119

I couldn’t sleep and figured you might want the bed and I could stay with her.

Colton shifts in his seat and turns so he faces my way and hauls over another stool off to the side to beside him and pats it for me to sit.

“I don’t want to leave her just yet, sit with me. Keep me company.” He locks a look on my face, that half smile, the one that melts me, with those excruciating dimples which set my belly alight. I slide onto the seat immediately, too swayed by that face, and hating myself for the obedience, knowing it’s probably stupid to cozy beside him in the middle of the night given the last time we got so close in here, but something inside of me is urging me to stay with him. The desire is stronger than my will, and even though I try to sit away slightly, once he turns back to his mom, his shoulder and arm fit snugly against me and make me tremble with the effects of his touch. That hyperawareness zooming back in, and every inch of my skin tingles in recognition of his body heat, betraying me.

“What are you reading her?” I ask to push focus on something else, pushing him out of my mind, ignoring my traitorous body, and trying so desperately to breathe normally as my breaths shallow out. I hush my voice so as not to disturb the sleeping Doc, and it covers how breathless I’ve become in near proximity to him in such an intimate setting.

“Lady Chatterley. It was her favorite book when I was young, always used to read it in the garden while she watched me play, so I figured maybe she might like it. The Doc says she might be able to hear us, so I don’t know… it’s stupid.” Colton reverts to that boy once more, the one I met and knew all these years, and it tugs at my heart strings so deeply I just have to touch him.

“It’s not stupid. It’s sweet and shows her you love her. If she is aware then it’s probably nice to hear your voice, and something like a story, instead of noise, and chaos, and feeling ignored. I can’t imagine what she’s gone through.” The tugging of my heart pushes me to lean against him and lay my head on his shoulder impulsively, seeking to be soothed. Fitting like he was made to have me curl up beside him, and he readjusts his position, so I slot right in at him, resting his cheek against the top of my head. Much like me, it seems anytime I’m close or touch him, Colton too has to respond to the pull and always touches me back. I hate that even when we’re no longer allowed or able to be together, the need to be this way overpowers everything else. It stirs up so much ache inside of me and brings that awful choking sensation back to my throat.

I’m torn in my sadness for Sierra and driven by the force of his pull whenever he’s close. I know I’m betraying myself by initiating the touch and I’m trying so hard to fight it. Colton is too easy, and too inviting, like a safe harbor that calls to me, to come shelter from the cruel world, especially when I’m feeling vulnerable, and tonight this was probably a bad idea. I haven’t had any real sleep, my emotions are all over the place, and I’m too tired to really fight any of it.

“Maybe we can stay here like this until she wakes up, and I can stop thinking or feeling and just take a minute…” Colton’s voice is as soft as mine, hushed, and his breath tickles my forehead as he utters the words. Igniting goosebumps and all manner of crazy feelings, and thoughts, at his suggestion. To sit here with him like this for two days and ignore everything, pretend for a little while, that this is all we need to care about. Cuddling up doesn’t sound wholly awful. It sounds like stealing last moments before reality sets in and I can’t say I’m against it. Pretending for a little while that we’re okay and there’s nothing wrong with his touch.

Colton takes my silence as an agreement and reaches out and flips over the page of the book as though he intends to start reading to her again, it just pushes me to curl up against him all the more, settling in to listen, and mentally chastising myself to pretend this is a frozen moment. Where nothing matters except listening to him read and watching her sleep.

“My two favorite girls…. What more could I want?” Colton slides his arm from between us and instead lassoes it around me and pulls me in against his chest, fully igniting that sense of safe and secure. I melt and give up completely, sinking into his embrace and blot out all the noise coming from my brain, all the words of warning, and refusals. I want to be held by him and cherish this moment if I need to get through the rest of my life watching him bonded to someone else.

His hand on the book slides away from it, and places it on his moms forehead instead, gently stroking her hair back, and then resting lightly on her hairline as he leans in to be able to see the words on the pages. I pull my feet up on the bar of the stool and drop my knees against his, drawing warmth in every area of my body now, sliding one arm behind him and making the most of allowing myself to be immersed in his body. I reach out gently and touch Sierra’s hand as instinct takes over, the need to let her know I’m here too is all consuming for some unknown reason. The sudden compulsion to connect to her and somehow complete this little circle we have going on.

“She’s so very beautiful. You look like your….”

My words die on my lips as my fingers slide fully over hers and I capture her hand in mine, a warming sensation travels up from my fingertips, and something crazy happens to me. My mind almost jolts with the force of an electric zap, that yanks me closer to the bed and I almost tumble out of Colton’s arms, but he catches me, hauling me tight to him.

I gasp out loud as my brain somehow loses all control of all faculties, my vision whites, out blinding me insanely, so that I grab hold of his leg with my one free hand to steady myself and lose all ability to hear, feel, or see. The only sensation I’m aware of is the burning connection from Sierra’s hand to mine, and the same burn coming through Colton’s arm around my waist. We’re connected all three of us, by touch, and it consumes me until I can’t fight it in any way.

I completely blank out, losing sense of everything. Him, her, the room, it all slips away, like trying to hold water with your fingertips, and all I can do is ride with it. I can’t open my eyes, or feel my limbs, or my body at all, like I’m a mass of unconnected thoughts with no physical form.

I try and take a breath but even that seems futile as I’m a nothingness, lingering in airless space, finding myself in a darkness that’s so eerie, yet familiar, as sounds and smells start to filter through and jog little moments of time. Distant at first, as though travelling along a tunnel, and they’re at the other end battling through a fog. They’re not the infirmary, they’re something else that tugs at my memory banks, and draws me back in time as I seem to start to fall into a memory that I never knew I had.

The smells of summer push me into a brighter place, and I blink and slowly manage to open my eyes, suddenly aware of touch, and sensation, as I regain full control of my limbs, but there’s no one here with me. Colton isn’t here, I can’t feel him, or sense him, and I seem to be in another space entirely. In a room, lying down, one that haunts me from the past. I lift my hand to touch my face and gauge the reality of what I’m seeing, and I’m startled to see it’s so small and childlike, and blink some more to clear the fogginess so I can look again.

Everything comes into slow focus, like a fade back in, and I know immediately where I am. The small attic makeshift room, hastily painted pink by the family that took on a child whose own had gone to battle. I’m back in the temporary room of my carer family, back when my parents went to war. The cozy bed, the painted dressers, and my ragdoll, Annie, sits on the side of my bed, watching me in my slumber. It brings back so many mixed feelings and memories, but none that I can ever recall like this. This seems new, and yet everything is here and exactly as I remember.

It's dull, night, although it’s not darkness so it must be summer, and I know I’m supposed to be asleep, but something stirred me from my dreams of my mother and father running through our meadow in a game of tag. My senses alerting me to the window in the far corner, and I watch in terrified silence, of a vulnerable child, as something begins climbing in with precise movements and silent intent. My heart hitches, racing, and pulsing so profoundly I feel it may rip from my chest. Frozen in terror, unable to cry out for fear the monster climbing in may see me if I make a noise.

The dark shadowy figure, wearing a large, heavy, black cloak, with the hood pulled up to veil their identity, slides up the unlocked panel of glass and slowly and carefully climbs inside, pulling their heavy robes with them, and almost soundlessly lands on the space in front of my window. I resist the urge to pull the covers over my face, my blood running cold with the terror of what is here, panic overtaking me, and I go to call out for my caretaker in youthful hysteria.

“Don’t be afraid, little one…. Hush now!” The female voice comes from under the hood, silencing me mid open mouth gasp with the familiarity of that sound, and a raised palm. I’m startled into quiet, because I know her. I recognize her smell, her sound, her presence, as it calms me and as she turns fully towards me. All I can see are two electric blue, glowing orbs, from the dark shadow of her hood as she looks at me directly. Her eyes mesmerizing and I’ve never seen such a color before.

“You know me, Alora. I’m here to protect you. I’m Luna Sierra Santo, I come as a friend of your mother’s…. Be still. I have much to do.”