Golden Heart

(13) A bedtime story

Warning: Mature content for themes around self-harm, strong language, drugs, alcohol and sex will be mentioned in the story. 

Golden Heart

The whole night he had spent awake, fearing he might have a nightmare again. He feared he'd wake up gasping for air again, he feared he might wake her. He knew how pathetic it was, obviously she wouldn't mind, she had said so herself. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to sleep, the thought always in the back of his mind. 

He was now sitting on the kitchen counter, hungrily eating another can as the sun shone into the room through one of the big windows. The can tasted like beans but he wasn't so sure anymore. All of the cans tasted the same, it was hard for him to tell what was what. The only sound in the room was the fork, scraping at the insides of the can as he tried to get every little bit that was left out of the can. 

He had left the bedroom early in the morning to let Alice sleep a little longer, he didn't want to wake her. She had been fast asleep, her lips parted and soft snoring coming out of her mouth. The sight has been quite amusing but he hadn't wasted any more time to get out of that weirdly small bedroom.  

He quickly finished his can and threw it into the trashcan, placing the fork in the sink, too lazy to clean it right now. He was bored and had no idea what he was going to do now. His phone was laying on the kitchen counter, the charging cable plugged into the wall and charging it. He had no new messages, no calls. And he knew exactly that this meant Brooks had found out what was going on. He wasn't scared of Brooks, he was scared for Alice. Because he didn't know how far Brooks was going to go to find them, find her. He wasn't with Brooks, he couldn't possibly know. 

As he stared at his black lock screen, the time showing 7:39 am, he considered calling Jackson. He was the only one who he could ask about the things going on in town. Then again he didn't know if he even wanted to find out what was going on. He'd keep Jackson in the back of his head, a thought only. Maybe he could ask him for help later. He surely must had noticed something was wrong after seeing Miles' face all over the news. 

He sighed, shaking his head. He looked at the date on the phone, it was the 20th of December. Only four days until Christmas Eve. Normally he would've ignored the date, he simply didn't care about Christmas and presents and didn't understand why it was so important to give people presents on that specific day. But he only thought about Alice and the fact that she was going to have to spend Christmas here in the cabin, in the forest, scared for her life and not knowing how long she will have to stay here. He could only imagine how she must feel.

"Are you alright?" He jumped a little at her voice and quickly turned around, placing his phone on the kitchen counter. She chuckled a little at his reaction. "Sorry, I didn't want to scare you."

She stared at him with a smile, dark circles under her eyes and Miles wondered how much sleep she had gotten. He didn't ask her about it though, fearing she might ask him about his night. He didn't want to lie but he also didn't want to tell her that he had barely slept just because he was scared to have a nightmare. How pathetic would that sound? It wasn't like him to act like this, he was never afraid of something. So why would he be afraid of a simple dream?

"Yeah," he smiled at her. "I'm fine. I was just eating another one of those weird cans. Sorry I ate without you." 

"It's fine," she laughed, walking over to the cupboard with the cans and taking out one of them. Miles was sure he read something about beans at the front of the can but Alice moved too fast for him to actually read it. She got herself a fork and sat down on the kitchen counter, right where he had sat when he had eaten his can. Miles only watched her as she did so, not saying a word.