I Don't Like Open Water, Anymore

I bolted up in bed. The smell was back. So was the feeling. “Andy, Andy, baby, please wake up!” I pleaded.

The white being rolled over in bed next to me and grabbed a phone from the nightstand. “Cherry, it’s fucking three in the morning”, he groaned. “Go to sleep.”

I wanted to but I couldn’t. Not with that smell. “Andy! What is that? You can smell it, can’t you? Like...it’s like potting soil.”

Andy’s nose wrinkled as he sniffed the air. “Probably the cat. You let Max in, right?”

“No, Maximillion is outside.” I shifted in bed, wanting Andy to confirm my ideas. After all, that was today. “Andy.”

“Cherry, go to sleep.” Andy rolled away from me, my eyes burning into his spine as he ignored me. I know he had to be tired of listening to it but he was the one who’d told me after all, told me what had happened to Oli. Oli didn’t deserve to go out that way, despite what I did or didn’t feel. I disregarded Andy’s demand that I go to sleep and got out of bed. Maybe I was dehydrated or I needed to pee? Or it was just my guilt. But Andy smelt it too? I went to the bathroom before walking into the kitchen to grab a glass of water and a bottle of wine. Hopefully the wine would help me get back to sleep. Wine always did.

Quietly, I walked outside, straining my ears and nostrils in case I caught something again. The only thing I caught was Maximillion, the stray, tattered black cat Andy and I had adopted. He reminded me a lot of the cat from that feelpasta, Ugly the Cat. Max was a scrapper but had a heart of gold. He wasn’t as Ugly but he was everything the story character was in personality, thus I’d named him with a magnificent name to represent his beautiful personality. Max purred on my lap, rubbing his head against my hand as I absently pet him. He wasn’t hungry since he wasn’t trying to bite me. Max just wanted to cuddle.

“Have you noticed anything weird, Maxy?” I whispered to the purring, scarred, fluffball. “Fans? People you don’t know?”

Maximillion merely stared at me with orange eyes.

“Tell me if you do, okay?” I asked. Again, stares. We sat on the patio for a while before he finished my water and I went back inside. Max decided to chase a mouse through the yard instead. I chugged my wine and turned on the TV, settling on reruns of Criminal Minds. Whatever the name was, I watched the episode about the woman with the weird thing for dolls. I still wasn’t sure if that watched feeling was still around but the more wine I drank, the better I felt. When the episode was over, I felt obligated to slink back into bed. Andy probably didn’t condone my drinking but he definitely didn’t condemn it. I think it was just a silent pet peeve of his. While the smell was gone, I still lit a wax melt in case it came back.

“Andy, you’ll always be there, right?” I questioned quietly. He mumbled back, still half asleep as I hid myself under the blankets. He rolled back over with an arm flopping over my waist that I didn’t mind. As long as we were close, it was easier for me to fall asleep once the paranoia left.

“Good night, Andy.”

“Night, Cherry”, he murmured back.

Notes

I don't know if this is going to really go over that great but this is kind of a personal, ode-to, kind of thing to an long lost friend of mine