As It Was

Chandler

Early morning sunlight beamed through the living room curtains and over my face, causing my eyes to scrunch and shy away from the blaring abuse. I nuzzled my head into something warm and soft to escape the sudden onslaught.

My brows furrowed slightly as I continued to rub my face against the object in front of me. The smell was of laundry detergent and something slightly sweet, but most importantly- unmistakably Henry Sallow.

My eyes snapped open, allowing me to take in my surroundings. Curled up in front of me was a sight that made my breath catch in my throat. Henry laid pressed up against me, face nuzzled into my chest.

Warm puffs of air escaped his pouted lips as he slept peacefully. I took note of how his hands were curled up between our stomachs and his sweatpant-clad legs intertwined with my longer ones.

Both of our bodies were tangled in a mass of blankets strewn over the couch. As I looked down at his sleeping face, I tried to convince myself that the heat from all of the covers we were enveloped in was the reason for this strange heat that began to climb up the back of my neck.

Henry's hair was a messy halo around his head as he laid on my bicep, the strands looking unimaginably soft where they stuck up in random directions.

His naturally groomed brows were lightly furrowed as he stirred for a moment in his slumber, eyes scrunching for a moment before he went still once again and dozed back off.

My gaze traveled to where his wispy lashes cast little shadows on his cheekbones, slightly rosy from sleep. His eyes were always ones that you couldn't forget. There are faces you just remember, not knowing why.

In the beginning, Henry had always been the quaint, quiet boy in the back of the classroom. Prim and proper, his uniform was consistently in perfect shape. His small body was as pressed and professional as his black-framed glasses and perfectly groomed hair.

Despite my simply noticing him, it wasn't until we'd first interacted the day he helped me all those years back that I somehow immediately knew why his face was so unforgettable to me.

It was like an unspoken bond. Nothing ever needed to be said, but the way his honey eyes slightly sparkled in the early evening sun when I'd seen them up close for the first time showed me many things that I hadn't ever seen before.

His eyes were like orbs of light that seemed to hold all knowledge and wisdom. They reflected in the light, shying away from my own but causing me to slip into a small, curious trance when he finally looked me in the eye.

They were round, doe-like, and innocent. It was as if they hadn't once seen any darkness. Unfortunately, I learned that presumption wasn't true later on. His face just seemed to contain this enthralling quality that made you want to stare at it all day long. It made you so curious- you wanted to read him like a book that you couldn’t put down until you finally got some answers. Something about him made me curious. Why was this small boy with his big, pretty, and wise eyes so sheltered?

Back then, I'd assumed it's because he just had slightly more unique features than I was used to seeing- a straight little nose, pouted lips, and doll eyes that looked like they should belong to a girl instead of a young boy.

As I observed his soft face in all of its glory now, it started to make sense.

I still didn’t know exactly what it was about him that made me crave more, but with each sunrise it was becoming harder to resist.

It felt like I was about to cross a line that neither of us physically drew ourselves but one that created itself all those years ago.

My pulse began to pick up as I let my eyes guiltily travel down to Henry's mouth. His lips were pouted and rosy, suddenly looking incredibly inviting where they opened slightly to release tiny puffs of air as he slept peacefully.

Suddenly, I wasn't so sleepy anymore.

My body was aching for something that my mind was trying to deny. No matter how much I tried to push it all away and ignore it, it came back to bite me in the ass twice as hard.

It was like this constant need to be closer to him was planted within me. More than any childhood attachment I'd ever felt- this was more than a comfort thing. When he was at work, I waited as the hours dragged on one by one. I tried to busy myself by cleaning, watching a movie, and just lounging around. I wasn't allowed to start driving yet, so my freedom was limited.

I was like a little loyal puppy; tail wagging and waiting for its owner. When he got home, it was like every minute spent by his side was no longer enough.

Somewhere in the back of my mind was a past shadow of myself. It was laughing at me, pathetically wondering how I'd managed to live my life before the accident.

Back then, we saw each other often, but we still had our own lives. We both worked during the week and didn't see each other in person until Friday nights and over the weekends.

Now, I saw him every day and couldn’t even fathom the thought of being back in my own apartment, lonely and devoid of the clumsy boy wandering around humming and mumbling to himself- just simply being there.

I didn't know exactly how we'd gotten into the current predicament. We'd been watching a horrible movie and obviously dosed off after I’d convinced Henry to get more comfortable and lay down. I refused to accept that my own selfish curiosity and need to be closer to him was what drove the suggestion in the first place.

Yet, the searing heat I could feel against me was a nearly painful reminder that this brought a whole new, intimate meaning to a sleepover.

Warmth spread to my cheeks at the fact that Henry was comfortable enough that he fell asleep as easily as I did. Hell, he clearly slept so well that he didn't wake up and notice how we'd managed to get twisted under the warm blanket strewn across our bodies.

Or, if he did, he didn't care enough to move.

An excited spark lit in my stomach at that thought.

Why? Did I want Henry to feel these odd feelings for me like I did for him as of late? I didn't have any answers to the questions that were constantly biting at me. I was crumbling under the weight of denial sitting heavily on my shoulders.

It's not like we hadn't been this close before, but back then, it didn't really mean anything. It was a natural instinct I felt to take care of the intricately delicate, caring, and soft boy that I was lucky enough to call my best friend and make sure he always felt safe. It wasn’t ‘cuddling’ per say, just offering mutual comfort for both of us the way one would do with a sibling.

In that moment, though, I was almost afraid of how close our bodies were to one another. I felt like the bad guy- like a villain with hidden intentions.

I felt guilty for committing a crime that I hadn't even done.

However, my heart was trying to tell me something that clearly had more power over my fragile, sleepy state than my weak conscience. My hand seemed to move on its own, my pointer finger slowly extending and hovering over the slope of his pert bottom lip.

My breath caught in my throat as the pad of my finger grazed against him at last. The skin there was soft and supple, pliant as I let my finger gently run across it back and forth a few times before I forced myself to stop.

Why is this happening?

I'd seen this face time and time again, but studying it up close like this without the threat of him knowing allowed me to see deeper than I had before. I was opening up a new door that I never thought I would be turning the handle to.

Maybe it was unlocked all along, just waiting for me to give it a push and look inside.

My fingers were no longer obeying my brain, charged with an energy that I couldn't contain. My fingers gently cupped the side of his face, hand shaking slightly when his soft cheek nestled perfectly in my palm.

That was another thing that just seemed to make sense- we fit just right. When I pulled him close, he was just small enough to fit right up next to me. I towered over him by quite a few inches, making him appear even smaller even though he was average height.

Like two unexpectedly matching puzzle pieces, we meshed in all the right ways.

My thumb stroked the top of his cheekbone at first before cautiously moving toward his nose and then settling under his chin for a moment before moving back up and resting on his smooth cheek. The skin seemed to meld to my hand- petal-soft, giving, and emitting an addicting warmth so strongly that for a moment, I was sure I'd never be able to move again.

It then occurred to me just how close our faces were. At that moment, everything else seemed to stop. The low buzz of the television dissipated into thin air, leaving the room silent save for my heart pounding wildly in my ears.

What the hell am I doing?

My movements were slow and careful as if he were a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow. I swallowed, my head slowly inching closer to his as my mind began to fuzz over.

My heart was pounding hard in the rigid confines of my ribcage, and I began to fear that Henry would wake up from the sound. At that point, I couldn't seem to stop myself from giving into the burning curiosity of what he felt like. No longer control my own body, I was positively itching to see what would happen.

My eyes searched his face for any signs of movement, checking to see if he was still asleep.

This is a stupid idea.

You're not thinking straight.

There was a pun I could have made there, but I pushed the thought far away as my eyes began to flutter shut, our noses just barely brushing. Henry's soft breath tickled my lips as we laid just an inch apart. His smell was intoxicating, invading all of my senses as the lingering smell of his body wash and shampoo began to cling to the surrounding air.

I really should stop-

I took in a deep breath, careful not to jostle the sleeping boy on my arm as he laid on my bicep just centimeters away from my face. My arm had gone numb from supporting the weight of his head, but the pins and needles did nothing to deter me from what I was thinking of doing.

My mind kept yelling at me-screaming to stop and realize that whatever was going on couldn't grow into anything more and that I needed to turn around and walk away before I did something I would regret. My conscience was staring me straight in the face, warning me to close this door that I'd mistakenly found the key to.

Why did I have to suffer this way with no answers? What was this force that I'd been feeling since I woke up in that hospital bed? Why was that strange tickle of butterflies and angst spreading further and further inside me every day?

Why isn’t it going away?

It wasn't the same butterflies that I'd gotten from seeing a girl I liked in school or being around someone I found especially attractive. It was a pulsating flame that was positively raving within me, stronger than anything else I'd ever had to endure before.

The scariest part wasn't that the feelings revolved around another man, although that alone was a challenge in itself for me to process. The horror rooted from the fact that the cravings were aimed toward my best friend- this person that I’d known for years and had shared my life with for so long.

How could it be? Every time I told myself it couldn't be anything more than my fragile mind trying to cope with the trauma from the accident, one look at Henry jolted something inside me in a way that forced me to face reality.

It started in the pit of my stomach, only a far away ache that I could ignore. It then spread through me like a wildfire more and more, ceaseless and unforgivingly scalding as it worked its way into every part of my being.

I needed to know if this feeling was a new longing for Henry that I never felt before, or if it was just a deep fear rooted from the fact that I was merely ripped from someone whom I held so close to my heart.

I felt like I was lying to myself, but I didn't know why. I couldn't let myself hold back and simply do nothing about these foreign feelings anymore.

I felt like I was going absolutely insane, wanting to jump out of my own skin and run somewhere- anywhere else but this cage I was trapped in with these festering voices in my head. They cawed and wildly swooped at me like angry crows, vicious and unforgiving until I did something to stop them.

"Just do it." I whispered to myself quietly, lips inching so close to Henry’s that there must have been less than a millimeter of space between us.

This was it.

If I felt nothing, I would know. He was asleep- he wouldn't feel it. Just a quick brush of skin to see if these feelings meant what my cocky older brother and a few friends claimed were true since day one; that there was something much deeper between Henry and I that I was simply too dense to see before.

It was incredibly selfish, and I wasn't proud of it. Yet, I needed confirmation before I lost my mind completely.

I sucked in one last breath, holding it as I leaned forward the last inch and prepared to feel our mouths connect, not knowing if I was about to feel an explosion of fireworks like you see in movies or feel absolutely nothing at all.

Just then, the tension that had been screaming at me louder than anything else in the universe snapped like a taut string being plucked, spiraling to a skidding stop. The daze I'd been so lost in shattered, clattering to the floor in pieces all around me as the doorbell rang.

"Shit!" I jumped up, my limbs flailing as shock and surprise nearly gave me a heart attack. My wild movements sent a previously sleeping Henry to the ground, falling to the floor with a thud.

A small groan could be heard from the floor next to the couch as his feathery-haired head peered up slowly.

"-the hell is going on?" his morning voice was thick with sleep, wide eyes puffy as he looked around in confusion.

"T-the doorbell scared me." I managed to stutter, "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean for you to fall. It's just-you were laying on me and I didn't expect the doorbell to ring and-" I scrambled to help him up from the floor, dusting off his sweater and checking him for bruises much like a worried mother.

"I'm fine, Chan. It's alright." Henry chuckled at my panicked state, looking up at me with those big doe eyes that affected me more and more every time I saw them.

He sleepily wobbled to the door with a hand on his surely sore bum. I flushed as my eyes unconsciously tracked the subtle sway of his hips and the way his pert backside filled out the sweatpants he was adorned in just right.

I coughed awkwardly and scratched the back of my neck, averting my vision to the wall in shame when he opened the door and bent down to grab something that was just on the other side of it.

"It's a package..." he mumbled more to himself than anyone else, "must be the new phone case I ordered a couple of days ago." He added after closing the door and making his way to the kitchen table to set down the small box. He rounded the counter and opened the refrigerator, peeking his head inside before shouting to me, "You hungry?"

"Uh," my mind was a jumbled mess. Nothing made sense and all of my limbs were suddenly starting to feel numb. I needed to get away from him as fast as possible. He was everywhere- his smell, his belongings, and his voice. It all surrounded me and suddenly it felt like I was drowning, "Just a little... I'm going to go wash up. I'll be out in a bit."

I didn't wait for his response before I made a bee-line for the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. My onyx hair was disheveled and my eyes were still puffy from sleep. My sweater was wrinkled and suddenly smelled far too strongly like the man I spent the night holding like my damn life depended on it.

I didn't think twice before stripping from head to toe and throwing my clothes into the hamper behind me. I quickly turned the shower on and stepped in. The water was cold and unforgiving, but I welcomed it as it chilled my scalding skin.

It woke me up and began to clear the fog that had been thickly swirling inside my head just seconds prior.

What was I thinking?

What if I'd really done it? What if I actually kissed Henry?

If that damn doorbell hadn't scared me so badly, I would've done something I couldn't even fathom to imagine.

I shook my head and let the ice-cold water cascade over my head and down my back as I felt shame crash into me harder than a tidal wave.

Part of me was being ripped apart. I wanted things to be as they were before the accident- before I slipped into a coma and woke up two months later with strange, crazy feelings toward my best friend that I couldn't even explain.

I scrubbed my hair and body clean of his smell and watched with a slight pang in my chest as the suds drifted down the drain and left me in the shower feeling alone and empty. Despite the scorching heat of the now warmed up water, I was so cold.

It must have been a sign. Clearly, I wasn't thinking about my actions and was acting on pure curiosity. It was reckless, clumsy, and too close to becoming a big mistake.

I could have ruined things between us. Even if I'd felt nothing, I knew in that moment that it still wouldn't have been the same. Still, the way my pulse never failed to pick up in his presence forced me to acknowledge everything that'd changed.

I felt disgusted with myself- with the fact that I almost took advantage of him while he was in such a vulnerable state.

I almost crossed the line, but I had to think that what almost happened just wasn't meant to be, not then and maybe not ever. I had to remind myself that all these feelings may be something my subconscious cooked up in order to seek comfort. The doctors said that I'd be in a more fragile state of mind and that physical and mental support from my loved ones is vital to my recovery.

Even if it was empty words I was forcing down my throat, I swallowed it each one despite the blood every sharp lie left in its wake. Running in circles was exhausting, but I didn't know what else to do. As I got out of the shower and tied a plush white towel around my waist, I took a deep breath and mumbled little nothings to myself.

Full of faked confidence, I put on a smile and exited the bathroom.

"Breakfast is almost ready!" Henry's small voice sang from the kitchen and drifted down the hall, shouting over the sizzling of food he was cooking. My mouth watered at the smell of bacon being fried on the stove, warm and positively delicious.

"I'll be there in a minute!" I called back, making my way to the bedroom where my clothes hung in the closet. I was trying desperately to make it feel normal; like this morning's events never transpired. After I slipped on some lounging clothes and made my way to the kitchen, all the hope I'd managed to muster just seconds prior faded.

Henry waltzed around the kitchen in his little apron, over-grown bangs pinned back with a small clip and glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.

Damn you.

I gathered plates, glasses, and silverware for us to eat with as he began to plate our food. The tension inside my stomach began to easy slightly but the layers of anxiety and shame continued to bite at me restlessly. Perhaps I was losing it. Was this my spiral into insanity? My mind flashed to an image of a prim and proper newscaster reading a breaking headline, "Young Man Wakes from a Two-Month Coma, Beating All Odds but Goes Completely Insane".

I couldn't even laugh at the thought as my mind began to seriously question the severity of whatever was going on. I wasn't sure how to pull myself out of this hole I seemed to dig myself into. I was losing control, and I didn't quite know how to get it back.

I positively couldn't tell him when I didn't even know how to fathom any of it myself. That would bring nothing but confused rejection and, most likely, a mess that I wasn't so sure I could clean up.

As we ate, the food became a thankful distraction from everything. For just a little while, things were almost as they always had been. Even if it was just for a bit, I was able to forget about everything else. It was just Henry and I. Jokes were cracked and stupid stories were looked back on, leaving us gasping for air and holding our full stomachs. It felt familiar and comforting, my mind finally not scrutinizing my every thought and action. Yet, no perfect moment lasts forever. We had to move on and start the day, giving me time to get lost in my head again.

I could only take so much. My sanity was slipping out of my grip like sand pouring out from between my fingers. It was a constant reminder that something was clearly changing, even if I didn't know exactly what it is and why it was happening. You can can try to ignore something as much as you want, but there will always be a consistent nagging that makes you more frustrated each time.

No matter how bad I wanted to jump ship and call it a day, I was already here. Whatever was going on had demanded attention whether I liked it or not. No matter how much I tried to deny it, I was falling into deep shit.

Would I make it out unscathed? I couldn't be sure.

As I washed the dishes in the sink, Henry began to clean up the couch that had blankets strewn all over it from last night. He giggled at a show playing on the TV every few moments, leaving me a mass of fond looks and head shakes as I was reminded of just how innocent and childlike this man still was.

No matter how scared I was by what was happening to me, a tiny voice in the back of my head tried to rationalize the situation. It realized that as long as it involved Henry, who knew me better than anyone and I could trust with my life, I didn't truly mind why or how I was falling down this rabbit hole. Don't get me wrong, it was scary as hell and incredibly frustrating, but deep down, I was still comforted by the fact that it was with him and not someone else.

It was like jumping off the edge and straight into the unknown. As I watched the boy I'd known for so many years trip over the edge of the rug in such an endearing way that I couldn't help but cackle aloud at his actions, I had an epiphany of sorts.

Nothing made sense right now, but I was quickly realizing that maybe it didn't matter. I had to learn to live in the now. Living in fear of 'what if' would do nothing but tear me apart from him. Things were different now, whether I liked it or not. Even if I was the only one that could feel it, at least I still had him in my life. Even if I was indeed going crazy, as long as I had my partner in crime at my side, the chances of making it through were pretty high.

I couldn't be blindly pushed into this new world of feelings without being terrified, but I wouldn't refrain from them either. I had to try to step away from the sidelines where I was cowering in fear, but I wouldn't force it either.

I almost lost everything once, and I couldn't let myself worry so much about the little things. I got a second chance when far too many others didn't, so I had to try and make this work out somehow.

I firmly decided that I was going to let this current carry me where it wanted and pray that I didn't get caught in a whirlpool. Hopefully the storm would pass and we'd be in the clear. If I let myself be led through this new door that opened up to me, and if Henry welcomed me on the other side, then maybe things could start to make some sense.

It was more daunting than anything else to try and admit to myself, but I knew there would be no moving forward with my life if I didn't do so. It was akin to being dangled in front of a blazing fire with nothing to hold onto but a piece of thread. If I wasn't careful enough, I'd slip and succumb to the sweltering heat. If I did nothing at all, I'd slowly roast as the flames lapped at my skin until they engulfed me completely.

Either way, there's a possibility of getting burned.

Yet, even after everything that I'd been through these last couple of months, one thing had remained constant. I've never been one to sit back and watch myself be torn apart by anything or anyone, especially not by fear. They say fighting fire with fire is never a good idea, but if it's taunting me in all its blazing glory, I'm going to play.

They also say that change is good sometimes. Maybe that's what I needed right now. After so much chaos, the bad things always seemed to wither away when he was around. Since waking up, Henry had made himself my home, my comfort, and my outlet all in one. He morphed into my own little garden of Eden. He had already been a monumental pillar of support in my life, but it had all heightened now.

Maybe it was time I start seeing things for what they were instead of what they were before or were supposed to be.

Maybe Sam really was right, and I'm just extremely bad at seeing what's right in front of me.

Best friends, family, or something in between? Maybe it was none of the above.

Maybe it had always been more than that, and maybe it was time that I embraced it.