A Little Lie

Chapter Two

'I look at myself and all I see is failure.'

Lenore wakes up with a jolt. The memory of a pair of striking blue eyes following her across a small room burns in the back of her brain. She's completely drenched in sweat; her hair stuck on the nape of her neck and her head uncomfortably buried in the mountain of pillows. The audio book she played for herself before going to sleep has reached its two-hour mark. The spot next to her is empty – Milo is probably still sound asleep on the living room couch with no intentions of joining her. The alarm clock on her nightstand flashes 4AM and she's pretty sure she just dreamed of him.

B.K. Barnett.

Lenore suddenly remembers the coffee she accidentally spilled over one of his books; the yelp she swallowed before slowly disappearing into the bedroom; the way her hands shook as she pressed play on the first audio book she could find. Milo isn't going to kill her for unintentionally ruining one of his most prized possessions, but he will be angry and upset and she will most likely never hear the end of it in the days that are to come.

Someone in the near distance starts to weep and Lenore wonders if it's her.

She sits there completely engulfed by the darkness of her bedroom, wishing she'd cleaned up after her mess. Maybe if she were to do such thing, Lenore wouldn't be slowly eaten away by guilt and have Barnett haunt her dreams. Fuck – her head begins to throb – what was the whole point of dreaming about him anyways? It's not like she committed a serious crime!

The weeping becomes louder.

Lenore drops her head back into the mountain of pillows. The alarm clock is now flashing a bright 4:13AM and all she wants to do is sleep, but each time she closes her eyes a pair of striking blue ones force Lenore to stay awake. Does Barnett have blue eyes? – she can't quite remember. It's been a long time since she's seen a photo of him grace the back of one of his novels and Googling him for the sake of being reminded is beyond ridiculous.

She doesn't care what Barnett looks like. She just wants him to stop evading her damn dreams!

The weeping stops.

"Lenore?" Milo calls out for her from the living room, but she doesn't budge. Whatever he has to say to her he can say it in the morning. "Lenore!" He says once, twice. The third time her name echoes across the apartment, his voice resembles a tragically wounded animal. Suddenly Lenore is on her feet; sprinting to where she last saw him.

Milo is kneeling on the ground beside the drenched coffee table. "I've done something terrible." He croaks as the now destroyed copy of Melancholia falls apart in his arms. His glasses are on the floor beside his feet and his face is as drenched as the carpet beneath him. "I must've... I must've accidentally kicked it with my foot while sleeping." He hiccups and dabs the corner of his shirt over the bright green butterfly on the cover. Lenore hates that the sight of him makes her want to laugh.

"Hey..." She says softly before joining him on the carpet. Everything around her is soaking wet. "It's okay..." It's just a stupid book, "We can fix it. It's gonna be okay." Milo looks at her, his eyes bloodshot. Lenore learned very early on in their relationship that he's a massive crier – a trait she never witnessed in any of her past boyfriends. She keeps telling herself just how much she likes this part of him; how much she appreciates his shamelessness when it comes to being vulnerable. But seeing too much of it has also made Lenore realize that Milo tends to see most situations as opportunities to shed tears. It's how he remains the center of attention.

He buries his head in the crook of her neck and now she's cradling him the same way he cradles the ruined copy of his beloved book. Lenore notices that Melancholia isn't the only thing she managed to drown in coffee – the half-eaten pizza, remote control and newspapers are also sopping wet. "The pizza and crossword puzzles got ruined too." She muses and Milo scoffs.