Let Love Bleed - A Before You Exit Fanfiction (On hold)

six.

It was half past nine by the time Toby, Connor and I had made it back to their one story home. The sky had been blazed by radiant pastels of firey reds, but dusk arrived shortly, without further warning and I found myself several hours later;  tossing and turning relentlessly on the sofa.

I hadn’t been wrong when I said I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

Riley’s doe eyes, from when he had first awoken, kept appearing in my head and I couldn’t stop myself from replaying what he had said to me: “Kody, I don’t hate you. Kody, I don’t hate you. Kody, I don’t hate you. Kody, I don’t ha-”

A redundant vibration near my ankles had eliminated my hysteria and I sat up suddenly, and searched for my ringing phone, in the pitch black darkness of the room.

"Joan?" I mumbled quietly, while propping myself up.

"Kody, I'm sorry if I woke you up," Mrs. McDonough’s usual calm and secure voice began breathlessly. I felt my heart sink when I remembered what happened with Riley prior.

Mark and Joan must have listened to the message the Police left for them. "Don’t go poking fun at me after I tell you this, but Mark and I lost the bag with our phones in them, so we had to wait until the plane landed to call you." She good humoredly explained while chuckling.

Quickly praising the great lord I began speaking.

"Wow, that's a bummer!" I hadn’t even tried to hide my relief.  "But it's no problem, I was actually still up, just about to go to bed. I'm glad you decided to call."

"Well, I don't want to keep you up any longer, I just wanted to call and let you know not to call mine or Mark's cell phone. If you need anything, call this number. I’ll make sure to tell Mark to call tomorrow, and if he forgets I’ll just check up on you kids!"

“Did you call Connor, Toby and Ri-uh.. Riley, yet?” I hesitantly questioned, accidentally mentioning Riley, which I hope Joan didn’t notice me stutter his name.

“I knew they wouldn’t answer since they sleep through tornados, so I was just hoping you’d pass the message in the morning and tell them not to worry because they haven’t heard from Mommy in over 12 hours.” I could hear her chuckling once more. I could almost visualize her laughing lightly to herself with a half smirk containing humor.

“Of course I’ll let them know,” I informed her, “ and Joan?” I whispered.

“Yes Kody?”

“Thanks for calling, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you.”

“I love you too, Kody. Goodnight!”

And the line went dead with a sudden click.  

Beaming at the lock screen picture of me hanging off of Connor’s back at the convent grocery store located not too far from the house, I felt the presence of someone standing beside me.

“Why are you still awake?” He muttered softly into the air.

My pale blue eyes returned the glare of deep brown ones and I felt myself smile automatically.

“I can’t stop thinking.” I simply replied while shrugging my shoulders and sitting up more comfortably to take in Toby’s form.

“Well, I’m just going to have to stay up with you then!” He announced as he threw himself next to me.

Rolling my eyes I didn’t object and stole the other half of his fleece white blanket.

For a while we just sat there, staring into the distant darkness and just remained in silence.