The Light You Give

35.

I could still hear the chatter downstairs as darkness slowly overtook the cloud ridden sky. Seth had fallen asleep, he lay with one arm curled around me protectively like he usually did. A feeling I was getting extremely comfortable with. My eyes however, were almost pinned open. Unable to close and ease into the sleep I found in the safety of his arms. My mind was alight with thousands of anxious thoughts.

When had he started thinking like this? Where did it come from? I mean we were doing so well and had a really good patch when we got together? Was that a coincidence? Honeymoon stage? Maybe we rushed into it too soon? Should we have waited till college? Maybe we weren't meant to date at all? 

These frustrating thoughts wound round and round my head.

I mean we had been dating a week. A week that's it. And he already was done. I mean maybe it's just the overthinking and the depressing thoughts. I mean I understand that, a lot. But I hadn't thought that this would not last, a while at least. I thought he wanted to be forever.

Maybe now he's slept with me he wants to break up?

No he would have left a while ago. Well it's not like he can leave can he? Even if we broke up he couldn't disappear from my life, he would always be there. I'd see him around campus, see him playing at events. Family gatherings with the Nixons, hell we had every public holiday with that family. Dinner twice a week. He lives down the street, I'd see him running, surfing. There's not exactly leaving when everything keeps shoving you together.

Hours pass as my mind constantly whirrs. My stomach a twisted ball of anxiety. The voices downstairs, slowly begin to die down and I can only assume they've headed to bed. I hear footsteps padding upstairs, they sound like Bea's heading to her room to sleep.

A small sharp knock at Seth's door makes me jump slightly my heart rate pitching for a quick second.

"You guys awake?" Bea's voice whispers as she pushes open the door slowly.

"I am." I reply, sitting up, a small shaft of light from the hallway making my eyes cringe.

"Okay cool. Just checking in." Bea says before beginning to close the door again. The light slowly receding.

"Wait Bea." I say before immediately flinching at the vulnerability that clearly rings through my voice.

I hate being vulnerable. It makes me feel weak.

Though admitting vulnerability is considered a sign of strength. I still couldn't bring myself to think that way. Vulnerability, showing emotion, asking for help. All things I considered a sign of weakness. Something I hated to feel. Weak.

"Yeah?" She asks pushing the door back open again. Her silhouette black against the golden glow from the hallway light.

"Is your bed empty?" I ask her caution etched into my tone. Nibbling at my lip anxiously.

"Yeah the others are downstairs but I couldn't sleep so I came up to my bed." She explains. I nod and shuffle out of Seth's arms. Careful not to wake him.

"I'm coming to sleep in your bed if that's alright." I say stepping through Seth's doorframe. Casting his sleeping figure one last look before shutting the door.

"Of course." She says with a nod before her head whips to me. "Why what's up? Did you and Seth have a fight?" She says her face twisting into a mix of emotion in a half whisper as we walk to her room.

"I don't know. Not a fight exactly." I say as I climb into Bea's familiar covers. The soft silky folds wrapping around me. I feel like I hadn't slept in here in a long while.