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I used to always love the silence.
Back when Dad was drinking and everything felt like it was closing in around me, the pure silence was always there for me. Right before I would close my eyes to sleep, the night dark and all consuming, my thoughts would rush and clash into each other until suddenly they stopped for a single perfect moment. I didn't have to think. I didn't have to worry. Nothing mattered.
It was quiet.
And it was a perfect moment of peace.
But now...now I'm not sure how to deal with silence. The lonely nights in my apartment where I can faintly here the action movie the guy is playing next door, the cheering from a patio on the Main Street, a siren echoing past. Everything around me seems to be noise, action, love, laughing. But nothing is ever from me.
The nights are as dark as they are quiet.
And instead of feeling at peace in that single moment when I close my eyes, all I think about is whether I heard a creak outside my door. Whether I left my keys beside my bed. Whether I locked the balcony doors.
Why does the sheets touching my legs feel so similar to when his hands grabbed-
I choke on air as my eyes snap open. I take deep, quick breaths quietly as the lights from the buildings outside the window illuminate me through the darkness of the night. I glance at the alarm clock beside my bed and sigh.
3am.
A shuddering breath runs through me and I try to calm down, ignoring the shiver that runs through me and the awful tingling that clings to my legs. Cold sweat is sitting on my forehead and my clothes cling to me in such a way that makes me want to tug and pull at them until I can reach my skin.
I sit up.
Dropping my head into my hands, I clench my eyes shut. Almost two years and just the thought of his hands sends me into a panic.
"The hell is wrong with me?" I whisper.
I glance over at the bedroom door which is cracked open and see Tally sleeping on the bed I laid out for her in the living room.
A little shadow crosses the room and suddenly a small body jumps onto the bed beside me. Fig makes a quiet noise, staring at me as he sits. I hold my hand out and he gives it a sniff before walking up to me and sitting on my stomach.
I lean back down onto the bed and he walks in a circle before he begins kneading my stomach like dough.
"I'm not a pillow, you can't actually change the shape of my body for your comfort," I mumble.
