Joy Gabala
Uncomfortable.
It’s the only word that summarizes how I feel. A warm dog lies over my feet. I never had my own dog growing up so this is foreign to me. A woman’s limp wrist lays over my bare hip. She’s drooling. She and the dog probably drool the same amount in their sleep.
I was invited over to play scrabble, but the box still sits in her living room. Like the words we could have said, they sit in the open untouched.
I squint at my watch in the dark, but between my contacts sticking to my tired eyes, and the closed blinds I can barely make it out. My phone slid under her bed. I grabbed for it, but found an empty Miller Lite instead.
I want to be in my bed. I long for my skincare routine. I can feel a pimple readying itself under my skin.
My teeth feel fuzzy. We aren’t at the point of this arrangement of me having a toothbrush here yet. But we will, because she’s looking for someone to occupy her bed before she graduates, and I like the attention.
She moves again, her sweaty hand tightens around my waist.
One too many women have fallen in love with my body before falling in love with me. She’s just one that I’m sacrificing my sleep schedule for.
I never stay on school nights.
I like to have control of my schedule.
But my routine tomorrow? She will drop me off at 7:15 a.m. where I will have to rush through my schedule in 45 minutes and settle for a nap between my classes.
I’ve told her before that I don’t stay over on school nights. she would have driven me home, but her lips tasted too much of beer for me to allow it. So here I am stuck listening to her snoring and watching the sunrise till she wakes. I should know by now, when in stranger’s beds, the evenings are fine but the nights are long.