10. Michelle
10
MICHELLE
O h, my God, Oh, my God… I stare up at the ceiling in my bedroom, wishing that my eyes would just close already to block all of this out. It’s a lot , and lying back thinking about it isn’t getting me anywhere. That kiss… wow, that kiss, it was mind-blowing. I don’t really know why I stopped it when it was the last thing I wanted to do. Really, I wanted more, but a small voice in the back of my brain screamed at me that I needed to yank away, and I simply went with it. I thought it’d be the best thing to do…
“Jordan is here to protect me,” I remind myself quietly so he won’t hear me. “He’s the man saving my life. I can’t cross boundaries with him. Just because I want a man in my life, it doesn’t mean that he has to be the man. I can pick any guy. There are tons of men in America. I can find one who really suits me, one I can actually have. Not just one who’s right here.”
Just because I want him, doesn’t mean I can have him. As amazing as that kiss was, I’m going to have to forget about it completely. I can’t have it in my mind when I look at him or I’ll lose myself once more. I can’t keep on with that.
I turn over onto my side and force my eyes closed. I need sleep. I really need to rest. If I lie awake thinking about Jordan all night long, then tomorrow will be horrible, and I’m sure Max already has a lot planned for me. He always does.
But his beautiful face floods my mind. I’m stuck on him no matter what. I’ve been thinking about him all day long, and that’s only going to get worse now that I know our chemistry is intense. I suspected it before, which was one thing, but knowing is worse. It definitely isn’t ‘getting it out of my system’. It’s only made me ache for him even more. There’s a deep throbbing at my core, begging me to get out of this bedroom and to jump on him already. But I’m the one who ran away. I can’t go back now. I’m sure Jordan has had second thoughts anyway and he isn’t interested. It might have just been in the heat of the moment, anyway.
“Stop it.” I’m getting annoyed with myself now. I squeeze a pillow over my head to try and block out the sound, as if it isn’t coming from inside my brain. “Will you stop it already? We just need to forget all about everything.”
But I know for sure that I won’t be able to forget the kiss. It’s going to be etched in my memory forever. That’s going to stick with me forevermore. Every time I look at him, it’s all I’ll see. His lips, his smile, the way his body felt next to mine.
Urgh, I feel like shit. I don’t think I got any sleep at all. I might have drifted in and out of dreams a couple of times, but I haven’t had enough sleep to make me feel good at all. But as shattered as I am, I’m not getting any more sleep, so I might as well give it up and haul my ass out of bed. As I stagger across the room, I’m shocked out of my hazy state when I glimpse myself in the mirror. I forgot about my hair and the new color until this very moment. It’s really brown. The blonde is definitely gone, and it’s a shocking sight. It snaps my eyes so wide that I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to shut them again. Is that really me ?
“Oh, my God.” I run my fingers through it, feeling the softness of it and admiring it. “It’s not too bad, actually. I’m impressed.”
I shake it a while and admire it from different angles, seeing a softness to my features now that I haven’t seen before. I kinda like how I look. This is a new version of me. It’s like the America Michelle, and I’m okay with it. Now I need to find some clothing to go with this new look. Clothing that will be like armor when I face Jordan once more. This morning will be the worst.
Luckily, I have a million new outfits I can try on, clothing that I’ll actually like and look good in too.
It takes me a while, but eventually, I settle on something that I like with my hair. I’m dressed to impress and ready to finally see what Jordan is like. With a bit of luck, he’ll take the same idea as before and will find a way to avoid the topic completely. Like I did before, I press my ear up against the door, but this time, I hear nothing. I don’t smell anything either, so there isn’t any breakfast on the way. There’s a definite difference to the atmosphere this morning, but what is it? What’s happening here?
“Hello?” I push open the door delicately and peek around it, my pulse racing the whole time. “Jordan? Is anyone here?”
There’s nothing, no one here. I don’t know if I should feel glad about that. It’s weird for sure, but I suppose I can at least walk around the place without worrying about whom I might walk into. Jordan’s bag is still in the living room, so he hasn’t left me completely, but I do need to get used to the idea that one day, he won’t be here, and I’ll have to exist in this place alone. Right now, that’s a bit of a gut punch because I don’t know how I’ll survive without someone watching over me. I can’t picture it.
“I can’t have someone babysitting me forever,” I whisper to myself. “I’ll have to be a grown-up one day. I’ll have to be alone.”
I act like I am for a while, just to see if I can do it, but it really is just me playing a character. I won’t know what that’s going to be like until it really happens. I’m just going to have to wait and cross that bridge when I come to it. I can’t deal with ‘what ifs’. I just have no idea what’s going to happen in the next few days, never mind months. I need to focus on the here and now.
“Oh!” I jump as I hear a key in the lock. I stiffen up as I wait for the moment when Jordan walks inside. “Oh, hi.”
“Er, hello.” He has coffees and pastries in his hands. “I was on the phone to Max so I thought I’d take a walk as I talked.”
I nod, not quite sure how to answer this because his tone is so brisk and sharp with me. I feel like he’s trying to create a distance between us, and I suppose that’s for the best, isn’t it? We need that so nothing happens again. I mean, the kiss was a mistake. We’re both painfully aware of that, so moving past it like this is for the best. It’s all we can do.
“Max wants us to go to the office this morning. He’s got all sorts of stuff sorted out for you. Paperwork and things. He didn’t go into specifics, but I imagine it’ll be everything to help you get a job, move in the right direction.”
“Right!” This surprises me. “Wow, Max really does work fast, doesn’t he? That’s incredible. He really is awesome.”
“Yeah, he’s very impressive like that.” Jordan nods slowly. He places the food and drinks down before circling the table. I can tell that he can’t relax around me again, which makes me sad. I liked it so much better when we could just hang out and it was simple and straightforward. “And you know how he wants to move things along quickly, so we don’t have long.”
“Well, I’m dressed.” I giggle awkwardly. “So it won’t take me long before I’m ready to get out of here. I just need to eat…”
I grab one of the pastries off the table and stuff it into my mouth. I’m trying to make sure I don’t have to talk anymore. This is awkward as fuck, and I feel like everything I say makes it so much worse. Jordan isn’t even looking at me now. It’s like he’s afraid to really see me after the kiss. I would much rather pretend nothing happened and that we’re all fine. It’s easier that way.
Jordan doesn’t eat anything, he simply sits and sips his coffee like the caffeine is the only thing to keep him alive. He’s on edge, feeling awkward in my presence, and I don’t know how to pull him out of that mood. It’s driving me insane.
“Let me know what you want from me,” I tell him awkwardly, needing to break the silence. “Like, what time you want to go? I’m ready now, if that’s what you need. I don’t have anything else planned, obviously, so just let me know.”
“Yeah, sure, we can go.” He nods rapidly and finally meets my eyes. But only for a second. His tone remains stiff and uncomfortable too, the kiss still playing heavily between us in the worst way possible. “I’m ready now. I’ll eat on the way.”
I take my coffee too, so thankfully, I’ll have something to keep me distracted as we drive. I don’t think we’ll have much to say to one another as we go if this is the mood of the day, if this awkwardness is going to stay with us. I can’t see us finding a way to get over this anytime soon. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we overstepped the boundary or if he’s hurt by my running away. How do I let him know that it definitely wasn’t rejection but just me panicking and running away?
No, I can’t tell him anything like that, especially not when we’re on the way to see Max. He’s unlikely to want to talk about anything like that on the way to seeing his boss, and for that I definitely can’t blame him. I don’t think he’s going to want to go into that meeting with the kiss weighing any heavier on him than it already is. I can see it on him right now.
Maybe later. We will probably have a lot of time together to discuss whatever we want to. If he wants to, that is. Something will have to happen unless we want to exist in this weird limbo forever. Not my favorite plan, but it isn’t just me in this.
Jordan sparks the car up to life, and we drive in awkward silence. A couple of times, I open my mouth as I try and think of something to say, but nothing immediately comes to mind. Every conversation topic that I can think of starts to feel stupid before it comes out, so I fall back into silence once more. I just can’t make anything happen. It’s frustrating, actually.
Damn it, that kiss… that damn kiss … it was so good, so life-changing, that I wouldn’t change it for anything, except maybe my running away. But it’s hard not to wonder whether it was worth it when we’re stuck in this position. We should have forced ourselves to keep away, to avoid temptation… perhaps I should have just sucked it up and gone to the hairdresser. It was his getting that intimately close to me to dye my hair that did it. It made it impossible to keep the hell away from one another.