desiderium | m. o'hara

fourteen

TW: talk of death

  I had a nightmare, and now I can't sleep. I stare at the ceiling with dry eyes and tear-stained cheeks and count the seconds that mock me.

I've never had nightmares like these before. Never so frequent and never leaving me so drained, so emotionally tormented. Before Miguel died, I could count the times I'd waken up crying on my fingers. Now it's happening every night.

  I can never quite recall how they go; the images slip from my grasp before my eyes even open, but the way I reach for a body that isn't beside me gives enough clues to guess. They always seem to wrench my heart from my chest and squeeze it with a cruel, cold hand. I always seem to have Miguel's name on the tip of my tongue.

  His pillow holds so many tears.

  It doesn't smell like him anymore.

  He's fading away from me.

  I push back the covers and swing my legs over the mattress, and then I just sit and stare at the floor until my simmering grief bubbles up in a sob that I catch with my hand. I want to scream. I want to ball up everything that I'm feeling and cry it out, to wail until my throat bleeds, until even the heavens can hear me.

  But I have to be quiet. Rosalina sleeps just down the hall.

  "Mig," I whimper, as if he can hear me, as if I can call him back to me, as if he's right beside me like how he would be if he was still here. I imagine his hand rubbing my back, imagine his soothing words, imagine the way he'd pull me into his chest until I exhaust myself and sleep against him. It just makes everything so much worse.

  It's agony. To cry like this at night, bridled by the need to be quiet. To smile throughout the day as if the Miguel that sleeps in my living room is the one I married, the one I share my past with. As if my husband isn't rotting away to bone in the glade of some far-off forest.

  I don't know how much longer I can take it.

  I'm not sure how long I sit in the dark and force my weeping to be no louder than a whimper, but when my throat becomes so dry that it hurts, I rise to my feet and stumble down the stairs to retrieve a drink from the kitchen. Something diverts my course, however, and I end up standing in the doorway to the living room.

  Sprawled on the couch that's ridiculously too small for him, Miguel sleeps, bathed in the illumination of the streetlights that peeks through the curtains. I stare at his legs hanging over the side and past all my wrappings of grief, I feel my old friend guilt swell. He doesn't look comfortable.

  If he wanted to sleep somewhere comfortable, he could always just go back to his own home with his own bed. But something tells me that he'd rather sleep on an uncomfortable couch than go home to an empty apartment each night. 

  I startle when his head rises over the back of the couch. His red eyes catch mine. His hair is a mess. I stifle back the urge to cry again.

  "How long have you been up?" I ask.

  "Since I heard you crying," he answers.

  I look down awkwardly. "Oh..."

Miguel sits up properly and pats the seat beside him, an invitation. I hesitate on the threshold of the living room, unsure, before padding across the floorboards and sinking into the couch. I bunch this half of his blanket over my knees and hug them, staring at the coffee table.

  It's warm from his body heat. It smells like him.

"Have you been having nightmares?" Miguel asks softly.