My eyes snap open, and for a second, I don't know where I am. There's light pouring in through the blinds, and it's disorienting enough that I have to blink a few times before I remember that I'm still in the living room.
Ugh, my head.
"Everest?" I say quietly, but don't get a response.
He's still sleeping.
I scramble out of bed and away from him, heading to the kitchen and glancing at the digital clock above the stove. It's still relatively early. I open the fridge and get a glass of water from the pitcher, sitting at the table and sipping. I feel awful, and it's not just my hangover.
Ugh.
Ugh!
I put my glass down and prop my elbows up on the table, pressing my palms over my eyes. I'm so tired of this. I'm so, so tired of this. I thought I was getting better at keeping my feelings under control, but I was wrong. This whole time Gwen was around it was just easier to push them away, but now that she's out of the picture, they all came flooding back.
I pull my hands away from my face and take a deep breath, picking my water back up and finishing it. It's fine. This is fine. It has to be fine.
I debate on taking a painkiller but decide against it. Instead, I go upstairs to my bedroom. I flop into my bed and try to force away the headache. I don't know how long I'm lying there, but eventually, I hear footsteps. When my door swings open, Everest's standing there.
"Hey," he says. "How do you feel?"
"Not great. You?"
"Not great," he echoes with a laugh.
I sit up and he plops down at my feet. "Sorry I passed out on you," he apologizes.
"Oh, that's fine," I say, playing it off. I think I fell asleep first, but if he doesn't realize I'll keep it that way.
I should have just moved upstairs when I felt myself getting tired, but I didn't because I'm an idiot. I wanted to be close to him and now I get to spend the morning hating myself for it.
"I was pretty drunk," he chuckles. "How many did I have? I can't even remember."
"Were you?" I ask, kind of surprised. "I couldn't tell."
"Well, you were pretty drunk too."
"But I didn't puke," I force a smile.
Everest laughs. "But you didn't puke," he agrees.
"Did you?" I ask.
"Nah," he says, then frowns and asks, "Do you think Gwen will come home today?"
"I don't know, man," I admit. "But I can still kick her out… It's my name on the lease, not hers. Just say the word."
"Yeah...I just don't want to create more conflict than I already did."
"You didn't create any conflict," I insist. "Nothing that happened was even your fault. It's all Gwen's fault."
He smiles wearily. "As much as I want to believe that, it's not really true, is it? I can't just put all the blame on her."
I wrinkle my nose. "I don't think you did anything wrong."
"We should have ended things sooner. I should have broken things off before everything turned to shit."
"It's not your fault," I reason. "You liked her."
"I did...but that feeling went away fast and then I just got comfortable being in a relationship. I don't know if I even liked her at the end. You always say she liked me for the wrong reasons… but maybe I liked her for the wrong reasons, too."
"Like…?" I pry.
"I don't know," he shrugs. "I said it before...girls like Gwen are never into me."
"You'd never even met someone "like" Gwen before you moved here and you started dating her pretty much immediately."
This conversation is hard for me to have. I don't really feel like sitting here and reassuring him that more girls will come running his way. I'm positive they will. He'll find someone new to date and I'll be the third wheel as per usual.
Everest sits with that for a minute. "I guess that's true," he finally agrees. "We jumped into it pretty fast."
"You guys were flirting on day one," I remind him. "Then you were taken, so of course you weren't getting propositions from random people."
As if anyone would risk stepping on Gwen like that.
She would have nipped it in the bud right away. I guess that's fair. If Everest were mine, I wouldn't want him flirting with other people either. He's not mine though, so I'll have to see him flirting with other people all the time, especially now that he's single. It was bad enough when he and Gwen were fooling around. Gwen was just one girl, but seeing all kinds of girls approaching him will suck even more.
"I guess," Everest mutters. "I don't know…"
"Look, it's not the end of the world, man. I haven't had a girlfriend in forever and I'm doing fine."
"Well, yeah… but you don't seem to want one. I do."
"Are you afraid of being alone?" I can't help but ask. Maybe it's an invasive question, but he's the one who won't let the conversation end.
"Um," Everest looks uncomfortable. "I don't know?"
"You don't know," I repeat back to him.
"Well, I mean who really likes being single?"
"Me," I flat out lie.
I don't like being single. I just don't have any other option.
Everest furrows his brow. "Right," he says. "I guess...then…I don't know, maybe I am afraid of being alone."
I hate to hear that, but it makes sense and that's why I bothered asking in the first place. Back in high school, Everest was constantly mooning over girls. He'd talk to me about it a lot and sometimes Julie if the three of us were together. I didn't really want to hear it but I had to act like it was fine. Every time he went out with someone, I'd have to pretend like I was excited for him and not the jealous monster I really am.
"Try not to rush into another relationship," I offer.
Is that decent advice? I think it is, but feel guilty, like I have ulterior motives that will never be fulfilled.
He grunts some non-committal response and shrugs, which tells me he's probably not going to listen to me. Selfishness aside, I think my advice is still reasonable. He rushed into things with Gwen and look how that turned out. It was a mess. I don't want that to happen to him again. She sucked the life out of him.
"Seriously, man," I reiterate.
He lets out a long groan. "It's hard, Ian. I'm not like you. I wish I didn't care about this stuff, but I do."
"You have plenty of time," I point out. "You're still young. Twenty-two is young."
"I feel like I'm in a hurry. I mean, my parents were already popping out kids when they were my age."
"Things are different now," I say simply, though I really do get what he means.
"I guess," he slumps over.
"Would Gwen really have been the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with anyway?" I ask for the sake of it. I already know the answer.
"Ugh, no."
"Can you imagine what it'd be like to try and share everything with her? Or even raise a kid?"
Everest rolls his eyes at that. "Yeah, I see your point," he admits.
The thought of him and Gwen having that sort of life together makes me want to throw up. I can't imagine anything worse.
"So, you'll find someone better," I say for what feels like the millionth time. I hope it finally registers.
Everest grunts. Ugh. I wish he thought more of himself. It sucks that he doesn't. He has such low self-esteem. It's not fair. He's so awesome.
"Do you have any homework?" he asks me out of the blue.
"Uh, not much. Nothing that's due tomorrow at least. Do you want to do something? I mean, after the hangover."
"Yeah, maybe," he considers. "I just want distractions."
"Want to bake something?" I suggest. "That always makes you feel better."
Everest lays back on my bed and knits his fingers together, resting his hands on his stomach.
"Sure, why not?" he concedes after a minute. "Have something in mind?"
"I don't know, something we already have the ingredients for? That way we don't have to go anywhere."
He looks thoughtful for a moment like he's trying to remember what we have in the kitchen. "I think we have ingredients for muffins," he says finally.
"Great, that sounds good to me," I agree without a fuss. If that's what he wants, I'll eat it. It's not like I know how to make anything anyway.
I'll just follow his directions, helping out whatever way he wants me to. I'm not savvy in the kitchen. That's his thing. It's fun for me, though, because I always have something good to eat.
"I'll get the ingredients ready. Come down whenever you're up to it," Everest tells me. "Are you sure you don't want me to bring you anything?"
I shake my head. "I'll be good. It'll pass."
"All right," he agrees, standing up. "If you're sure."
I nod and with that, he heads out.
I lay back on my bed and stare up at the ceiling.
Ugh. Things are hard right now. I keep hoping they'll get easier but they never do.
I laze around for a while longer before I start to feel like I should go help. I hoist myself out of bed and go downstairs. In the kitchen, Everest has a variety of ingredients laid out and is in the middle of mixing a bowl of batter.
"So, we have everything?" I assume.
"Yep," he says with a chuckle. "Feeling okay?"
"Yeah, for the most part. Want help?"
He shakes his head. "Nah, it's cool man. Just take it easy."
"Are you sure? I wanna help."
"You can help with the eating part," he says with a wink.
"Okay, fair. I'm good at that."
Everest returns his attention to the bowl of muffin batter. I watch him for a few minutes, feeling like I'm in a bit of a daze. When I snap out of it, I ask him if he wants to watch TV while we bake. He agrees and I run upstairs to grab my laptop from my room, bringing it back to the kitchen and setting it on the counter. I pull up Netflix and put on one of those competitive baking shows I know Everest is into.
"This is fitting," he comments as he stirs in some blueberries from the freezer that Gwen usually uses for her smoothies. Guess he doesn't care if we take them.
"I like these shows," I admit, pressing pause and waiting for him to pour the batter into the tin. "I think they're really impressive because I'm so bad at cooking."
Everest chuckles. "You really are," he agrees.
"I can't even make an egg," I add.
"I know," he snorts. "You're ridiculous."
"I bet I could learn."
"Yeah, I'm sure you could… if you cared enough to," he jabs, laughing.
I smile sheepishly. "Yeah, probably."
I guess that is a part of it. I never had to learn. I struggled for a while living away from home, but then Everest moved in. He's awesome at all of this… but I'm probably not going to live with him forever. I should probably finally teach myself. It would be nice if I could cook for him once in a while. I wonder if he'd appreciate that. I bet he would, even if it was something simple.
Everest slides the tray into the oven and then wanders across the kitchen to where I'm standing by the counter.
"Let's sit in here," he suggests, picking my laptop up by just the screen. "That way I can check on them while they bake."
"Okay," I agree, so that's what we do. We set up at the dining table and Everest presses play, then we wait while the smell of muffins fills the house.
We end up spending the rest of the afternoon lounging around and eating. It's exactly what I needed to cure my hangover. The muffins were amazing, as always. Everything Everest makes it amazing. I wish I had at least half his talent.
Around ten, I decide to turn in.
"I should, too," Everest says. "My sleep has been screwy lately."
We get up, turning the show off and heading to the bathroom to brush our teeth. He seems wide awake, but I'm a groggy mess. Hopefully, he'll be able to wind down enough to get some sleep.
We bid each other goodnight before going our separate ways. I push open my door, heading straight for my bed and flopping in. Man, it feels good. Hopefully, I'll sleep better tonight than I did yesterday. The pullout is fine, but it's nothing compared to my own.
I roll over and plug in my phone. Then I reach for my lamp and turn off the light, settling down underneath the covers as I set an alarm for the morning.