"Favorite band?"
"Which decade?"
"Let's say this one."
I smile, fingering the sheets of his bed near my thigh. "Chase Atlantic."
His face lights up. The bed creaks under him as he shifts onto his elbows. "Seriously?"
I shrug. "You've sold me."
He hits a fist into his heart. "You don't know how much that means to me."
I chuckle, and turn my gaze to the ground.
A couple days. A couple days now.
The remaining weeks have passed slowly, night-terror evenings dragging on for hours on end. The days have become fewer and farther in between, and it seems to me I barely ever wake up. It takes someone to ring on my doorbell for me to step outside, and see the sunlight for the first time in years. One of two blonde heads of hair, which have come to be the companions of my summer.
Only then do the hours speed up. Or do they go back to normal? I don't know. I can't tell anymore. All I know in the slow of it is a headache, hazelnut eyes watching me wherever I drag my feet, large hands grasping at my ankles to pull me under every time I take a breath.
In the moments of speed, the ones I wish would stay, the faces become clear; Emma jokes with me and Sky smiles at me.
But God, do I wish they would stay once I walk out the door.
Sky never lets me walk back alone, though. He trails me to my front door, and I'm never sure if I'm actually that slow or if I drag my feet on purpose so we can be beside each other for a few seconds longer. He always makes me smile before I open up my door, with some magic method of his. The looks he gives me linger for a while after the halls close in on me.
But even those looks can only linger for so long. And nothing can outlast the present; the darkness forcing its way down my throat every night, lasting sometimes until the next.
And the next. And the next.
"Kingsley, you look exhausted."
I turn my neck painstakingly, blinking to keep my sight keen as Sky's concern changes his eyes.
His eyes. The more I see them, the more I want to.
In a swift movement, Sky is on his knees at my side, his arm slipping under my legs. I gasp lightly as he picks me up into his chest, steadying me with his other arm.
My hands instinctively find his chest as he lets go of my back to pull at his bedsheets behind me.
"What are you doing?" I squeak, looking up at him. He doesn't smile though.
No. He only sets me down on his bed so softly that my mind slips into a few seconds of complete silence. "You need a nap," he murmurs, almost to himself.
I barely find the words to answer as he tucks his sheets over my body. My vision blurs at their heaviness, seeming to want pull me under into a deep rest.
But I can't be pulled under. Not as I follow every one of Sky's careful movements, his gaze still on mine as he lies down next to me.
Only when he's rested his head on his pillow does it occur to me that the sheets smell like mild soap and warmth. Like him.
"What's on your mind?" he inquires, reaching to pull the sheets slightly over to my side.
Do I answer? How do I answer? Is there even an answer?
How could I ever tell him that it's time for me to leave, that today is probably the last we'll see each other, that I'll be gone before he even saw me passing by?
I know he must care if I live or not. I know. But something fundamental won't allow me to feel it. And that's why, as I've come to find out these past months, knowing doesn't matter. It never does.
YOU ARE READING
Asunder
Teen Fiction"Promise me. Promise me you'll never beg someone to stay when they're already gone." Tangled up a million knots, Kingsley has lost faith in happiness. Her heavy heart struggles to continue to beat, and she is slowing down. It seems to her that the w...
