BLACK

(37) Prejudice

EDITED

-Oren-

For the very first time in my life, I wake up beside my mate. Not near her, not on the floor. Not watching her from a distance, but directly beside her. In her arms. Skin on skin, face to face.

It was the most exquisite feeling I've ever felt, one that kept me cemented to the bed. My head was just below her chin on the pillow, nose denting into her neck. Every inhale gave me a fresh breath of her scent, rocking Black to sleep in the abyss of my brain. One of her palms sat curled between our chest, knuckles brushing my chest with every inhale. Her other was more smoothed out, curved over my jaw and her bent knuckles caught over my ear, keeping her palm in place. I had one under under her ribs, my other subconsciously draped over the back of her thighs. Black curls loop all over the pillow, twisted behind her body and even some tangling around her calves as her icy toes dug against mine for warmth. There isn't a wrinkle or press of worry on her face. Pure bliss encompasses her in her sleep, with parted lips so a tiny drop of drool leaks onto her pillow. After moments of staring, I find myself lost in features without those evergreen eyes guiding me. A face with so few flaws only had room to show emotion in her eyes.

She still wore yesterday's clothes, both of us actually. Except I had draped the ripped and soaked hoody over the bed post, staying in the stained sweats. We had fallen asleep like this, her coming in all angry and distraught, it was a test of limits for me. To break past Black, to control him. During the fight with her parents, during her father's shift. During the argument with Noire. Maybe she understood, just a smudge, for she seemed to have a change of heart halfway and stop. She pulled me onto the bed with her, wrapping her arms around me. It was the most she could do.

Despite the lullaby of her presence, I forced my body to untangle itself from hers and get up. The navy sky outside the windows was beginning to lessen, and I just knew Noire wasn't ready to face confrontation about sleeping next to me. A small whine brewed in her throat at my absence, breaking my heart as she adjusted herself so much that I almost caved and got right back in beside her. Which wasn't easy, by the way. Where Noire's taller, 5'6 or 5'7 frame had her head in the pillows and feet a good half meter from the edge, I had to bend and curl around her in the twin sized mattress.

I grabbed the light grey sweater from the bed post, weighing its slightly damp mass before pulling it over head. The cold material clung to my skin, a drop in temperature snaking over my body. I walked to the corner windows of the room, set up like an altar piece of glass. The view is beautiful, at least twenty yards of forest and vegetation between this backyard and the next. In the distance, I can see the foggy rain approaching from a cloud, following in the after math all the way from Uncharted.

My gaze turns to desk below the lilac walls, skimming over possessions and belongings of a girl no older than eighteen. Her scent was all over the room, itching at my nose with its sweet yet sour mix. It was the same scent in the kitchen when I'd gone down to speak with her parents. The brunette and burgundy bundle curled up on a chair in the corner, everything about her polar opposite to my mate. Common sense told me it was her sister. The visual has me wondering what variety of combinations her other siblings had. Although, the appearances of her parents should have been enough.

Over the pictures on the desk, tucked into edges into the mirror and some distressed with marker over specific faces, I commonly find that girl from the kitchen. Regularly her curled hair is strung up, dark make up coating her eyes, large hoops hanging from her ear lobes. I can only recognize her because of those piercing green eyes, the same in my mate. Not a single one of these pictures consists of both girls, however. Not a family photo, not a childhood photo. It's as if Noire doesn't exist in this life. This life of partying, cheerleading, and boys. Oh no, they truly are opposites.