Control (Dark Romance)

Chapter 46

PART 2/2 OF THE DOUBLE UPDATE!! SO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE FIRST, GO BACK AND DO IT!!!

Wrote this chapter to Jacob's Prayer by Emile Mosseri

LISTEN TO THE SONG

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Nikola's P.O.V

Window sills were not my first choice for reading. Most often, they were neither long enough nor wide enough, and so why would I willingly read in a cramped space?

This window sill, however, defied the usual oddities of its counterparts. It was wonderfully long, enough so that even with my legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, there was still room. It was also amply wide, enough so that I could settle in the posture of my choosing with the support of the woolly pillow beneath me.

It was in this wonderful window that I'd been reading all morning, not including the time I'd taken to eat breakfast, unprompted.

Neo chuffs his delight at that, but it's a weak thing. While he was proud of me for continuing some format of life without... Hagen...

... he wasn't happy about it in some respects. Despite my promises that he could pursue a relationship with Zyair to his delight, he wanted us both 'happy'. He refused to see that my happiness could be achieved without him.

I would not say that I was happy now. I was not.

I still struggled to find my breath in the night after I woke up from dreams of him and found myself predictably alone. And it still felt like a chasm had opened up within me where love and devotion had once been, and I did not ever imagine it would be completely filled. But, with time, I was sure it could become some semblance of... something.

Something I could live with. Something that I could find joy in, no matter how fleeting. Something to be comfortable in.

I never imagined such a thing possible in the past, when he had been my everything, the only option to fill my world with, but without him, the world has gradually begun to show itself.

It was still made up of muted greys and too much noise, noise only he would ever muffle, but it was still beautiful in its own way.

I often gardened with Kalem. I spent mornings talking with Ma and evenings cooking with Dad. I read, explored, ate, and discovered other ways I might live without him.

Ma was pleased for it, and Dad as well, though I could see the apprehension he tried to hide behind his firm smiles. Appa was all too happy for my exploits, 'growth' he called it, which completely defied his proclamations of it all 'hitting me'.

Sometimes I imagined that it still hadn't, that I was simply living in a sort of purgatory bliss, and one day it would end, but it'd already been two months since the end of us, and it was only getting better.

Things must go up before they come down - Neo whispers carefully, not meaning to frighten, only warn.

That's true - I admit with some reluctance, but if that was the case, then I intended to enjoy what I could of this 'up' period before the descent began.

My thoughts refocus themselves on the present as the familiar creak of the library door opening drifts through the air. I don't bother glancing up from my book, knowing it was Dad making his rounds.

He did it once every other hour, checking up on me, and once he'd had his peek and seen that I was fine, he'd 'sneak' out again.

His careful footfalls approach as always, though more poorly masked than usual, and then, I feel his eyes on me.