I glance over at the clock with a sigh, frowning when I realise that I'll have to leave soon. I don't want to move, I'm too comfortable and Dylan is doing a great job of keeping me warm with his arm wrapped around my waist. We listen to the music from the TV credits as they roll down the screen in blissful silence.
"We'll have to make a move soon," Dylan voices my thoughts as he wraps his arm tighter around me, the bed creaking as he shifts slightly. "It's getting late."
"Yeah," I agree glumly, turning over to face him with a frown still in place.
When he sees my unhappy expression, a soft smile takes over his face. He leans forward to kiss my nose lightly.
"Cheer up, you'll see me tomorrow," he reminds me. "Besides, you need to get some sleep before your exam."
I groan at that and move to hide my face against his chest. I'd almost forgotten about the Sociology exam tomorrow afternoon.
"Will you help me with some last-minute revision in the morning?" I ask, moving back to look at him. I run my hand absentmindedly along his chest, wrapped up in thoughts of what horrors tomorrow's exam might bring. "I don't feel ready."
"Of course," he agrees. "We've got second period free tomorrow. We'll have plenty of time."
"Thanks."
"I really have missed you, you know?" he murmurs, his eyes making me melt as they look into mine.
"I know," I reply, my lips morphing into a smile. I lean forward and press a kiss to his lips before moving back again. "I've missed you, too."
Feeling content, untroubled, and completely at ease, I realise that I never want this night to end. I'm not ready to go home, even if the time â little bitch that it is â is telling me I should.
Prolonging the moment for a few minutes longer, I roll onto my back and stretch my arms above my head, my toes pointing to the foot of the bed as far as they'll reach. I feel like a cat that's just woken up from the best sleep of its life, stretching out its entire body as it works up the will to move.
Unfortunately, when I feel a familiar pop, I realise that I've stretched too far.
"Shit," I hiss out in pain, rolling onto my side and curling in on myself as a familiar fire sears through my left shoulder. It feels like the muscles are snapping, pulling taut and seizing up as I flop around like a fish out of water, trying to find the least painful position to lie in. Every time I move it just hurts more. "Shit, shit, fuck!"
"Jade, are you okay?" Dylan asks, his voice worried as he reaches a hand towards me. "Is it your shoulder again?"
"Don't," I snap, my pain making the word come out harsher than intended. "Stop moving; don't knock me."
It feels like my arm is being ripped clean off, leaving nothing but a mess of mangled, fleshy tendons. I'm scared that the slightest of touches â the slightest of nudges â will only serve to make it worse. My rotator cuff is completely fucked â it has been for years. This is not a new pain.
Breathe through the pain, Jade. Just breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
After a few minutes of Dylan and I staying statue-worthy still (I'm pretty sure the guy's not even breathing) the pain begins to dull. The muscles and tendons start to relax, the fire simmering down into a more bearable ache.
I roll my shoulder gently, testing it, and am rewarded with the most unattractive clunk. I feel like an eighteen-year-old trapped in an eighty-year-old's body â I hate it.
I sit up with a sigh when I'm confident the pain has passed for now. I bring my hands up to hide my face as I tuck my knees against my body, wanting to hide. Embarrassed, I mumble an apology into my fingers.
Dylan scoots closer next to me, one hand moving to my back, the other curling around my ankle. "Don't be sorry. Sorry for what? You have nothing to be sorry for."
I drop my hands to my knees and turn my head away from him, biting back a bitter laugh. It's either laugh or cry.
One night: is it really too much to ask for? One night that I'm not plagued by my past, a night that I can be normal â that's all I want.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, his voice soft.
"No," I reply â it's my usual response.
He knows that I have problems with my shoulder â when it hits like that, so brutal and so sudden, I can't hide it â but I've never told him why. I've never really told him much of anything.
He thinks he wants to know but he doesn't. He doesn't really want to know how broken my body is, damaged from injuries suffered so long ago. He doesn't want to know the story behind why my shoulder is so fucked, or how I got the scar on my stomach â a chapter of my life that even I don't know because my own subconscious has repressed it.
He doesn't want to know that I have far too many fillings in my teeth for someone of my age, because neglect meant that I wasn't introduced to a toothbrush until the age of seven. He doesn't want to know that it caused dental problems so severe, even my adult teeth were fucked after my baby ones had all but rotted from my mouth.
He doesn't want to know this shit because I don't want to know this shit. Nobody wants to know this shit.
It's repulsive.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
He drops it.
He doesn't push; he doesn't dig for the information that I want to keep buried. He simply holds the map and patiently waits to see if I'll show him how to read it. I don't â I won't â and so the treasure remains hidden in the same place it will always stay: the back of my mind where it rightly belongs.
"Do you want to stay for a bit longer?" he offers. "Mum and dad won't be back for a little while, yet."
I both do and I don't but, either way, it doesn't matter. I promised Stella I would be home before eleven and, realistically, I need as much sleep as I can get before my exam tomorrow.
"I can't," I sigh, finally looking back at him as I pull myself together. "I need to get home."
Again, he doesn't argue. He simply presses a kiss against my lips â one so tender, so caring that I can barely stand it â before standing up to get dressed, passing me my jeans as he starts to search for his own.
The walk home is quiet (not the good kind) and I hate myself for being an ass and ruining such a perfect evening. Maybe Dylan should run off with that waitress from the restaurant, after all. She wouldn't be such hard work, such an imperfect smudge on his otherwise simple life.
"You know that I think you're perfect, right?" Dylan finally speaks up as we stand at my front door. He hasn't said a word the entire walk here, as wrapped up in his own thoughts as I was in mine, and I'd half expected us to part ways without so much as a single word spoken. "Nothing you tell me will ever make me think otherwise."
His words are as sweet as they are wrong.
"I love you," I tell him â because it feels like the safest thing to say. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
He nods and I leave him on my doorstep, greeted by the sound of shouting the moment I push open the door.
I sigh when I recognise the raised voices â Bailey, of course â and I briefly consider retreating to my room without getting involved. Stella can handle this â she's more than capable of dealing with Bailey â and I've had such a crappy end to my evening, already. A run-in with Bailey can only make it worse.
I walk towards the kitchen, anyway, pushing my own problems far down inside the deep, dark crevices of my mind in order to make room for a new one.
"Why do you treat me like some stupid kid?" Bailey yells at a stressed-looking Stella. "It's not like I'm asking for much, this is for school. I thought you wanted me to start trying with my grades?"
I frown at that, stopping in the kitchen doorway to watch the scene unfold in front of me.
This is about school? I'd assumed she was kicking off about the concert. Why would Stella be against her when it comes to school?
"I'm sorry, Bailey," Stella sighs. "I'm just not comfortable with the idea. I've heard the stories as well as anyone else."
"What's going on?" I ask. "You guys are being kind of loud."
It's late. People are trying to sleep.
"Fuck off," Bailey snaps at me, taking me by surprise.
What the hell was that for?
"Bailey, don't swear at your sister!" Stella cuts back in with a stern voice.
"She's not my goddamn sister!" Bailey yells.
"What's going on?" I ask again, unfazed by Bailey's words â or at least so I tell myself.
"Ugh, ask her!" Bailey snaps, motioning towards Stella with an irritated movement.
"Bailey," Stella sighs. "Your safety comes first-"
"It's only for two hours!" Bailey exclaims. "It'll still be light outside! It's not like I'm breaking any bloody curfew!"
"That doesn't make me any more comfortable-" Stella starts before Bailey interrupts.
"It's a school project. It's not like I chose my partner, either. It was teacher-assigned!"
"Well, maybe you can talk to your teacher and ask to swap," Stella suggests.
"No way, Mr Hard-on hates me!" Bailey exclaims, using her favourite nickname for her English teacher.
Mr Harden hates every student; I don't understand why he ever chose to become a teacher in the first place. I suffered through five years of his shit before finally escaping to A-levels. It seems Bailey's having a similar level of luck.
"Who's your partner?" I ask.
"Alex Coleman," Bailey mutters to me before turning back to Stella. "Come on, Stella, this project goes towards my GCSE coursework! It's important!"
Well damn. That isn't happening.
"I can't allow you to go round to that house, Bailey. Not this Friday, not ever. I'm sorry. I have a duty of care and-"
"Well, why doesn't he just come here then?" Bailey interrupts, her anger growing by the second.
"I don't want those people knowing where we live," Stella replies.
Too late.
"Ugh! This is such bullshit!" Bailey seethes, storming out of the kitchen and slamming the door behind her.
"Bailey!" I yell after her, completely appalled. Stella sighs and runs her hands down her face, looking thoroughly fed up. I can't blame her.
"She'll get over it," I try to reassure her.
Stella doesn't look convinced and, with a small smile, I finally escape up to my bedroom. Once inside, I flop down onto my bed with a sigh, running a hand through my hair as I contemplate the ludicrous idea of Stella actually letting Bailey go to the Coleman's house alone.
My stomach clenches uneasily, my eyebrows scrunching into a small frown. If there's one thing that scares me more than the thought of being dragged back into that world again, it's the thought of Bailey being dragged back into it.
Now, deep down, I know that she's smarter than that. Bailey views the Coleman's just as highly as I do â I've got nothing to worry about. Still, a feeling of unease remains in my gut, refusing to let me sleep off my crappy mood until the early hours of the morning.
How has tonight turned out to be this shit?
*********