257- Falling

  Batting ineffectively at the buzzing emanating from somewhere to her left, Holly woke up Tuesday morning to a gray morning and an alarm that refused to die. 

    With a small whine of protest, Holly sat up to better reach the zombie machine. The cool air of November bit through her tank top and caused an involuntary shiver. Leaning out of the bed further, her fingertips brushed the snooze button but were unable to get to the root of the problem: the power button. 

Tugging her lip between her teeth, Holly had a brief internal struggle between actually making sure the damn thing stayed off or just giving up and letting it go back off again in ten minutes. Oh screw it, she thought, mouth opening in a cavernous yawn- the geometry class was not going to happen this morning. Better to face the multi headed hydra that was the snooze alarm before she threw the clock across the room. 

 She arched her back to better reach across the span of air that separated the bed from the nightstand. She had thought it a good idea at the time- forcing herself to get out of bed to turn the clock off--the idea was she would go ahead and start her morning routine. Not get up, smack it silent, and get back into bed.

But really- geometry at 10 a.m. was one of the more unintelligent decisions she had made that year.

Her fingertips brushed past the snooze, stretching out for the elusive power button. She pushed herself a little further off the side of the bed, keeping her legs ensconced firmly beneath the warmth of the comforter. Tired blurred her vision and the neon lights mocked her with their blinking warning of impending annoyance. A strand of her hair fell into her vision and she shook her head slightly to clear the sleep fuzzing her edges

.

It was probably not the smartest idea to be balancing your entire weight on your diaphragm and then upset the balance by shaking the appendage that was the furthest out of synch with the rest of your less than coordinated body. 

She felt herself start to slip out of the bed, arms flailing, she emitted a slight yelp of panic- expecting to hit the frozen floor (why hadn’t she gone and got a rug yet??) when a strong force wrapped itself around her core and pulled her back from certain descent. 

 “Isn’t it a little early for bodily injury?” asked the deep voice, low and half awake. The speaker pulled Holly into the crook of his body, the heat from his chest quickly dispelling the chills of the morning air. She pressed herself closer, grasping the arm wrapped around her like a lifeline. 

“Probably,” she agreed as she buried her head back down into the pillow. She felt the warmth began to ease her back into sleep, the worry lines around her mouth began to relax into a smile when she felt him squeeze her. 

“You have to go to class,” Chris murmured, eyes still closed. Holly shook her head, squeaked a denial and tried to burrow herself further into his embrace. 

He squeezed again.

“Holly,” he warned amusement and disbelief clear indicators that he was more awake than she would like him to be.

“Not today,” she demurred, twisting around in his embrace she found herself looking into the storm grey eyes, riddled with sleep on the edges.

“You never go to that class,” he said. She twisted her lips at him.

“And miss this?” she asked. “Never.”

He grunted in agreement and his eyes slid close again. For a second, she studied the familiar face- the crest of his brow, the line of his nose and the place it had been broken when he was younger, the scar on the side of his eye and the thin set of his lips, cracked from his usual morning run in the chill of the fall.

“Stop watching me sleep, Holl,” he said. Her face flushed slightly but she batted his chest lightly.

“Stop being a mind reader and go back to sleep,” she ordered. She went to sit up, planning to at least go brush her teeth and get the night’s taste out and grab a drink of water when she felt his grip snake back around her waist and pull her back down.

She stilled, allowing the silence in the room only to be broken by their breathing and the occasional rustle of the sheet. The idea of sleep was tempting- it would be easy enough to close her eyes and drift in and out of consciousness until she fell back to sleep but her mind was awake and her heart was in her throat.

How many mornings like this had they shared- she didn’t know. She had taken them for granted- always caught by surprise that something as simple as falling asleep next to someone was such a powerful thing. Saying goodnight sometimes in words and sometimes in silent touch was only rivaled by waking up in the morning and seeing them at peace (the being woken up by someone turning on the sports channel after a late night of studying wasn’t worth mentioning).

But the ability to reach over in the night and touch him, to see his eyes crack open in recognition and to be able to curl into his essence- that was a surprisingly intimacy that had nothing to do with sexual longing. It was mornings like these when she could only stare up into his sleeping face and wonder at the simplicity of the moment and the complexity of the feelings it invoked.

And then-

“Chris, did you just fart?” she moaned, incredulity coloring her tone. A warm chuckle was the only reply. 

“There’s something wrong with you.”

“Says the girl who never goes to the one class she’s failing,” was the only reply.

Well, what was a girl supposed to do when faced with a dreary November day, a math class and a man in her bed?

Holly entwined her legs between his, his grumble ignored as she pressed closer to him.

“Shut up, Chris,” she said.

And he did.