Page 65 of Lovesick
Crouching down to be eye level with her, I begin wetting her hair, washing away the sticky remnants of the eventful night. Liquid cascades down her head and shoulders, plinking into the mostly stagnant sea that laps against the briny flesh of her lower back.
I don’t even realize she’s crying again until her frame shakes. “I’m so sorry. I ruined the whole night, and now you have to look after me.”
I chuckle—probably not an appropriate response, but an instinctual one. “You didn’t ruin anything, Merit. I had a great time tonight,” I reassure her, combing my fingers through her damp tresses and loosening the grime.
“But you didn’t even get drunk.”
“I don’t need to be drunk to have a good time with you.”
Reaching for a bottle of grapefruit shampoo, I squirt a pink dollop into my hand, lathering it up before scrubbing my fingers over her scalp. She leans into my mollifying ministrations as affection calcifies in my bones.
“I didn’t want to drink so much. I just got nervous,” she confesses.
Nervous? Merit doesn’t strike me as someone who gets nervous. In fact, I’d say she’s more prepared than the average person.
“You wanna tell me why you were nervous?” I ask, pouring a cupful of water over her head and watching as the frothyshampoo drains into the now-lukewarm bath. It collects in a bubbling film around her waist.
She refuses to look at me, a sanguine blush draping over her cheeks. “You—hic—make me nervous.”
I can’t help but jerk back in surprise. “Me?”
What is she talking about? I’m the nervous wreck around here—aroundher. I can’t think straight when we’re in the same room. She makes it both easier and harder to breathe, and my heart is in a constant state of anxiety because of her.
Merit Lawson isn’t the kind of drug that you just quit—she’s the kind that you dedicate your entire life to.
“Don’t play dumb, Crew. You’re…you! You’re the captain of the hockey team who’s going to get signed to the NHL by the end of college. You’re literally the local celebrity of MU, and your muscles are so big that they have their own zip code.”
“Zip code, huh?”
Merit plays coy like she isn’t naked in front of me. “Yuh-huh.”
I wring out some of her umber locks—which have turned near-black underneath the water. “I don’t know, Princess. I think you may have me beat in the muscle department,” I say, poking her defined arm.
I’m not lying. Dance is one of the hardest sports there is, and Merit is the most talented performer I’ve ever seen. She has the same chance of going pro in her field as I do in mine.
I grab her equally aromatic conditioner, slicking the ends of her hair in clumps of white cream. “By the way,you’rethe one who makesmenervous. I’m always a mess around you. Do you know how insanely talented you are? How smart you are? How beautiful you are? You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.”
I’m surprised everything sails out of my mouth smoothly. Being this close to her makes my pulse hurtle and my stomach sizzle with warmth. It also gives me a clear view of somethingI’ve never noticed before—a thin, jagged scar cutting between her breasts like an inlet between rocky shorelines.
Look, I don’t want to sound like a perv, but I’ve been spellbound by Merit’s chest a few times in the past, and I’ve never noticed this. Surely I would have, right? Why has she never told me about it?
Finally, she makes eye contact with me, a genuine, dimple-inducing smile playing over her mouth. “You really mean that?”
It’s funny how she doesn’t realize that I’d lay my heart on the line for her.
“More than you could possibly understand.”
Toweling Merit off, I get her dressed in an oversized T-shirt and some pajama shorts, prepping her bed like a penguin building a comfy nest for their lifetime mate. I rummaged around for everything she might need—extra pillows and blankets, a heating pad, ibuprofen, a giant glass of water, Gatorade, and some saltines.
Merit snuggles underneath her quilted, rose-colored comforter, her wet hair fanning out over a matching throw pillow. Her room is quite spacious for a two-bedroom apartment, adhering to a color palette of pastel pinks and off-whites. She has various succulents on her desk and shelves—which have been taken over by school supplies and quirky trinkets—and fairy lights droop from the overlapping spindles in the ceiling. A barrister bookshelf is stuffed to the brim with multicolored spines, multiple first-place dance trophies, and a picture of her younger self in an adorable, bubblegum-pink tutu.
Faded Polaroids of her friends and family form a collage on the adjoining wall as sleek, ivory frames harbor everything from Sakura prints, bows and cherries illustrated in watercolorbrushstrokes, and a quote in cursive that reads: “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” But the pièce de resistance is the candy floss bed curtains that form a canopy over her mattress.
I managed to find myself a pair of oversized shorts that fit me, but the shirt department was…lacking. So, I squeezed myself into one of her MU T-shirts, which cuts off just below my navel.
I sit down on her bed and stroke her head comfortingly. A mantle of moonlight filters in from the slats in her blinds, projecting alabaster striations over her bed that slice through the impinging darkness. She stirs a little under my touch as exhaustion lassoes her and drags her further into the depths of semiconsciousness.
“Crew, my stomach hurts,” she whines, burying her face in her pillow.
