The Innocents

Chapter Thirty-Three

The house wasn't very big so it was hard to avoid people.

Including myself and Miles, there were eight permanent residents. Marla, Lena, Doc Lamb, Alice, Penny and Mrs. K. Lots of people came and went, drifting ethereally like ghosts making plans and having meetings. All I did was sit with Miles and fight the urge to want to know what was happening in the outside world.

Mrs. K came to me one day and asked if I'd like to sit in on one of the meeting and I politely declined knowing the one and only place that I wanted to be was with Miles. She then asked how I felt knowing that my friends were still back in The Iron Rose and laid a guilt trip of epic proportions that was well planned by the sound of it and very much justified. I hadn't thought of them on purpose because I knew it would hurt and it certainly did. It twisted my stomach into something awful.

I guess when you love someone you take on the responsibility of caring for that piece of them that they had given you. I still had a few pieces and I just didn't know what to do with them.

After a while Miles needed less of the drugs that made him tired and was almost back to normal until he mentioned that he was having what they called Phantom Limb Syndrome. He said that sometimes he would get the feeling of something brushing up against his hand like a hair or a bug except there was no hair or bug or hand for that matter. Sometimes it would feel numb and sometimes it would hurt depending on his mood that day. Doc gave him muscle relaxers but, they made him sleepy so he stopped taking them. He also offered him anti-depressants but he refused those, as well.

There were nights that I swore I felt his hand on me when his arm would drape across my body. I guess maybe that I was going through the same Phantom Limb thing or maybe it was more like when a person sees the ghost of someone who had just died. Something subconscious. I always thought that was bull. I was feeling the ghost of a hand so I suppose I can't pass judgment any longer.

Oh, and sleeping beside him? It was everything.

One evening we had a rare quiet moment. Most of the interlopers had left for the evening and Mrs. K was just now returning from work. We had eaten a dinner that Lena had prepared consisting of sweet and sour chicken and brown rice. She even made one of those no bake pies with chocolate pudding and a store bought graham cracker crust. We ate until we almost burst commenting how it had been so long since we ate good food. Those comments were part of each and every meal since we had arrived here. They helped the memories of nearly dying.

It was hard to forget that we were ghosts.

The back porch faced the woods. There were two old rocking chairs there and we sat, watching the sun set. Miles cradled his arm on his lap. He was wearing some sports team t-shirt and a black hoodie that I help him zip up when it began to grow cold.

"You're beautiful," he had said to me when I sat back down.

"You're not taking those opioids that the doc tried to give you, are you?" I replied. "You think this was the old days where he'd get paid for dishing out drugs."

"Some things never change," he said. "And no, I'm not taking any drugs." Then he looked at me with those eyes that make me weak in the knees and bit the inside of his cheek. "I just want to give you everything you need."

He smiled that wonderful, charming smile. I loved seeing that side of him.

"Everything is overrated," I said with a smirk. Then the air felt strange and he stood up from his chair. He gripped the porch for support and suddenly crouched down onto one knee in front of me. I almost stood up because he lowered his head as if he was going to puke. Then he looked up, his eyes crystal blue and his lips in the tiniest of smiles and I thought, Oh God, he's going to ask me to marry him.