Chapter 42: Chapter 42

I haven't felt like myself since last weekend.

Getting through a day has been really weird for me, even strange, and I don't know what to do to feel better.

I've been pushing myself to do my schoolwork, but that's not helping me anymore. On Monday, I have to give my first honor's thesis presentation at school, and I'm really worried that I won't be able to do as good a job as I usually do.

I've been getting ready for it for more than two weeks. It's my research, after all, and I want to do a good job on it. I want my review board to agree with my presentation and thesis, but I haven't been getting enough sleep. My mind feels like it's on fire, and my body has hurt since Saturday night.

No one will ever tell you how much your body wears out from doing CPR for a long time. In addition to all the swimming I do, this was hard on my body. After the weekend, my legs started to hurt, and it was hard for me to walk down the stairs to our apartment door every day.

I had a hard time doing everything, like getting out of bed, eating, and taking a shower. It shouldn't bother me so much that I would have saved someone at the pool. That was part of my job, so it was bound to happen at some point. I had been a lifeguard for five years, so it would have been stupid of me to think that something like this couldn't happen.

Then why can't I just move on?

I've always been so sure about things that I've never felt this way before.

"Julianna." I hear, and Mark comes and sits down next to me at the table. "You've been looking at the wall for a while."

"Sorry." I sigh, shake my head, and look at my food again. Even though it was oatmeal, it didn't look good. It was just the easiest thing to cook.

"Does this whole thing make you feel better?" When he asks, I sigh.

"I'm not sure." I mumble and shake my head. "I can't sleep and I don't know what to do because I haven't heard anything about it and I have too much going on in my life right now. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to go back to work, but I-"

"Tell them that you aren't ready." I shake my head at his insistence.

"Mark, I need to be all set. I've lost a whole week of shifts, and I can't take any more time off because of money." I'll admit to rubbing my face with my hands. "I feel like everything would be fine if I could just sleep for more than an hour at a time."

"Do you know anyone you could talk to? Something like your boss or something? There must be something you can use." He keeps pushing, so I bite the inside of my cheek.

"If I do that, I might be asked to leave work even if I don't want to." I sigh.

"Julianna, you don't seem like you." He says it quietly, and I just nod. "You can't do that, you have to deal with it."

"I have tried a lot of times. I think all I need is some rest." I mumble and rub my face with my hands. "I have to present my thesis on Monday, and I'm very nervous. I don't know what happened to that girl, and I'm worried about money because I haven't been at work."

"Hey, everything will be fine." He won't give up, and I take a tense breath. "This month, we can help you pay your rent. If that happens, I know you're worried about that girl because you've been working on your thesis for weeks and it's almost done. But you should try to stay hopeful."

"I know." He gives me a half smile when I take a breath. "I'm trying."

"Listen, I don't want to leave, but I have to go to practice and then stop by my professor's office." I shake my head when he says that.

"No, I would not ask you to stay." I promise him.

"Try to sleep, Kyle and Kent probably won't be back until later." When he talks, I agree. "There should be peace."

Kent.

That was the only thing that stopped my mind from racing, and it only did so because it was so distracting. I thought about how nice he was to me this weekend and how much I liked spending time with him when he was that nice. We would look at each other a lot. He would always ask, "Are you okay?" and I would always say, "Getting through it."

Since Saturday night, we hadn't been alone, but I knew that even if we were, he wouldn't say anything. Not only was it hard to talk about what that meant, but he and I both knew that I had a lot more to deal with right now.

"Yeah, I think you're right." I sigh, pick up my cold oatmeal, and shuffle across the floor to the compost under the sink. I throw it out, and he gets up and walks over to hug me. Mark was a great friend and a really nice person.

"I'll see you later." He smiles, and as he walks away, I nod and wave.

I decided to take a warm shower to see if it would help me fall asleep. I hadn't been taking care of myself enough in my daily life, and I wanted to try to get back into my routine.

Then I walk back down the hall, put on warm socks and a sweater over my T-shirt and shorts, walk to my bed, and pull the curtains across.

I pull out my phone and start looking at texts and pictures. I didn't feel like talking to people or doing the things I usually like to do. I didn't know what would make me feel better. Mark might have been right and all I needed was to talk to someone.

Even though Mom had helped, I didn't know what to do. That night, I went home and hardly slept. I was surprised to admit that nothing had been as helpful as Kent.

I finally put my phone down because I just can't fall asleep. I don't know why not either. My brain doesn't even feel like it's working because I'm so tired.

When I hear the front door open, I groan because I hadn't closed the door to my room. Mark said the apartment would be empty, so I didn't feel the need to lock it.

I see Kent walk to his room door, but he stops and turns around to look at me. This makes me sit up.

"Oh hey." He says this while looking worried. "I had no idea you were coming home."

"Yeah, I didn't go to the library after all." I mumble and rub my face with my hand.

"Were you sleeping?" He asks as he opens his door and walks in to put his school bag down.

"Unsuccessfully." I mutter, feeling my eyes sting.

"I-I can leave you alone." After closing his door again, he says this as he walks back to my door frame. "I'm sorry to bother you,"

"You didn't." I tell him this while shaking my head. "I can't sleep." I whisper, and tears start to roll down my cheeks. "I haven't been able to all week, not since," I trail off, chewing the inside of my cheek.

"Since when not?" He asks quietly, but I could tell from the way he looked that he already knew what I was going to say.

"Ever since we slept together." I don't say much, but I can feel tears rolling down my cheeks. "And that's so dumb and humiliating, but-"

"Julianna." He talks over her and shakes his head.

"What?" I whisper as I feel ashamed, and he walks into my room.

"Get over here." As he walks over to my bed and sighs, I raise my eyebrows. "I'm not kidding." He continues, and I slowly clear my throat. "Unless you'd like me to leave."

"No." He nods when I mumble. He is smart and goes to close the door before coming back to my bed. He carefully gets into bed next to me and puts his phone on my nightstand.

"You have many pillows." He mumbles, and I laugh through my tears while sniffling.

"You're so grumpy." I answer by curling up next to him.

"Sleep Julianna." He tells me what to do, and I nod and slowly move away.

"I take back the angry part." I whisper and take a deep breath, which helps me calm down. This is pretty cool." He wraps an arm around me and puts his palm on my back in easy circles.

"Good, darling. I'm glad." When he replies, I can't keep my eyes open. How was he so able to make me feel this way?

I can't remember what else he said because I'm already falling asleep before I can hear it.

…

When I wake up, I hear voices coming from outside my bedroom door. I quickly reach out with both arms, and the body next to me in bed hits me right away.

"Ouch." He hisses, and I look back at Kent with a sleepy eye.

"S-sorry." I mumble. "Is anyone there?" I yawn and ask him. He sighs.

"Piper, Mark, Kyle, the aliens, and someone else." I sigh when he says that. If I had my way, I'd go back to bed right away. Even though I liked that nap and it had been going on for hours, I needed more. "I can't leave, or they'll find out you and I are in here."

"What's the time?" I feel confused, so I ask Kent, and he turns on his phone.

"Almost seven."

I raise my eyebrows and say, "What?" You spent the whole time here?" When I ask, he nods.

"Why not?," he said. He looks confused and asks. "You were pretty worn out, and you felt pretty stuck. There was no way I could get up without waking you up by accident. I also didn't have anything else to do."

"Did I snore?" I ask because I'm worried, and he bites his lips together to stop himself from smiling. "Oh my god, I did."

"Not much, it wasn't very loud." He gives a shrug.

"-Has anyone seen Kent for real?" I can hear Piper's voice more than anyone else's from the kitchen. Kent groans and rolls around on my bed as if he wants to get away from her.

"He's in his room with the door closed, and Julianna and I won't bother them." In a final way, Mark says. "I'll send them a text telling them we're going to Abby's, and they can join us if they want to."

"Since when do those two get along so well?" Piper asks, and Kent and I look at each other for a while. We were almost asking each other the same thing: "When did we get so close?"

"Pretty much since you forced them to work out their differences for the good of a frat party." Kyle says something, and both of us laugh a little. "It's all because of you."

"All right, whatever. We won't take them with us." She makes the announcement, and we hear people moving around and walking as they get ready to leave.

We hear the door open and a lot of feet walking out of the building. Both of us seem to take a tense breath.

"Thank the hell." He sighs, and I nod to show that I agree with him.

Nobody needed to know what we were up to, because if they did, it would be a huge mess. Even more so because nothing was going on and everyone was just helping each other.

She has the worst voice." I mumble, and he laughs a little and gives me a shrug.

"Yeah." He says yes, and I roll over on my back, hating how I felt about everything. I hated that I liked being close to him so much, and I hated that he had kissed Piper a few weeks before. If he didn't like her, why would he do that? What was he doing with me, and how did he feel?

"Y-you no longer have to stay." I shake my head and sigh. "They left, you can go after them."

"You'd like me to leave?" He sounds confused as he asks. "Because I don't want to chase after them."

"Well what do you want?" I slide out from under the covers and sit up to ask.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means this is very hard to understand." I say it out loud, run my hand over my face, and get out of bed. "This doesn't happen often between friends, let alone roommates, and it happens even less often between people who don't get along."

"I'm just trying to help," she said. He stands up on the other side of my bed to make his point. "I thought we were going to do that. Is that right? Trying to do better?" Even from the other side of a queen mattress, his big body was scary. "You say I'm making Julianna confused, but you change your mind about things all the time."

"I'm set on my decision!" I insist.

"You do! You always act differently around me every other day. You think about every single thing we do together!"

"That's what I have to do!" I shout with my arms crossed. You have no idea what you're doing sometimes, Kent! I get whiplash from the way you treat me. Every time I think I've figured you out or know where we stand, you change things. You yell at me, then you give me mean looks, then you drive me home, or be my friend, or fucking wrap your arms around me."

"I'm thinking about how to act best, Julianna. You make things hard." When he tells me, it makes my heart sink. I have tears in my eyes and do my best to stay calm. His chest is heaving, and even in the dark, his green eyes are bright MM.

"Do you remember how it was when I met you for the first time?" I cross my arms and ask him, and his face softens. Before I go on, I clear my throat because it hurts. "You were so nice to me. You asked me questions and came over to introduce yourself. You didn't treat me any differently than Mark and Kyle did. And between the first time we met and when I moved in, you changed."

"Juliana, you don't know me."