.
Prue: Yeah, I guess it is.
Prue: But, why are you drunk and sad?
Milo: long story
Prue: I’ve got time…
Milo: don’t worry about me, killer. I’m going to head home
Prue: No way.
Prue: Meet me on the back porch.
Milo: but your mom?
Prue: She’s asleep. Can we chat downstairs? That way I can hear her if she wakes up.
Milo: and Tom?
Prue: Also asleep.
Milo: you’ve had a shitty day, I don’t want to add to it
Prue: Let me decide what I can handle for myself, okay?
Milo’s three dots appear, disappear, appear, disappear, and appear once again before his next text comes in.
Milo: okay
With one last check of Mom, I lay my book down on her bedside table and sneak out of her room, cursing the old, creaky wooden floors and doors as I do.
Sneaking down the stairs, I arrive in the kitchen and make my way to the back door, where I can already see Milo’s silhouette through the thin curtain hanging there.
“Hi,” I whisper, letting him inside. Milo’s wearing black sweatpants and a matching sweater, both with the brewery’s logo on them, and a baseball cap underneath his hood. I want to crawl inside and take my fair share of his coziness.
“Hey, Killer,” he whispers back, removing his sneakers and leaving them on the mat by the door. “Are you sure this is okay?”
“Of course,” I reassure him, moving to shut the door. His arms are wrapped around my waist before I’ve finished locking it. “Hey,” I say, leaning the side of my head into his cheek. He sighs deeply, squeezing me tighter. “I can’t comfort you like this.”
He releases his grip enough for me to spin, kissing my forehead before he pulls me in and tucks me against his chest. It’s probably silly to think, now that we’ve been naked with each other, but this hold, this embrace is by far the most intimate we’ve been.
It’s for comfort, not pleasure. And, it’s for him, not me. Though I definitely like it too.
“I’m sorry it’s been such a crappy day,” I tell him, letting my hands fall to the small of his back and interlocking my fingers there. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Milo curls around me further, shaking his head softly as he presses his lips to my hairline, just above my ear. “Not really…but I have a feeling you’ll persuade me otherwise.”
“Sounds likely.”
“I needed this,” he says, straightening enough that I can look up to see his face with the little light filtering in from the living room and the moonlight outside.
He looks tired. The bone-deep, exhausted kind.
His eyes and lips are puffy, as if he’s been crying, and his weary smile is entirely unconvincing. He really has had a bad day.
“Mi,” the short form of his name slips out before I have the chance to overthink it. “You don’t look so good.”
“Ouch,” he says, punctuated by a soft, breathy laugh.
“Not like that, ” I say, rolling my eyes. “You always look good that way.”
“Oh, yeah?” He dips down to kiss me. “Good to know,” he murmurs against my mouth before another kiss.
The coolness of his lips catches me by surprise, and I slide the tip of my tongue against them without thought.
Milo lets out an approving groan as his hands find my pants pockets and pull me closer to him.
“Mmm, nope,” I say, popping the P, as I lean back in his hold. “You came here to talk.”
“We can talk later,” Milo whispers, bending over me before he begins kissing me again. Or, rather, before I begin kissing him. I’m not even sure who initiated that time, just that our lips found each other in the darkened room once more.
At some point, my feet begin moving us backward, pulling Milo along with me as if our lips are magnets. We walk toward the couch in the living room, bumping into a chair, the corner of the arched entryway, and the coffee table on our way as our kiss deepens and hands begin to wander.
He lays me down on the powder-blue plaid couch my parents have had as long as I can remember and climbs over me, supporting his weight with his forearm next to my shoulder. He removes his hood, tosses his cap across the room, and dives back in for more.
I feel myself getting lost in our kiss, further approaching a dizzying, feverish pitch when Milo moves to cup my breast in his palm and grinds his hips against me, the thin layer of my leggings doing nothing to shield me from his erection.
The need I feel for him between my legs grows and builds and swells as he continues pressing into me, kissing me so hard my jaw begins to ache.
That is when I open my eyes and see Milo’s face: his pinched brows furrowed by tension, the reddened skin under his eyes, reminding me that he’s been rubbing tears away. I decide I want to be his friend tonight, more than anything else.
“Milo,” I say, leaning back an inch to catch my breath. I press my forehead to his, pushing against him so he has to come back to me from that mindless, numbing oblivion I’d almost joined him in. “Hey,” I say alongside panted breaths.
“Sorry, did you need to stop?” He blinks rapidly, wide-eyed in between as he scans my face.
“No, no, sorry,” I say as he releases a sigh of relief. “But, yeah, I think we should…”
“I’m not following.” Milo sits up, turning to sit on the couch with one of my legs behind his back and the other in his lap. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, voice defeated as he runs a hand through his hair.
I pull my leg out from behind him, moving to go on my knees next to his lap. “No,” I tell him, brushing a hand over his jaw and ear. By the time my hand rests on the nape of his neck, he’s turned to face me. “I just…I can tell something is bothering you.”
He scoffs. “I told you…It was a shitty day.”
I swallow back my reaction to his sharp-edged tone.
“Sorry, fuck, sorry. I should go,” Milo says, patting my wrist as if he wants me to let him leave.
A newfound, bold determination floods my chest. “Nu-uh,” I say, climbing into his lap to straddle him. “You, sir, are not going anywhere. You told me we were going to communicate, remember?”
“I remember,” he says, running a hand down his face before he gingerly places it on my thigh.
“So? Talk.”