This story is completed!
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"Don't you dare touch me," I said, hoping to keep up this surge of bravery. I pointed the lamp at him but he only laughed which was rightly justified.
"You think a lamp will save you?"
"I'm not warning you again."
He w...
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Without You by Ashes Remain
Hold me now I need to feel You Show me how To make it new again There's no one I can run to And nothing I could ever do
I waited for his answer but it never came. As I peered down at his face, he was already fast asleep.
I woke up in the middle of the night, heart pounding and body saturated in sweat. I swallowed away the wave of nausea swelling in my throat and shifted onto my bum with my back against the side of the couch. Was I getting sick? Probably from staying too long outside yesterday, I thought.
After I washed myself up in the bathroom, my eyes roamed to the spot where Henry lay last night. But it was empty. Where did he go?
All I remember is that he fell asleep first...He must have been tired from carrying me back to the cabin last night.
Before long, I grew more and more scared, thinking of the possibility that Henry had left me in the middle night. I know I shouldn't doubt him and the promises he made me, but it was as though these kinds of thoughts were programmed inside of me. I wasn't wrong to feel this way, to think this way, right?
My eyes drifted to an unexpected sound coming from the kitchen. At first, I was petrified, thinking it was a ghost, but as the sound became more and more familiar, I knew who it was.
As I quietly walked over to the kitchen, there he was, hunched over a dining chair with his elbows bent on his knees and his hands cowering over his head. The moonlight from the window illuminated his figure, creating a whimsical outline of his tortured soul. My heart suffered immensely at the anguished sight of him. I knew what he was doing.
He was crying. But why?
Slowly, my bare feet detached from the floor, approaching him with diligence. When I reached him, I bent onto my knees in front of him, gingerly placing my hands in between his arms to let him know I was here.
"Henry?" I called out his name through a soft whisper. It took him a moment before he could remove his hands to look at me. If even possible, my heart shattered even more upon the broken sight in front of me. My throat dried up like a desert as I studied his troubled gaze. How long has he been crying to himself here, I asked myself.
Unable to control my own emotions, my eyes began to fill with their own tears as I laid my hands on either side of his face, wiping away his tearstained cheeks. He gazed at me wistfully, words unable to leave his lips.
"What's wrong?" I asked trying to comfort him. "Tell me. I'm here for you."
He shook his head, still not saying a word. I suddenly felt guilty for thinking what I thought earlier. Henry didn't leave me in the middle of the night. He was still here. Very much here.
