Between the Days and Nights ✔

Chapter 14: Over Easy

Hey, sorry I took an extra day to get this out. It's just that there's a bad cliffhanger at the end of this chapter that I didn't want to post before writing the next one. I felt like that would be a dick move to leave you guys hanging with this chapter ending...

-My

Silas

I'm dreaming. It's the only way this is happening. Lane and I are sitting on the swing in my backyard, leaning against each other. I have my arm around her shoulders and her hand intertwined with mine on my lap. We sit swinging slowly as we marvel at the rosy sunset ahead. I turn to look down at her profile, and I feel my mind wiped clean of any thoughts. It's just her. It'll only ever be her. I lean down for a kiss, but a loud ringing starts humming so loudly that the entire world starts trembling. I turn to look at all the trees shaking and the world going dark.

"ACHOO!" I sneeze loudly, waking myself up, and hear a giggle beside me. I open my eyes and realize that I had stayed in Lane's room all night. I'm currently resting my back and neck against the side of her bed, my head pulled back on the surface of the mattress with my mouth opened way too wide. In the far corner of my blurry morning vision, I spot a feather. I turn to see Lane laughing her lungs out, holding a feather pen in her hand.

"Oh yeah?!" I yell as I start tickling her sides, leaving her twitching away from my touch. Her laugh is incredibly wonderful to hear.

"Okay! I give! I give!" she pleads with her hands clapped together, the feather sticking out from between them.

I sit back down on the desk chair and look at her. The bun of hair that sat on her head last night had loosened and dragged down near her neck. Loose strands of hair frame her face, which somehow looks flawless, even this early in the morning. She crinkles her nose and scratches the back of head before pulling out her hair tie to release her long locks.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stay all night. I was just tired from all the..." I trail off as I recall the events of the day before, when I had been closer to her than I could ever have imagined. "Can I use your shower?"

"Not if I use it first," she responds quickly, as if it were an instinctive reaction.

"Don't you have two bathrooms?" I stare at the lock of hair that rests along her arm.

"More like one and a half. Do you even have clothes to change into?" She points at my wrinkled shirt with her feather pen.

"I have some in my car. Wait, where's your mom?"

"Not here. Go get it. I'll shower first." She gets off her bed, places the feather pen on her desk, and walks off.

I quickly run out to get my clothes, careful to lock my car on my way back, knowing what I've heard about this neighborhood. When I get back, she still isn't done showering so I sit back in her desk chair, placing my clothes on her bed.

I swivel in the chair, looking at all the little sticky notes on her wall. I spot a pad full of blank ones in the corner. Pursing my lips, I grab the pad and feather pen. With determination burning the space between my eyebrows, I draw a little cartoon for her. I hope she'll like it. I peel the masterpiece off the pad and stick it above all the other ones, hoping she would see it sooner.

She finally walks in after her shower with a towel wrapped over her head. I stare at her and at what she's wearing.

"What," she asks as she tosses a towel onto my pile of clothes on her bed.

"You misbuttoned your shirt." I watch as she unbuttons her top button to readjust it. For a split second I could see her bra peeking out as she adjusts herself. I freeze, staring at her figure under her outfit. A button down top and a pair of jeans is as conservative as girls can be these days, but on her, it looked like heaven. And she was my angel.