Helena Hunting: Cracks in the Armor

You looked so peaceful drooling on my pillow, I didn’t want to wake you. Stop by the shop if you have time before you go to work tonight.

~Chris

I wiped the corner of my mouth, then smoothed my hand across the pillow. It wasn’t damp. I smiled and dropped back down, enjoying the quiet but not the emptiness of Chris’s bed without him in it. Eventually I got up. I had final assignments to complete, and I’d already wasted the entire morning sleeping. I hit the bathroom and groaned as I got a look at my hair; it had dried all wonky from having gone to bed with it wet. Not to mention the rat’s nest of tangles after being under Chris. I wet my hair and brushed out the knots as best I could, then pulled it back into a ponytail.

Once I was done in the bathroom, I changed out of his shirt and into my own clothes. I made the bed, even though half the time Chris couldn’t be bothered, and honestly, neither could I. I only made the effort if Chris was coming by and planned to get me naked on it later. Messing up a tidy bed with him was fun.

After stuffing everything back into my overnight bag, I went to the kitchen. A Post-it was stuck to the fridge with “OPEN ME” written on it. I smiled and checked inside. Chris was a horrible cook. He turned pasta into mush most of the time, but the man could do two things incredibly well: sandwiches and smoothies.

On the second shelf was the top portion of his blender. Inside were layers of fruit and yogurt and whatever other stuff Chris had put in there to make it taste as awesome as it always did. I set the container on the base. A second Post-It was stuck to the lid. I heeded the “BLEND ME” instructions and hit the puree button, watching the contents swirl together. The end result was deep purple. I poured the concoction into the take-out cup Chris had left for me and went about cleaning up, leaving everything in the drying rack on the counter.

As I sipped the smoothie my gaze drifted to the right, where I’d left his apartment key last night. It was still there.

I picked it up, flipping it between my fingers. Chris never asked for it back, but he never told me to keep it, either. So I put it down for him to see, wondering if one day there’d be a Post-it saying “KEEP ME” attached to it. Which was silly, because it wasn’t something I should care about.

But I did. I wanted that key on my chain.

And that said a lot about my feelings for Chris. He was everything I wanted, but I was too scared to get close. If that happened, he’d let me down eventually—just like everyone else did.