Natalie's Legacy [sequel to Natalie's Diary]

[4] Secrecy

SECRECY

Jane

Despite all the appropriate pills, Rhys fell asleep before I did. The change was subtle in his heartbeat and his breathing, but I listened to the shift often enough to know the difference between silently lying awake and finding sleep.

I listened because I needed to hear something real and tangible. The dripping didn't come. The quiet didn't invite in darker things.

It just didn't invite sleep either.

I went through the same process a hundred times, going over the same tips and tricks different therapists suggested.

Slowly... slowly...

What did it feel like to be swallowed up by nothing? Just a peaceful, dark eternity wrapping me up like a blanket? Some kind of state of nirvana or like the edge of the universe? Like space. Cold and dark and endless.

Slowly...slowly...

Rhys shifted, something uneven in his breathing for half a second.

I drew back, pulling my hand away from his shoulder.

He shifted, turning, tangling in the quilt before his eyes snapped open. A shadow boy in the lack of light.

Instinctively, still sluggish from unconsciousness, he reached for something off the side of the bed.

Not the blinds again. We were on the second floor. No one could be at the blinds.

After fumbling a moment, the lamp flickered on. Even the dim glow of the bulb warming to life burned my eyes.

Rhys pulled a notebook from a drawer, something usually hidden from view, and scribbled something short onto a page.

Spots continued to float in my vision.

"Is everything okay?" I mumbled, struggling to find my voice beyond my cotton throat.

The light flicked off again, plunging us into utter blackness. All the shades I could make out a second before were indecipherable again.

"Yeah."

"Doesn't sound very yeah."

His arms snaked back around me, pulling me closer again.

"Just trying to string things together. Little pieces that make no sense."

How could I argue with him when he held me like that?

"But you'll tell me more about the pieces sometime?" I asked. He wasn't alone. Hadn't I told him that? It was too hard to do alone. It was hard with Natalie and it was hard with him.

Silence.

"There's nothing to tell yet."

That still sounded less like the truth and more like pride. Before I could press any further, Rhys found my lips in the dark.

I preferred a kiss to a fight in the middle of the night.

˚˚˚˚˚˚

Strands of my hair slid away from my face, brushed away by the same soft touch that grazed my cheek.

I wanted to stay asleep, but it was too late for that. Still, I couldn't bring myself to move, just to open my eyes.

Hazel. I could wake up to hazel every day.

Rhys' hand settled gently on my arm, his smile so warm. People were meant to wake up that way, not in the middle of the night, dampened in sweat.

He looked at me like... I probably had static-y, tangled hair and puffy eyes and pillowcase creases pressed into my cheek and Rhys still looked at me like that.