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IF THERE WAS ONE THING THE MOON HAD taught Marley Munroe, it was that it was okay to go through phases. Feelings change, people change, and that was okay. That was normal. It was as natural as the turn of the Earth, as the stars in the sky and the wind that touches the tips of the trees. The moon had taught her that change was okay.
And Marley had started to believe that people going through phases was okay, too.
That the fractured part within her fragile mind being patched up, piece by piece, bit by bit, as slow as the rise and fall of the moon, was something to be welcome and insisted upon. Not feared or shied away from. That each piece she reattached was something to be welcome, even if the world seemed to be falling apart around her. Sadness was to be expected - loss was to be expected - but healing happens under the darkness of night, the glare of the sunshine and the weeping of the rain. She'd had to remind herself of that some nights, when her head felt like it was spinning. Sometimes, Marley supposed, she had to be selfish and think of herself first.
The world kept turning no matter what darkness befell it and Marley figured that she - minuscule and inconsequential in a universe that was never-ending - had no choice but to embrace that change. She let it engulf her, calm seas luring her in and, for the first time in as long as she could remember, there was something akin to happiness inside Marley Munroe's ever-aching chest.
The early-morning clatter of workers in the hallway outside stole her awake. Quiet voices - hushed, though futilely so, cutting through the metallic silence - and the rhythmic thunk of work boots, always too thick and cumbersome to ever have a hope of keeping your steps quiet. She groaned as she shifted against the thin mattress, springs digging into her spine uncomfortably, limbs protesting every movement. Her body swam in a pool of fatigue. It practically drowned her but, for one, the exhaustion pulling at her was welcomed.
Bellamy's arms were draped around her. One propped beneath her head, underneath the pillow she rested upon, the other around her waist, a large, gun-calloused hand splayed across her ribcage. There was a gentleness to it; those hands, made for war and the sturdy clutch of a gun, so intoxicating and tender against her. He held her, delicate, as if she would shatter in his grip. But she didn't mind. Fragility was more than welcome in a brutal universe that tried to beat her down whenever it was given the chance.
The smile that came was content. She took a moment to bask in it, in the unfamiliar tenderness of his embrace and the comfort in how he pressed her back against his chest. He was curled around her body, a cocoon of warmth and safety in the dead of night. She could grow used to the feeling of him holding her like that. Marley laid there in the silence, for a moment, settling back into his warmth. Basking in a moment that would be over sooner than she would have liked.
She wanted to stay that way forever. But life always got in the way.
Marley felt Bellamy shift behind her. He exhaled through his nose, long and drawn out, almost a sigh. Hands shifted and calloused fingers caressed the bare skin of her stomach, there they'd snaked beneath her sweatshirt, rubbing circles against her body, slow and methodic, pressing into the tender skin as he stirred.
