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You wake up to warmth and the taste of morning breath. You grimace as you scrape your tongue on your teeth, trying to get rid of that a little bit. It works, but only that little bit. But your bed is warm, and it’s Sunday. You don’t need to brush your teeth just yet.
When you feel breath in your hair, you feel guilty that your first thoughts in the morning are about how awful your own breath is. Jake English is in your bed. His body is wrapped around yours, pulling you into a snug embrace. He’s still asleep, probably all tuckered out from last night. And all you can think about is bacteria in your mouth.
You can already tell it’s going to be a bad day. You can’t really enjoy just laying here with the fucking love of your life; you’re too busy feeling gross and guilty for feeling gross. Reluctantly, you ease yourself out of his arms and out of the bed.
The first thing you decide is that you need a cigarette. You need to calm down, and go through your morning routine, and try not to obsess about stupid shit. But you can’t smoke right after brushing, and you can’t just not brush, so first you compromise and brush without toothpaste. (It helps the bad breath, but not the gross feeling. Still, you figure if it really bothers you that much you can just brush properly later.)
Nicotine never really did much to take the edge off for you. You heard somewhere that it’s just a misconception that smoking is relaxing, anyway. The smoke itself though, that somehow had a calming effect. The smoke trailing up from the end of your cigarette as you breathe in, the smoke billowing out all around you as you breathe out. You watch the clouds of smoke you make until they fade. Somehow that helps.
It’s only when your cigarette is halfway gone when you think you actually want to go back to bed. Back to Jake. On a good day, or at least in a good moment, he’s a comfort. He’s something you got right. You hold him, and he holds you, and you don’t wonder if he’d rather be anywhere else. You can easily believe he loves you, on a good day.
You hear the door open behind you and remember that today is not a good day. It doesn’t bother you anymore. It’s just how things are. Some days are good and some days are bad and some days are neutral. You’ve had too many good and neutral days in a row. You were overdue for a bad day. Not even an hour into it and you’re resigned to it.
Jake approaches you and you don’t look at him. He doesn’t like it when you smoke, you know he doesn’t, but he never reproaches you for it. He only takes it as a sign. You feel his arms wrap around your waist, and he pecks you on the cheek.
Maybe you weren’t ready to return to his arms after all. You try to relax, closing your eyes and leaning back into him. But even as he mumbles a sleepy greeting in your ear, you start to wonder if he only puts up with you like he puts up with the smoke, just because he feels sorry for you, or just because he’s lonely and you’re there.
With him so close, you don’t take another drag. You simply watch your cigarette burn. You wonder if even that bothers Jake. Grimacing, you put it out on the railing you’ve been clutching.
Jake asks how long you’ve been awake. You answer, half an hour tops.
He asks what you’d like for breakfast. You’re not hungry.
You want him to leave you alone, but you don’t want him to leave. You correct yourself. You want these awful thoughts to leave you alone, and Jake’s presence seems to amplify them.
You realize you’ve been short with him. You allow yourself a light sigh. Reluctantly pulling yourself from his hold, you press a kiss to Jake’s temple (to let him know you love him even if he doesn’t reciprocate, and you appreciate his efforts even if they don’t work) before heading inside. You need to throw away this cigarette butt somewhere that isn’t the lawn, and you need to brush your teeth.