Devotion [h.s]

306

They needed each other really bad, they were both suffering great losts.

I walked over to Amelia's side of the bed, that's where the light was on. I stood over her for a second, seeing the wetness around her shut eyes. Her eyelashes were clumped together from the same wetness.

She fell asleep crying.

My airways tightened when I saw the evidence of misery on her face as she was finally nodded off into a sleep she so desperately needed. I haven't got to spend much time with her since being back. To think that if I did survive the war I would've been spending all of my time with her and Briar. I would've came home and gave her a huge hug while she probably cried and never let me go. The three of us would've been curled by the fire all night, wondering how the hell I got so lucky to make it back to them.

But in that dream, I never thought about the consequences my survival came with. I never began to process loosing others along the way.

I bent over slowly, grazing a loose strand out of her face before softly kissing her forehead. I didn't want to wake her, I just wanted to feel her skin underneath my lips for a second.

I pulled back and looked at Briar, her little body curled into her mother's side. Her hair all brushed up from bed head and a blue pacifier in her mouth. I leaned over Amelia and softly pecked the side of Briar's head, placing my hand on her little back.

My eyes peered to Audrey on the other side of the bed, curled up in a ball and her hand on her stomach. I thought to myself how she was alone now, while I had my family still.

She's pregnant with a baby that will never meet their father. Louis was going to have a baby, something I never ever imagined in my life time. He hated kids, but I know he loved mine. I wanted to think that if Louis was still alive that they wouldn't have this baby and just get an abortion, that seems like the logical part of Louis.

But deep down I don't think that true, they would've kept this baby and he would've learned to be an incredible father.

I stood back up straight again and flicked off the lamp, knowing if I was in here any longer then someone would wake up and they all really need sleep. I quietly made my way out the door, shutting it behind me and proceeding down the hall to get my water I originally needed.

My body was a walking carnival, full of things like aches, misery, and guilt. My stomach felt always clenched because I was always on edge, taking a toll on my body that deserves so much worse. But I had to take each action in my life one step at a time, and right now I just needed water.

As I was walking slowly down the stairs, I noticed the sounds of the fire crackling still. I stopped putting wood in the fire two hours ago, I don't know how I was still hearing it going.

I entered the living room to not only hear the fire but see it too. It was still very alive in the fireplace, but when I saw a figure sitting on the couch facing it I knew there was something else going on. My eyes glued to the side profile of a man sitting on the couch frozen and facing the fireplace, hands on his knees.

"Ben?"

He somehow was here. I don't know how he got in.

He didn't turn his head in my direction because he knew who it was. His dead eyes stayed on the flames ahead of him while he didn't say anything. Did he even hear me?

"How did you..."

"0501, Amelia's birthday." He spoke. "I have the same code on all my things." He refers to the code on the front of the house needed to get in.