I get pretty close to that wish. We sit sideways on his bed with his laptop between us, watching something on streaming. I think it’s funny but I keep zoning in and out. I’m losing time. I don’t know if I’ve been here for twenty minutes or two hours. I don’t know how many episodes we’ve watched or even if what we’re watching has episodes.

Adam’s body is warm next to mine, our shoulders barely touching as we each lean slightly to get a better angle on the screen. It should comfort me, being this close to him. It should excite me. But the warmth is dulled by the steady stream of sadness coming from him. That’s what it is. It’s sadness. Not the vague, general sadness that sometimes lurks around him, distinctly his but not especially dangerous. This is enormous. There’s a thick, soupy fog gathered around both of us, so large that I’m not even sure Adam is there. There’s only fog.

It’s bigger than him and bigger than me and I’m starting to worry his parents are going to come home from their fancy dinner to find our mummified corpses on his bed.

“… Caleb?” A soft voice is calling to me but my eyelids are too heavy to open. The voice says my name again and my neck spasms, caught in an awkward angle. I lift my head and open my eyes to find Adam’s face startlingly close to mine. My eyes drink his face in, my whole field of vision filled with the brown warmth of his skin, his hair, his eyelashes, his eyes, and then my brain catches up and I jerk backward.

“Sorry,” he says, face crumpling. “I just—I have to go to the bathroom and you were…”

He gestures to our relative positions and I realize that I’d fallen asleep and somehow ended up with my head on his shoulder. My face heats as he mumbles, “So … be right back,” sliding off the bed and leaving the room.

I blink a few times, shaking my head to clear the fog. How long was I asleep? I’m still tired all over, but calmer. Sleep can do that for me—detox other people’s emotions and leave me at a baseline of my own feelings. I do a mental and physical check—my body is a bit sore from falling asleep sitting up (I must have dozed for a while), but the fog is a little less thick. It isn’t gone, just … plateaued.

My thoughts are interrupted by Adam reentering the room.

“How long was I out?” I ask, stretching my arms out in front of me.

“Only, like, half an hour.” Adam shrugs, climbing back onto the bed.

“Fuck,” I exhale. “Sorry, dude.”