16. Micah
MICAH
Sunday morning arrived with all the grace and elegance of a brick through a window.
I woke to sunlight pouring through the living room curtains and the sound of Robin groaning from somewhere beneath a mountain of blankets.
For a few disoriented seconds, I couldn't remember why I was sleeping on the couch.
A muffled noise emerged from beneath the blanket.
I smiled.
"Don't,” she said.
I laughed despite myself.
The blanket shifted just enough for one bloodshot eye to appear. "I heard that smile."
"That's not a thing," I said.
"It is when you're hungover."
The eye disappeared again.
I stood and stretched, still grinning. Robin looked miserable, but she looked comfortable too. It was a combination only she could pull off.
The answer to a hangover this severe wasn't coffee.
Coffee was for people who still had some dignity left.
This called for a large Coke, a Big Mac, and enough fries to absorb a regrettable amount of alcohol.
By the time I'd placed a DoorDash order, Robin had managed to sit upright, though she looked deeply unhappy about it.
I handed her a bottle of water and a couple ibuprofen, which she accepted with surprising obedience.
"I'm never drinking again." Robin glared at me over the water bottle. "Why aren’t you this hungover?"
“Because I’m not the one who got shitfaced last night.”
The doorbell rang twenty minutes later. As I handed her a large coke and some fries, she looked like I’d just handed her a winning lottery ticket.
We settled back onto the couch with McDonald’s, and for a little while the world narrowed to fries, greasy burgers, and blessed silence.
Robin stole from my carton despite having her own.
I didn't bother commenting on it. Some habits were apparently inevitable.
My phone buzzed against the coffee table. Then it buzzed again. Then again.
I glanced down long enough to see Mom's name flash across the screen before I flipped it face down and returned my attention to the food.
I would not be going in this morning. My feelings regarding the church were becoming more untenable with each passing day.
If I had to choose between the church and Robin, I would choose her every time.
And yes, part of it was because of how much I liked her…
but mostly it was because of how much I liked myself when I was with her.
Robin noticed immediately. "You're not going to answer that?"
"No, I’m not."
"That seems healthy."
"Eat your fries."
"Deflection."
I smiled into my drink.
I knew exactly what waited on the other end of those calls. It was nothing but a lecture about missing church and shirking family duties and all the other stuff I had no interest in hearing.
Ordinarily, the guilt would have been enough to keep me in line. I would have spent the entire day trying to figure out how to make everyone happy. Instead, I sat on my couch beside a woman who had turned my world upside down, and I couldn't bring myself to care nearly as much as I once did.
Eventually food turned into video games because Robin insisted the only appropriate hangover recovery plan involved killing zombies. We loaded into Project Undead, and within ten minutes she was carrying our entire team while I repeatedly made decisions that got my character killed.
"You left me to die in a hoard of zombies!"
"I told you to go right."
"I did go right."
Robin's character dispatched three zombies with alarming efficiency. "No, right would have led you to the roof, not a kitchen full of zombies."
The worst part was she was probably correct.
At some point during the afternoon, she stretched out across the couch and dropped her feet into my lap without so much as asking.
The gesture was so casual it made something warm settle in my chest. I started rubbing one sore arch with my thumb while waiting for the next level to load, and Robin immediately sighed.
“Fuck, Micah. That feels so good. I can’t remember the last time someone rubbed my feet.”
“Well, I aim to please.”
“McDonald’s and a foot rub. That’s romance.”
I laughed and kept working her tired feet. Roller derby had apparently turned every muscle in her body into a battlefield. She relaxed deeper into the cushions while simultaneously mowing down a horde of zombies on screen. It was an adorable contrast.
The afternoon drifted by in that comfortable, unremarkable way that often ended up meaning the most. We played video games.
We argued about strategy. Robin stole more fries.
My phone continued buzzing every so often from the coffee table, each call and text another reminder that the rest of my life was still waiting for me outside these walls. I ignored every one of them.
When I glanced over and found Robin laughing at something that had happened in the game, her feet still in my lap and her hair still a complete disaster from sleeping on the couch, I realized I didn't regret the choice at all.
By the time I dropped Robin off at her apartment that evening, I was running late. Not terribly late, just enough that my phone informed me of the fact three separate times while I drove across town toward Nate and Jordan's house.
The entire drive felt strange. Part of it was the lingering guilt from ignoring my family all day. The other part was the increasingly uncomfortable realization that I'd spent nearly every free hour of the weekend with Robin and still hadn't wanted to leave.
That in itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was that every time I tried to examine the feeling too closely, my brain immediately wandered somewhere dangerous.
Somewhere that involved words like future and relationship and what if.
I wasn't ready for those conversations. Especially not when I still hadn't had the conversation I actually needed to have.
By the time I pulled into Nate and Jordan's driveway, the constant knot in my chest wasn’t something I could ignore. The familiar sounds of game night greeted me the moment I stepped inside. Dice rattled somewhere in the dining room. Somebody was arguing about character abilities.
"Look who decided to join us."
I glanced up to find Nate leaning against the doorway with a Mountain Dew in one hand and a grin on his face.
"Traffic,” was all I could think to say.
"You're twenty minutes late."
"Terrible traffic." I shrugged off my backpack and sat down.
The dining room table was already covered with maps, character sheets, dice towers, miniatures, and enough snacks to survive a minor apocalypse.
The campaign had been running for almost two years at this point.
Every Sunday evening we'd gather here and save fictional kingdoms while largely failing to manage our own lives.
Usually, it worked well. Tonight, I sat down, picked up my dice, and realized I had no idea what was happening. An hour later, I was still struggling. The party was negotiating with a suspicious merchant… or fighting a wizard. Possibly both? I'd completely lost the plot.
"Micah."
I looked up to find four people were staring at me.
"What?"
Eli sighed. "It's your turn."
I looked down at the map, then at my character sheet, then back up.
"Sorry… Give me a second.” I smiled despite myself, but apparently it wasn't convincing.
Nate leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "Okay."
That single word carried years of friendship and entirely too much insight.
I groaned. "Can we not do this?"
"Oh, we are absolutely doing this."
For a few minutes, I attempted to redirect the conversation. It failed spectacularly. Apparently, years of friendship came with the ability to identify when somebody was avoiding a subject.
Eventually, I gave up. The room quieted as I leaned back in my chair.
"It's Robin."
That earned immediate interest. "You mean the woman you've been smiling at your phone about for four weeks?" Jordan chimed in from the door sensing gossip.
"I hate you," I said to Nate.
"No, you don't."
Unfortunately, he was correct. I rubbed a hand over my face and stared down at the table for a moment, trying to figure out where to start.
"The problem isn't Robin."
"It never is," Jordan said.
"The problem is me." That shut everyone up.
“What do you mean?” Nate asked.
“She has a past with the church… like she hates it… and rightfully so. I just….”
"She still doesn't know who my family is?" Nate asked, putting me out of my misery.
I shook my head. “She doesn’t know who I am, and she hates the church…
I mean hates Ascension Fellowship in particular.
And I get it, I hate it too. I can’t get into all of it without saying too much because it’s not my story, but her hatred is very warranted.
I’ve tried to tell her a few times that my family runs the church, but I kept chickening out.
Now it’s been too long, and I feel like if she finds out this whole thing will be over.
And I mean again… rightfully so. I just don’t know what to do…
but I also do know what to do but can’t seem to make myself do it. ”
And then I dropped my head to the table with a thunk as the dice rattled next to it.
Jordan was the first to speak. "Damn."
I laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. Damn."
The words didn't really cover it, but it was a decent start.
For a moment, nobody said anything. The only sound was the faint hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen and the occasional creak of the house settling around us.
Finally, Nate set his soda down. "What do you want?"
The question caught me off guard, but the answer arrived immediately.
"I want out."
“Of the relationship?”
I shook my head. “No, not at all.”
I stared at the map spread across the table, at the tiny painted miniatures, at the character sheet I'd barely looked at all night.
"I want out of the church and all the family obligations that go along with it. I have for years, but I just don’t know what to do about it."
Saying it aloud felt strange. It was like I'd crossed some invisible line that I had only thought about.