dawn

Chapter 25

I couldn’t sleep but I didn’t want or have to. I was wide awake. Paolo was definitely out. He rolled right off my lap and rolled into the metal frame of the bed and continued to sigh in his sleep, his right hind leg twitching in a circular motion.

I sighed. What to do? I wished that somehow, the watcher would stay all night, but what sort of life would he have if he slept during the day and watched only me by night? I wasn’t too sure about anything else either.

What to do when neither he or Eric were around? What I wouldn’t give to have them surround every hour of my life. It sounded selfish but they were so unbelievably super human, compared to me that is, that I imagined that they only spent time with me because they needed someone to make them feel better about themselves.

Well, if I didn’t have either, I could always bring in a third. I remembered the diary and while I didn’t want to be reminded of Jack or his love, I was highly addicted to the story, even if, in my reader-professional opinion, it wasn’t very thrilling in words.

I stacked the pillows and reclined against them and magically opened the diary with my oh-so-amazing locket.

Should have seen that coming.

Just as I thought, I wouldn’t get a happy ending. The companions of Jack come to threaten her and while they’ve promised to stay away from Sally, they’re not convinced. And it ends:

Sally emerged from her sleep in the cool of the night with Jack’s calming eyes open to greet her. She stared back until their world was the only one that existed. She remembered the moment she told him she loved him and the moment they first kissed. Those moments seemed so blissfully helpless against the doom that had already desecrated their hopes for any future together.

“You stayed,” she whispered.

He nodded and continued staring.

“I love you,” she attempted and moved closer to hold him. The cool of his body and of the night gave her more serenity and she turned up to his eyes. “They’re gone?”

“So they say,” he muttered, finally allowing himself to win the fight and hold her against him gently.

“They’re gone,” she repeated wistfully.

He stared into her eyes. “I keep telling myself that perhaps I can’t really leave. Maybe I can’t even walk away. I couldn’t even force myself to contemplate while you slept here after I nearly gave you a heart attack,”

She would have teased him by telling him how happy that made her, that he couldn’t leave her like she knew she could never do with him, but he seemed pained by his indecision and she kept quiet, staring at him, playing his shirt idly.

“Sally, I don’t know if I could even stand to stay away from you another moment. I don’t think I can and this visit has reminded me just how fragile you are. I am selfish. I am the lowest, greediest of all the things in existence but I can’t be without you and I won’t. Will you please consider joining me? Forever, I mean?”

She looked deeply into his eyes and sighed heavily through her nose. “Gladly, I would do anything for you. You know I would. I’ve done much bigger things for you and this is nothing. As long as you love me, as long as you care about me, as long as you know for sure, without a doubt that you love me like I love you, eternally, profoundly, you can have me for that time. But I need to know you love me,”

He stared into her eyes and understood and kissed her forehead. “This isn’t what you want,” he whispered over her lips. “I will try to protect you anyway I can,”

“If you can. Don’t force yourself for my comfort. I swear that I will get over it,” she added a feign smile he couldn’t possibly call her on. “I’ll have forever, after all,”