Paper Thin

I swallowed hard. His words making something shift inside of me. Friends. We were two friends hanging out. Friends shared meals together. They shared drinks. They said nice things about the other when they were being hard on themselves.

Friends were all we were and all that we would ever be, I reminded myself.

THE HOUSE WAS DARK and eerily quiet when I slipped back through the kitchen door. My cheap sandals squeaked against the tile floor as I maneuvered to close it behind me. Goose bumps prickled across my skin at the coldness in the air. AC was a wonderful thing to have, as long as you weren’t coming in from outside, dripping wet.

I tiptoed to my room, wondering how late it was and why Emma hadn’t waited up for me like I thought she would. I was glad she hadn’t though. My guilt from having spent time with Dawson at the dock was already eating at my insides.

The emotion had become my friend throughout the night, and I knew Dawson felt the same, but neither of us was brave enough to admit it out loud. I tried to think of sharing my meal with him and drinking at the dock as something friends would do, but deep down I knew it was more than that. We both did. There was a chemistry between us, and each time we were alone together it grew.

For the millionth time that night, I felt sickness slosh around in my stomach. I swallowed hard and continued down the hall on my tiptoes, leaving a trail of water droplets behind me.

I noticed Emma’s light was on. For a moment, I debated whether I should check on her. Worry that she might not be able to get herself into bed safely pumped through me. I sank my teeth into my bottom lip and crept to her bedroom door. I knocked and then waited, listening for her to respond. When she didn’t, I turned the knob and opened the door as quietly as I could. She was lying on her bed, sleeping peacefully. There was a slight curve to her lips, one that made me think she was dreaming of happy things. Hope swelled in my chest that she would be happier after this night, that maybe there had been some sort of a release spurred from her that could only be found by spending time with good friends.

I closed her door and headed to my room. The need to be free from my wet bathing suit and damp towel had become a necessity. Once I grabbed some pajamas, I headed down the hall to the bathroom for a hot shower to warm me against the coldness that festered inside the house, and wash away the lake water drying across my skin.

I slipped out of my suit, and turned the water on. As I ran my fingers through it, waiting for it to warm, I remembered how weightless I’d felt submerged in the lake. Never in my life had I felt so free. The craving to have a tiny flicker of that sensation sweep through me again was what made me decide to take a bath instead of a long shower.

After plugging the tub, I sat on the edge and watched as the water lifted to meet the rim of the tub. Thoughts of Dawson crept into my mind. Nothing had happened between us tonight. The moment we continued to find ourselves in never seemed to find its way back again. Which was fine. Absolutely fine. But, I couldn’t deny how badly I wanted it to. I was a horrible sister. Dawson was a horrible fiancé as well, because it wasn’t just me. He had a part in this as well. Didn’t he?

I cut the water off when it reached the height I felt would swallow me enough and slipped in. The hot water wrapped around me like a blanket, and I felt the tension that had been building in my muscles dissipate. I let my limbs go slack and waited for the same feeling of weightlessness to encompass me, but it never did. Submerging yourself in a bathtub filled with water wasn’t the same as doing so in a lake. I needed another drink to relax me enough for the comparisons to end.

Sunlight streamed through my bedroom window, forcing me to wake before I wanted to. I wasn’t sure of the exact time I had gone to bed, but I knew it was somewhere between two and three. At least that was the last time I remembered creeping into the kitchen for my final glass of blueberry whatever it was I had made. Apparently, Emma and her friends hadn’t touched the stuff I made before heading to the lake. I had thought this was a great thing last night, but now, with the sunlight beams acting like a pickax to my temples, I wasn’t so sure.

“God, why did I drink so many glasses of that crap last night?” I grumbled as I rolled onto my stomach and buried my head underneath my pillow.

I had been trying to fend off my guilt, while drowning in my sorrows. A pity party, that was what I had thrown for myself until the wee hours of the morning, and now I would pay the price. I lay there until my bladder wouldn’t allow me to anymore, before I finally got up and made the trek to the bathroom down the hall. The house was quiet still. I wasn’t sure what I expected to hear, but this stillness was not it. I made it back to my room and flopped onto my bed again.

“Hello? Anyone home?” Dawson’s voice sliced through my quietness. “Emma? Charlotte?” He shouted far too loud for my poor skull to handle.

My brain hurt.

“Hello?” Dawson called out again. The sound of the front door slamming shut blasted through the walls to me, and I winced. Where the hell was Em, and why wasn’t she answering him? “Emma? Charlotte? You two home?”

“Jesus,” I grumbled into my pillow.

“Emma?” Dawson was turning down the hall. His deep voice boomed through the thin wall of my room and vibrated my skull even harder now that he was closer. “Charlotte?”

“Oh my God! Shut up!” I shouted from my bed. If I thought his voice was causing my head to split in two, the sound of my own nearly blinded me with pain. My bedroom door opened, but I didn’t move. I knew it was Dawson.

“Hey to you too.” His tone seemed amused, which was something I wasn’t.

“Did you not see our cars in the driveway? That should have been your first clue we were home,” I snapped from beneath my pillow and blankets. “Keep your voice down. My head is killing me.”

“Okay. Can do,” he whispered, but I could still hear the laughter in his tone. “Did the blueberry stuff sink its nasty little claws in you last night?”

“No.” I flopped around, trying to find a comfortable position in my bed. “It poisoned me. I’m dying.”

His laughter bounced off my walls, piercing my brain with each loud rumble. God, I hated him right now. I wanted him to leave.

“Sounds like someone could use an aspirin and some water.” He continued to laugh. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Whatever,” I groaned. I was not a morning person, especially not when I had little elves using pickaxes inside my skull every time he spoke. I squeezed my eyes shut and rolled over in bed again, searching for a cool spot on my sheets to press my hot face into. The horrible sensation I might vomit was creeping up my throat, making my mouth water and causing a trembling feeling in my stomach.

“Here you go, sunshine,” Dawson teased when he came back into the room. I heard him set a glass down on my nightstand. “Have you seen Emma this morning? Is she still sleeping?”

I didn’t move for the water or the aspirin, afraid if I did my stomach would win in its rebellion of last night’s drink choice. “Do I look like I’ve seen Emma? She was asleep when I came home.”

“I’ll go see if the blueberry drink happened to poison her as well, then,” he joked. “Might be a good idea I came by when I did. Looks like you two needed me.”

“You go do that,” I grumbled into my mattress, glad he was leaving. I didn’t want him to see me ru

“Take that aspirin,” he insisted. “It will make you feel better in an hour or so, but you have to drink the entire glass of water too.”