Light, light spring drifts in like a feather

used for torture, its touch

too much and not enough.

I have two messages on my phone when I wake up the next morning.

One is from Harrison that I'm dreading to listen to and the other one is from an unknown number, which I'm also dreading to listen to. I don't know who it's from but I'm not so sure that I want to know either. I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth before I face my phone and actually listen to the messages that are waiting for me.

I listen to the unknown number's message first, because it seems like the least scary of the two.

"Hi, Eleanor. It's Jay. I talked to my dad—our dad?—about everything, and I need to talk to you about this too. I have a lot of questions. Anyway, let me know if we can meet for coffee or something."

It was short and sweet, which I appreciate, but I'm not sure what to do with that. Of course, I don't want to meet with him to answer all of his questions, but he must be going through some tough realizations right now and questioning his entire family situation. I know that he's been a dick to me, so I shouldn't have to do him any favors, but I think that I'll agree to meet him. It's probably the right thing to do.

As for the message from Harrison, I don't know if the message is from my boss or Micah's dad. They're obviously the same person but they have different motives. Either way, I'm sure that part of this message is going to include a very angry 'you're fired' vibe.

I have to listen to it though, so I take a deep breath and I listen to his message as well.

"Good morning, Eleanor. Micah told me what happened yesterday, I hope that you're doing alright. Anyway, I was hoping that you'd be able to pick up some paperwork from the Capitol tomorrow on your way into work. I'll email you more information later today. It's time sensitive, so I'll need them in the morning. Thank you. And let me know if there's anything that I can do to help you through this tough time. Have a good day."

That definitely was not what I was expecting it to be, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise. I'm not fired, which means that I won't have to go work for Silas. It might be awkward, Harrison being Micah's dad and all, but I'm sure that Micah will know not to come to the office while I'm there.

I try not to think of Micah because just thinking about him makes me want to vomit right now, but I also know that I can't stop thinking about him. It's impossible.

I slept in his plaid shirt last night, so I'm still wearing it. I lie back down in my bed and cover myself with the fabric. I had washed it since he last wore it, so it doesn't even smell like him. It just reminds me of him and it's all that I have.

I hadn't realized that Casey was awake until I hear the toilet flush and then he emerges from the bathroom to join me near my bed in the living room.

"Good morning," I say to him. "What do you want to do today? It's been a while since we've been to the Natural History museum."

"I actually have to get back to campus," He explains as he makes his way into the kitchen to grab an apple for breakfast. "I know a few guys that tutor kids at the public high school, so I'm going to see if they can help me get in there. Or since Josie goes there, maybe she can help too."

"Okay. But you know that you don't-"

"Yes, I do have to," Casey interrupts me because he already knows what I was going to say. "I know that it shouldn't be my responsibility, but it shouldn't be yours either. So, we will both just suck it up and deal with it. I can handle some more responsibility and it would do you some good to maybe take a load off of your shoulders sometimes."

"Alright," I just let him go with it. He needs to feel useful, so I'm not protecting him by telling him that he shouldn't get a job. Not to mention the fact that without my escort jobs, I won't be making as much money. Working for Harrison pays pretty well, so I'm confident that I won't be struggling to pay the bills. I'm just worried about Casey's school payments, because it's such an expensive school.

"Did you talk to Silas?" Casey changes the subject, sitting beside me on the corner of the bed. I sit up with a long yawn and then stretch out a little bit.

"Yeah. Jay picked me up from the station and then took me to their house," I confirm with a nod. "I think that Silas feels guilty, mostly, about leaving us alone all that time. He didn't know that Mom bailed."

"I don't care, he's still an asshole."

"Oh, definitely," I confirm. "And Jay overheard us talking, so he wants to have coffee now. To ask questions about how slimy his father is."

"You shouldn't go," He says.

"I think that I'm going to go," I decide. "He's probably really freaking out right now about who his dad is, and about this second life that he lived. Jay's kind of an asshole too, but I'm not, so I'll go talk to him if that's what he wants."

"Let me know how that disaster goes," Casey tells me with a short laugh.

"I'll keep you posted. Let me give you a ride back to campus," I suggest, getting off of the bed.

I don't get dressed to take him back to school, I just wear my pajama shorts and Micah's blue plaid shirt and we head out.

"I always thought that it was weird that sometimes, you'd be gone for just a few hours when you went to work," He says in the car. "And that you could still afford this school. I never really thought about it that much though. How did you keep this a secret for so long?"

"It's not that hard to tell everybody that I have one job when in reality, I just have another one," I answer him. "And I'd just get dressed downstairs in the lobby of the building."

"You're basically a ninja," He informs me with a short laugh and then he pauses before saying, "When are you really going to talk to Micah?"

"I think that we're done talking," I admit. Even just saying it out loud leaves a bad taste in my mouth and churns my stomach. "He doesn't want anything to do with me. I fucked up, I can't take that back."

"He can't be that mad at you though," Casey refuses. "Are you serious? He obviously really likes you and you were just doing what you felt like you had to do. It's not like you did it just because you wanted to. I get that he's upset right now, but he'll calm down and you shouldn't give up so easily."

"Case, I know that I tell you not to worry about a lot of things. But my romantic life is definitely not something that you need to worry about," I inform my brother.

"You're giving up," He accuses me, completely ignoring what I just said. "And that's ridiculous. Micah is the first person that you have ever actually trusted, and enjoyed being around. Other than me, I know, but I don't count. You can be selfish just this one time and just go for it, because it's what you want. It's what he wants too, you just need to make things right."

"This isn't something that I can just make right."

"I heard you both say that you love each other yesterday," He reminds me. "And I think that if you really love somebody, you can always make things right. Unless you just give up."

"Alright, well since you brought up the dating game, let's have a little chat about you and Josie. Because you two were clearly flirting yesterday," I decide to change the subject on him because I really don't want to talk about Micah anymore.

"What do you mean? Shut up, no we weren't," Casey immediately gets flustered and embarrassed now that I've turned the conversation on him. "She's just nice, we're friends."

"You like her. She likes you too," I inform him with a small smile. "You're blushing, Case. It's incredibly obvious and the fact that you think that you can deny it is absolutely adorable."

"I don't like Josie like that," He insists again but that's all that he says; he doesn't bring up an solid evidence that will make me believe him.

"Okay. Well, all I'm saying is that hypothetically, if you like her, you should just tell her that. That goes for any girl that you like. If they say no thanks, then you can just move on. Rejection isn't the worst thing in the world," I advise my brother. Of course, I think that he's too young to be dating but he could be fifty, and I'd still think that he's too young to be dating. I just want him to be happy. That's all that I've really ever wanted.

"Then why are you giving up so easily with Micah?" He questions me.

"Because I did try with Micah, but I made big mistakes and I ruined it. So if anything, that should just teach you to be honest and to never have sex for money. It buys you some very cute clothes but it ends up hurting everybody involved."

"Don't become a prostitute? That's the best advice that you have for me?" He raises his eyebrows at me and starts laughing.

"It's good advice," I defend myself. "Just do whatever makes you happy without breaking any major laws."

"Yeah, okay. That one was better," He says teasingly. When we get to campus, I get out of the car and hug Casey goodbye because we've been through so much in the past 24 hours that I'm so glad that we made it out of that alive. He hugs me back. If he's embarrassed about showing affection in front of the other students, he doesn't show it.

"Call me if you need anything. Don't get anybody pregnant," I tell him, which is the most important advice that I can give him. "I love you to the moon, Case."

"I know," He assures me. "I love you too, Ellie."

I kiss his forehead and then get back in the car and watch him walk up to his dorm building. He says hi to a few kids studying in the lawn and then disappears into the main door of the building. I drive away and head back into the city. I don't know what I'm going to do today, I just know that I need to keep my mind busy. If I lose my momentum, I'm going to start thinking about Micah too much and I'm going to lose it.

As I'm driving home, I start flashing back to the first day that I was working for Harrison. We just sat in that room together and he was doing homework, but I couldn't take my eyes off of him. His caramel apple eyes. His slightly pink lips. His soft, curly hair. His smile, laugh, the way he holds my hand, his voice and the way that he says my name. He's so smart too, and he loves his dad.

I'd never been able to let myself be so happy as I was when I was with him. And it's suddenly becoming so clear that I will probably never be that happy again. Not without Micah.

There is that saying that there are more fish in the sea, but I don't care about that. Micah is my fish.

In my growing panic, my vision starts to blur and I can't focus on the road anymore. I pull over to the side of the road once I'm off of the highway and I put my hazard lights on before getting out of the car. I need some fresh air to breathe before I suffocate.

I hadn't realized how hard it would be to get over him until now. I can't imagine a time where I'll close my eyes and not see his staring back at me. I know that it hasn't even been 24 hours since I saw him last. Logically, I know that there will probably come a day where I get over Micah and I find somebody else to love.

The thing about that is that I don't want to get over him. I want to love him, and I want him to love me. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I still haven't found any of his flaws. I want to be with him long enough to find his flaws because I know that they'll make me love him even more.

I could keep my mind off of this when I was with Casey but now that I'm on my own to stew in my hopeless thoughts, I'm absolutely doomed.

I have to lean against the hood of the car for a few minutes to catch my breath. To get myself to stop thinking about Micah, I think about what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. I can go to the gym, I can clean up the house, and I can figure out what I'm going to do with all of the dresses and shoes that I've accumulated over the two years of escorting. I probably won't ever have a reason to wear them again, so I could sell most of it.

Instead of doing any of that, I stop at the store on my way back to the apartment to buy some coconut rum and a jug of mango lemonade. I don't know a better way to forget about my problems than by drowning them in alcohol every once in a while.

Instead of figuring out which dresses I should try to sell, I spend the day trying them all on just to realize that I love them all and can't get rid of any of them.

I try to go through to get the makeup out that I don't need anymore too, but that doesn't work. I live alone and I don't have a boyfriend or a job dependent on my looks, so I don't have anybody to impress. Nobody cares if I'm wearing makeup or not, but I still love every item of makeup on a personal level and I can't throw any of it away.

When it gets to be about dinner time, that's when I start drinking. I'm still wearing one of my dresses—it's the mini black dress that I was wearing on the night that I met Micah. That night was so magical. I tried so hard that night to tell him not to get involved with me.

I told him that I was trouble, that I would only be bad for him. He didn't care though, and he was too charming for me to say no to. I wanted to protect him from my chaos, but he wouldn't let me.

And then I tried to tell him again a few weeks ago when I tried to give him my poetry journal that has all of my secrets in it. I know that he only said no to reading it because I wasn't ready for him to know what was inside, but he actively told me not to tell him what I had to tell him. He didn't want to know.

It doesn't take me long to get drunk by myself in my apartment and although I can recognize that it's pathetic, I'm okay with that right now. I think being pathetic tonight is understandable after the weekend that I've had.

The more drunk that I get, the angrier that I get at Micah for not giving me a chance to explain myself. I'm not sure what there is to explain, but he didn't want to know. He can't be mad at me for not telling him that I'm an escort because I had tried. I know that I shouldn't have been sleeping with other people during our relationship, but it wasn't like I was cheating on him because I wanted to. I was just doing my job, I was paying for Casey's school, I was doing what I felt like I had to do.

When I get drunk enough and angry enough, I decide that the best decision that I can make right now is to call him and tell him just how drunk and angry I really am.

He doesn't answer when I call though, so I have to leave an angry voicemail.

I sit down on the couch in the dress that I was wearing when everything changed, and I tell Micah's voicemail just exactly how I'm feeling right now.

"Fuck you," I slur into the phone. "I told you that I would take you down, and I warned you, and I warned you, and you didn't care. I tried to tell you, and you didn't want me to. I didn't fuck those other people because I wanted to, I was just trying to provideded for my brother. I thought about you every time that I was working. I pretended like it was your lips, your body, your dick. I thought of you, because I love you. Fuck you, Micah, for making me think that you would love me back no matter what.

"You said that you wouldn't stop caring about me unless I was going to kill somebody that you care about, and I didn't kill anybody. I wasn't even thinking about killing anybody. I thought that I couldn't find your flaw because you're so perfect but I found it. You're a liar, just like me. You said that you wouldn't give up, but you did. So easily. You're not stubborn, or dogmatic like you said. You're a coward."

The voicemail hangs up on me because my message was too long but I'm not finished with my rant, so I call him back and wait for the voicemail message again.

"What was I supposed to do? The only person that I've ever had in my life is Casey. I didn't have a mom or a dad, or anybody who ever cared about me that could take care of me like a parent should. I had a rapey foster father and that was it—all he ever gave me was a pregnancy scare and a shit load of nightmares. What was I supposed to do? Nobody was ever there for me! I did what I had to do to give Casey a better life. That is not the worst thing in the world."

It hangs up again, so I call back.

"I'm really mad at you. I know that this is all my fault, but I'm still mad at you. You got my hopes up. And I just want to let you know that I love you so much. I'm going to give you some time to cool off and think things through but I'm not giving up on us until you get a restraining order. I'm not giving up."

This time, I hang up the phone before the voicemail timer ends. I drop the phone onto the coffee table and rest my head back on the cushion. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to start thinking up a plan to get him back. When we first met, he said that he wanted a dog, so I'll buy him a dog. I'll buy him some real flowers. I'll play romantic love songs outside of his house until he forgives me.

Casey was right. I shouldn't just give up so easily. I should fight for what I love—and this is it. Micah is what I love.