a place we know| ✓

thirty four

"And find a place where every single thing you see tells you to stay."
S E E K E R
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January 7th
5:21 AM
New York
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"Audrey, can you hear me?"

Gunner took in her sleeping face. Her black hair fell around her face and fluidly over her back. Her eyebrows were slightly creased as her soft breaths rippled against his neck. He lay lazily next to his fiancé and exchanged with her nothing but his words, well aware that she was deaf to his voice.

"Are you asleep?" he asked and entwined his fingers through her black locks, kissing her forehead as gently as the heat of her body kissed him. "Baby, wake up."

She roused and stirred, burying herself in the snug sheets. Gunner rubbed the fast approaching slumber out of his own closing eyes and gazed at Audrey; her blinking was slow, and whilst she almost gave into night's clutches, he urgently shook her shoulders.

Her eyelids drooped, then within the span of a second, snapped open and uncovered to him those tired, hazel irises. "Gunner, why are you up?"

He was at a loss for words and suddenly couldn't remember his reason for waking her up. He wasn't able to sleep, that much he was assured of. Earlier in the day, he found out that the girl he loved had been violated by another man. Out of the blue, he proposed to her. Surprisingly she agreed without hesitation and now... now his mind was scrambled with thoughts of the past and present, stealing the hours he needed for rest and crippling him with disquietude.

"I was lonely," he said after numerous beats of silence, voice stifled. "I'm sorry for waking you."

Traces of sleep varnished into the chill atmosphere, following the easy flow of the wind. "What's wrong, Gun?" She touched his cheek and dragged out a soft sigh, "Come on, tell me."

Behind the window a blizzard whirled in mesmerizing patterns that make the bright Christmas lights appear like artificially bright stars in a grey, sombre sky - he didn't understand why people still had their decorations up. He cocooned them underneath the covers and gave himself a few moments to think. The world could go up in flames this very moment, but they'd be safe together.

"I was just thinking about a few things," Gunner exhaled a huff of air and his head sank into the pillow. "A lot's happened so far and..."

"And?"

He couldn't look at her. "I'm probably overthinking."

"Do you regret asking me to marry you, Gunner?" she whispered, and the room grew full of unspoken truths. Many of them were regrets that Gunner had, but wanting to spend the rest of his life with the girl he loved wasn't one of them.

"It was the best decision I ever made. I wouldn't go back on it."

His eyes were fixed firmly on her face, somehow picking out new details he never noticed. Like the small freckle just beneath her left eye, the brown of her eyes infused with gold and green and every shade of autumn beauty, much lighter under the delicate touch of the moonlight, rimmed with dark, thick lashes. As he breathed slowly, he captured an image in his mind. He leaned in to kiss her lips.

"Then what's bothering you?"

The list would go on for as long as time existed. Gunner couldn't even start, he didn't know where to begin.