Amber Storms

Comfort

Ambrose

I knew what he was doing.

Per usual, he was being the selfless hero, pretending everything was fine so I wouldn’t feel embarrassed about what was happening outside. It didn’t take any convincing whatsoever to “persuade” me to join him...and he made it seem like this was part of the plan all along, rain or shine. Han really is a thoughtful gem.

My fingers migrate towards one another, picking the sides of my nails raw. I'm trying not to fidget, but I’m still in my head about our friendship. I always want to hang out or just lay around watching our favorite shows like this, and half the time he is the one initiating it. But even now, we’re on the same bed and he feels so far away from me. Of course, I just have to be an over thinker and this one is doing me in. I mean, is it a bad thing that I want to spend time with him or be close to him? That’s what best friends are for, right?

Half of me is wondering if Han is a mind reader or if I said that last part out loud because, all of a sudden, his smooth chest is in view, inches from my face. I inhale him, committing to memory the clean masculine smell and desperately resist the urge to touch his taut pale neck. Two clicks sound and the room becomes several shades darker, shadows created from the T.Vs light growing larger. The light on Han’s side of the bed is still on, casting a glow behind his beautiful face as he flashes his perfect smile in my direction. Unexpectedly, he ruffles my hair while he makes himself comfortable, his body brushing against mine with every shift. My side warms with his closer proximity, traveling up to my face and down my stomach. I press the heel of my hand against my thigh, while struggling to keep this one wall, that I’ve built and rebuilt several times over the years, intact.

Tales of Sicily and St. Olaf play as we get caught up in our childhood favorite TV drama meant for old housewives and millennials, redeeming some sort of “coolness” factor. The storm has permeated our home with several heart-stopping sounds throughout the night, but nothing could have prepared me for this one, the loudest one I have ever heard, coming from right behind us in the backyard. Ringing pierces my ears and I'm aware that I am looking straight ahead at Han, but I can’t see anything but the flashback playing in slow motion.

Everything is smokey and crimson, blood dripping from gray leather headrests, my dad's arms dangling to the middle of the car, almost as if reaching for my motionless mother on the passenger side. I clench my hands remembering the feeling of glass under them, the heady stench of spilled gasoline surrounding me…

I don’t register Han leaping from the bed, and barely detect the dip of the mattress when he returns as my past nightmare reel takes over all my thoughts. His mouth is moving rapidly but it comes out like static spurts until I can make out what he is trying to say, “...afraid…I know with the accident…please say something…you can lay on me if you need to, ya know, like when we were younger...” Before I could get out my answer, he abruptly reaches out to me, grabbing my body and yanks me to him, gripping so tightly it stuns me momentarily.

There used to be times soon after the accident where he would hold me like this and allowed me to embrace him, fiercely grasping the clothes on his back, almost as if letting go would mean him falling over into an invisible waterfall. It felt like if I were to detach our link, he’d disappear forever, just like them.

My head pounds from furrowing my brows with such intensity; I haven’t been this worked up in a long time. Ironically, sweat forms on the back of my neck even though I have chilled goosebumps spanning from head to toe. My clenching muscles and blank eyes tell Han through my silence that my anxiety is through the roof.

I do need this…so I take him up on his offer.

Nodding my head, he scoots back to open the covers, holding them up, inviting me. We slip underneath, the velvet throws already heated from our bodies sitting atop them for so long. I don’t wait for him to resituate the pillows behind him before I lower myself further, wrapping my arms around the trunk of his torso. I let the side of my head rest on the space in between his hard chest and stomach, his milky skin so warm up against my cheek.

I exhale, feeling the calm rise and fall of his diaphragm. I haven’t the slightest clue how he can breathe this normally with me still squeezing so tightly. I know I look pathetic, but he lets me cling to him during the storm. He always has.

I take inventory of this moment, not knowing if it will be the last time my body will be pressed against his like this. I have already mentally checked off how he feels, how he smells, and as my head is downcast, I can make out a few random freckles on his right hip in the dim lighting. When we were kids, we used to take a sharpie and would play “connect the dots” to make shapes like in the tracing books we would buy. The easiest one to do was always a capital “A” because of the natural way his freckles pattern fell into my initial. Sometimes he wouldn't immediately scrub the artwork away and walk around with my mark on his hip, along with the stars and other doodles we’d drawn. Needless to say, Umma Noe wasn’t happy that we ruined so many of his shirts that year.

The house shakes a little again, not as violently as before, and I close my eyes, but Han is the epitome of calm. Even if he is a little worried about the large tree outside, he doesn’t show it at all. He lets me use him as the strong rock I direly need. He knows this takes me back to the worst night of my life and it always starts with the booming of thunder - then it will hit me emotionally and almost physically, if that even makes sense.

I turn my head to his chest and rest my forehead against it…trying to think about anything else other than that night. I'm not quick enough to shake those memories that try to creep back up away, and a tangy taste invades my mouth as I bite my lip too hard. Predicting my thought dilemma, Han squeezes my arm reassuringly and takes his other hand steadily through my already disheveled hair, kindly moving the umber strands behind my ears. He continues to soothe me, running his palm down until he lands on my lower back, drawing circles into my shirt. His other hand, still on my arm, drags up and down, consoling me. The pain eases and slowly the haunting memories dissolve.

This man is a f*****g magician.

Shifting to rest my cheek back down on him, my lips accidentally graze the swell at the top of his abdominal muscles - but just barely. s**t. My stomach knots in anticipation, hoping I didn’t make him uncomfortable. I didn’t calculate the space between us…it was an innocent mistake of being too close and not picking my head up far enough. I almost apologize when he stops rubbing my arm for a nanosecond, but instead he repositions himself under me, slightly bending his right knee.