blind - owen teague | ✔️

16. Irenic

I felt like my world was burning, and Owen was the torch. Everything I'd known was being put in flames. It turned everything I had into ashes, every stability into flux. I had grown used to such a routine of the darkness, the quiet, counting steps and seconds between nurses and he threw me in a loop so I didn't know what to expect.

He hurt me, he healed me. My happiness, my sadness, all my emotions depended on him and I was blindly drowning to his touch.

Laying in bed, I could hear his playful tone as he made airplane noises. "No, Owen, I'm not letting you feed me. I'm fine with protein shakes." I laughed softly as I heard the pout form on his lips.

"No, you're not. I can hear your stomach growling from over here." His voice was still so soft and velvety, reserved but baritone. I felt warmth and pressure on my stomach and my fingers ran into his hair. His head was on my stomach.

"Your stomach demands real food." He told me in a whine and if he could have seen my eyes, I'd roll them at him.

"I'm not a kid, Owen. You're not going to feed me."

"Have you ate today?" My heart nearly stilled as it jumped in my throat and my smile grew lazy. He cared enough to ask. He cared enough to ask if I ate today.

"No." I replied honestly as I slid my fingers through the over long locks of raven hair between my fingers, as he said they were. Raven, inked, black, jet. Was it a blue black or pitch black? Soft black or natural black? What dye did he use?

"Then let me feed you my fries. I stopped by McDonald's just so you could actually have something warm in you. SlimFast isn't warm." I almost snorted. SlimFast?

"Don't even laugh, that's what they feed you here if you can't eat. Mom told me." Owen said quickly as if reading my mind. You're too good at this.

"What are you going to do for me if I let you feed me?" I asked him with a cheeky smile forming on my lips and he laughed incredulously.

"You get warm food if you let me feed you. McDonald's fries suck when they get cold." He said back.

I sighed and groaned dramatically, head falling back against the pillow. In fact, it wasn't that I didn't want him to feed me. I was just scared. It was intimate and I was still scared to get close.

"Fine, Owen." I said and felt him move, so I pushed myself back into a sitting position.

"You trust me, don't you?" He asked as I heard the paper bag rustling and the question made heat rush through my body in my veins, anxiety fueled on top of my skin.

"Just trust me." His voice had dropped softer and I could only meekly nod as he said his next words. "I wouldn't hurt you on purpose. You know that."

I took another breath and nodded again, and I could hear the playfulness rise in his tone as he began this soft, "Choo choo~" sound. "All aboard. Open up."

Heat rose in my cheeks as I opened my mouth and felt the salty potato strip hit my lips, a smile forming from his childish words. Eating it, that was the easy part.

"This is so embarrassing."

"You're lucky I asked for a large fry even though you said you weren't hungry, quit complaining."

-

After eating, I relaxed in the bed while Owen did his homework. Of course, he had been right, I was hungry and I did want the warm food. He was always right.

I could hear the furious scribbles of his pencil on the paper, pressed down by my hip, close enough so I could just gently run my fingers through his locks. That was my current favorite thing to do, especially after the day before when he took me to have fresh air and upon my request, press the flower in a book so I could see it when I got my sight.