Kelly finally moved away from him, back to her own pillow. For good measure, Derick pulled his an inch or two to the right. Just to make sure she didn't try to slide over again. As he knew she would, she let out a sad, deep sigh in response. And in response to that, he gritted his teeth against a groan of frustration. She always took things like that to mean he didn't want to be close to her anymore or that he was pulling away from the relationship. That wasn't what he was doing at all! Derick was not a subtle man, if he wanted to pull away from the relationship there'd be no mistaking it. All he wanted was his own pillow. His own sleeping space, free of someone else's arms and long hair strangling him in his sleep. Was that too much to ask of her? He went to stupid romantic comedy movies and paid for her half of the gas and used money he didn't have to make sure she always got a new charm for her charm bracelet every single Christmas. He did all of that... and she still wanted his pillow?! God, sometimes it was all he could do not to kick her out of bed! Out of the room! Out of the house!
In the two seconds it took for him to clench and relax his teeth, those thoughts shot through his head, and as had been happening with increasing frequency lately he saw bright red flash in front of his eyes. But as quickly as it came it passed. He let out a deep breath and shook his head a little, reminding himself that thinking those things wasn't going to do any good. Saying them would do even less. It would just lead to a pointless fight that got nothing done, and eventually one of them would crawl over with their tail between their legs and beg for forgiveness. Derick hated when it was him - he rarely thought he'd ever actually been in the wrong. But he hated it when it was Kelly too.
He just hated this whole entire mess. And he didn't know how many more times he could think that to himself before he cracked.
Derick sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, even though he'd lain down not three minutes ago. He ran a hand through his hair, then took a breath and let it out and said, "How much of a bonus did you get?"
She sat up as well and hugged her knees, answering quietly, "Not much, actually... But we can eat real meat this month!" It was an attempt at a good-natured joke. They both knew it was, but neither of them laughed. Derick stood and pulled a change of clothes from the single banged up dresser they had, then answered vaguely.
"So... I have some news too... I mean, it isn't major or anything. So no crying. Please..."
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