The Exchange

Chapter 23- The Morning After

Hey hey,
The song that I thought of when writing this part is 'Je Te Laisserai Des Mots' by Patrick Watson & the lyrics are so beautiful that I thought I would share them with you :) 

(Translated from French to English)
I'll leave you words underneath your door
underneath the singing moon
near the place where your feet pass by
hidden in the holes of wintertime
and when you're alone for a moment
 kiss me
 whenever you want

----

It was a slow and groggy morning. The kind of morning that feels as though it will go on for all eternity, and the world is stuck looping back to the same repetitive time frame. The house seemed dull, Ben was out and Annette was working in the study. A greyness seemed to have descended on all things. It was quiet. Too quiet. Quiet enough that Sasha could hear the battering of her heartbeat against her chest and her low, heavy breaths.

She was lying in her bed, hiding under a blanket and watching as it ballooned with each exhale. The light from the window filtered through the material, so that the space she lay was warm and illuminated. Sasha felt safe here. Away from it all. Away from everything that had spiralled so quickly into a dark, cavernous hole.

Her insides felt wounded and her head felt woozy and dazed when she thought of the night. She could not face Julien and she did not want to face Julien. All she wanted was for him to leave and for her to carry on the way it had been before.

This was real life. She'd been missing out on this. And the raw reality of emotions and showing her vulnerable side had internally mangled Sasha, leaving her with an enclosed numbness, a sinking stomach and no hope for the future.

If this was what she had been missing out on, then it was overrated. She knew it wasn't love, knew that it hadn't been that blissful euphoria that everyone chased and she still did not know. But this was the beginning and even at this stage she had been stomped on and thrown around that it was a wonder anybody wanted to pass through these gates at all.

And at the same time Sasha also completely disagreed with these thoughts. Because what seemed to override everything was the sensation she experienced when Julien tenderly gazed at her, when he held her in his arms, and when he spoke to her with such focus that she felt she was the only one in the room.

It was these past affairs that had made Sasha feel more alive than she had done in years. It had opened something deep within her, creating a pleasant throbbing in her limbs and a bounce in her step. For the first time ever, she had pictured her with someone else. Properly with someone else. And it had excited her.

But after last night, everything had changed all at once. Sasha felt stupid for feeling all those emotions, still feeling those emotions, and having to fight them with the little willpower she had. After all, you can't just flick a switch and suddenly go back to not caring one bit about someone. The world is more cruel than that.

And Julien had hit her where it hurt the most. He'd abandoned her. Not properly, and definitely not maliciously, but it still left a pang in her heart. It was one of Sasha's deepest fears that had been instilled in her when her father left and later even more when it appeared as though he didn't want anything to do with his old family anymore.

Julien had kicked her when she was down. He knew that she was feeling low and he'd even spent the whole night with her after the argument with her father, being supportive and kind. But then to switch from that side of himself to being this uncaring, well it just didn't make sense!

Sasha sank further into her mattress and smoothed the skin underneath her eyes. They felt raw from sleeplessness and jittery from coffee.

After returning home last night and falling into bed, she could not rest. Her brain was pulsing with surreal images and her body was buzzing with adrenaline. It was almost light when she had finally fallen into a drowsey slumber.