Ten & Levan

35. Thirty Five

TEN

I open my eyes to my mom, who is a tad more than tearful; she's sobbing. she runs her shaking hand through my hair. I blink, unable to move, her other hand flies to her mouth. My chest feels heavy, it's too hard to breathe, it's painful, it stings. For a few moments, everything constantly blurs in and out of my vision. There's fire right in the middle of the emergency room, and there's smoke, it floats straight into my lungs and blackens them. There are also people rushing around me, or is it only their frantic bodies...I don't know. What the hell is going on? Where's daddy? I don't know what's going on at all.

Almost surprisingly, someone is hovering above my head, flashing a sharp white light into my eyes. I wince; I want them to stop doing it, it stings too. I wince and look away and there's dad, standing in a corner, ashen. I try to speak, but I can't. I want him to stop them; the lights, the frenzied movements, the fire, the tears. I want dad to listen, but he can't. He's walking away, his footsteps echoing.

"She'll be fine," says a distorted sound in the distance far, far away. The fire is suddenly gone, as if it weren't here to begin with. I frown, I guess that's a good thing, I think. But mom bawls on. Oh Heather, stop wallowing, I hate it when you hurt. I want to yell at her, her tears are too loud. I can't breathe

I wake up due to the frantic buzz of my phone, which signals that it's exactly ten minutes to six. I look outside through the clear plastic ceiling of the tent and it's almost twilight but I don't want to go back to sleep, because I still have an unsettling feeling inside my chest. I realize that I'm still frowning from my dream, so I smooth the creases between my brown down.

When my body earns its consciousness back, I realize that I fell asleep on Levan's shoulder, and my arm has banded itself around him. I look up to his face and find him fast asleep; his breathing deep and even, and his eyelids immobile. He's so calm, so soft, so warm next to me. Even though I'm still groggy and irrational from just waking up, a mouth twisting, toe curling smile takes me by storm and sweeps me off my feet. I'm glad Thea provoked me to take him on date two immediately. I'm also glad that Levan was able to fall asleep, because I don't want him to function on little to no sleep at all. No wonder he always looks so damned tired.

But now that he's sleeping soundly, caged next to me, I don't have the heart to wake him up. He looks so much younger, like he has nothing that troubles him, like there's nothing pushing him to the edge. My hand involuntarily travels to his face and the slight thudding in my heart suddenly turns into a full on rock concert, complete with drums and a heavy bass. Touching him feels more thrilling than all of my adventures combined. So I mindlessly let my hands roam his pale skin; purple and blue and yellow in places, wishing there were ways he could heal, both inside and out. It feels so, so wrong, yet thrilling, amazing, electrifying.

And then his livid pale blue eyes open into mine, and he's just as horrified as I am, the only difference; he lets it show and I don't. I retract my hand from his face without a single glitch. I want to pat myself on the back for doing that so gracefully. If only there was a way to hide my goose bumps too.

"Good morning," I manage to mumble. He blinks his reply, his cheeks flushing when he realizes how close my face is to his. "Come on, it's almost time," I tell him, crawling my way under the blanket to the opening of the tent and zipping it open. I look back at Levan and he's still groggily trying to figure out what's going on. I giggle at him before stepping out. "Hurry up," I say aloud, stretching my arms to the sky, maybe I could grab a few of those fading stars.

Just as I'm done yawning and stretching, Levan emerges from behind me, hair tousled and uncontrollably wild as he runs a hand through them.

"It's time for what?" he asks. I don't mean to sound completely nuts but why does his voice sound hotter right now? I clear my throat, to slap away the weird look I imagine I have on my face right about now.