I saw you.
The night before, you were working late so I went to bed without you, but the bed felt so empty on my own. Unable to sleep properly, I woke at 6:23 a.m. that early December morning to a dark and desolate room. Your pillow on my right was still plump - unused - and through the gaps between the curtains I could see the sky beginning to radiate its weak pale early morning light.
You weren't home yet.
I pulled on that worn out Batman hoodie, and edged myself down the hallway into the sitting room just in case you'd knocked off on the settee. Empty.
You'd been coming home late for the past few days, but you'd never not come home. What if you'd relapsed? What if something terrible had happened to you on the way home while I was sleeping carelessly like a fool? I would never have been able to forgive myself. You were my haven, my hope... I would not have got where I was if you had not saved me. Taken me under your wing and sheltered me from that rain. The piercing eternal rain that I'd become numb towards.
I could never have been me without you.
I rushed back to my mobile phone, and just as I had unlocked the keypad, I heard a rustling noise. Not from inside, but out there. It was just about audible under the howling of the wind thrashing against the windows. Peering past the closed curtains I saw a familiar figure in the garden. You were wearing that old ugly parka you loved, hood up and kneeling in the far end of the garden. The shovel was next to you, and you were frantically pounding your fists down on to ground as if to harden the soil. Your chest heaved up and down breathing in and out all that your lungs would let you. There was something menacing about the way you were intently hitting the ground. Again, and again, and again, like all your life's anger was being channelled into your fists.
Suddenly you stopped, your eyes still boring into the ground that you were only just beating so furiously. I jumped away from the window, my stomach lurching at the sight of you. Rage screaming from those shaking fists, fury burning through that dead cold glare, back hunched as though that painfully contorted arch was resisting an overwhelming flood of agony - an obscure creature resting under the cloak of that familiar parka. You rose, picked up the shovel and headed round to the front of the bungalow. I didn't dare sneak round to see what you were doing. I didn't want to. I was scared.
Just as I heard the click of the front door I slipped back into bed, my face partly hidden under the duvet. You spent a while in the kitchen, then the shower, then the kitchen again, and lastly you entered. The door handle turned ever so slowly, as you gently pushed it open the hinges of the door faintly creaked in the dark, and when you stepped in... it crept in with you.
The cold of the outside sneaked in behind you, and it silently ran rampant in our room. While you changed into something fresh, I could feel it filling the gaps in the darkness, looming over my motionless body that was feigning sleep. It slithered its way under the duvet that I was clutching tightly. Its hateful presences made my skin crawl as every hair on my body stood on edge.
But then just like that it all disappeared.
You finally came and sat on your side of the bed, extinguishing my fears with your warm presence. Calming my nerves. You were silent, yet I felt comforted. I didn't turn towards you, I didn't tell you that I was awake, or that I'd seen you. My thoughts became hazed, and I woke up later than usual at 10:45 a.m. to the smell of freshly made pancakes.
After freshening up I joined you in the kitchen. It was clear that you hadn't had a wink of sleep; your eyes were sunken. You looked stressed and tired, but you were putting up a cheerful facade. Your chestnut hair was loosely plaited, and effortlessly brought round your shoulder, some loose strands gently caressed your jaw line while the side of your face was lit up by the rays of December sun behind you spilling in through the windows that faced the garden. An angled crease formed below your cheek as you greeted me with your cool half-grin, but the usually sharp and confident gaze of your grey eyes was replaced by distant uncertainty.
While you slid the pancake onto a plate for me, I could see your parka coat hanging on the line among all the newly washed laundry.
"You okay?" I asked while choking down breakfast. You paused at my words and looked at me, your eyes serious, your expression hesitant, and your slightly quivering lips parting to tell me. I smiled in reassurance, but it seemed to deter that brief flash of truth that nearly slipped out of you. Handing me orange juice, you decide to focus on breakfast instead.
"'Course I am - why wouldn't I be?" You chuckled in that defensive as-a-matter-of-fact way. I knew something wasn't right, that something was wrong. That you were hiding something serious, something dark, something that was scraping away at your conscience. I was sure of it, but I didn't push.
You weren't going to tell me about it, and I decided not to ask you; things were left as they were.
I regretted the choice that I made.
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The tone will be different in the first chapter :D so look forward to that!
Thanks for reading.
Ezra
