Vacant Heart

Chapter Seventeen

He's looking at me.

My eyes haven't opened yet, but I'm sure of it. The sun is beaming through the windows, seeping through my eyelids. The bottom of the bed is pure heat, spreading into the blankets that are still bunched up near my feet, no doubt a result of scalding river stones. It contrasts the fresh crisp air that is dancing over my skin. I'm wearing nothing, and I'm sure he's looking at me.

The memories of our night sift like rotating record discs in my mind. His fingerprints feel permanent and lasting, tenderizing the valley of my curves. Hours have passed, spent in deep sleep, but they are still there.

My head may be throbbing, my body may be ridden with fatigue, but my soul is soaring, and touched. I'm a kid on Christmas. I'm skydiving through the air. I'm experiencing emotions for the first time in my life—true, mind-numbing ones—and it's glorious. I'm free, so free.

Aidan's fingers are tracing the side of me, lightly dusting over the deep curve of my waist to my hip. I'm terrified to open my eyes, frightened for what I'll see.

Regret. Suspicion. Reluctance.

Aidan is as much a mystery as the day I met him. To open my eyes and face reality, face his realities with the knowledge that they may distort my own is hard. But, cloud nine only lasts so long.

"You're looking at me," I announce, cutting the silence to quick. My voice hasn't recovered in any sense, still a rough squawk. At his lack of answer, which drives my thoughts wild, my eyes slide open with slow, testing flutters, adjusting to the sunlight until I can gaze upon him clearly.

The sunlight is bouncing off of his skin, giving a sheer glow, a sparkle of light blinding enough to bring warmth to my features. His arm is still on my hip. He doesn't retract it now that he knows I've caught him. In fact, his expression is expectant, as if he'd been waiting for me to wake and realize it myself.

My hands are tucked under the pillow comfortably, a casual pose that I don't unwind from despite the relief I experience at the unclouded gaze he's set upon me. His musings, the dark ones, are on the backburner. He's enjoying this too.

I smile tiredly, admiring the youthfulness I catch in his face under this light. His sharp features have softened, his mouth smooth, his jaw unclenched. His usual brooding scowl is nowhere in sight, miles and miles away from this room.

His caresses begin again, traveling lightly down over my thigh.

"Do you know what it's like?"

"What?" I whisper.

"To forget what it's like to sleep next to someone."

I could lie. I could say yes. I could say no. Instead, I tell him the truth. "I forgot what it's like to wake up beside someone I want there."

He looks over my face. "I didn't think I'd ever...have this again. To have someone next to me..."

"Do you like it?"

He nods, slowly. "I wish I could enjoy it more."

A glower of confusion sweeps across my face and I remove my hand to extend it and clasp his neck. Soft tendrils of wavy dark hair poke out from under my grasp. "You deserve enjoyment, Aidan. You deserve this."

"You are so delightfully positive, Josephine," he responds, with a wry smile. "It's a beautiful oddity."

"Is that a compliment?"

"Absolutely."

"But you're saying I'm naïve?"

He scoots closer until he's on my pillow with me. My sensitive skin tingles as his hand spreads across my back. "I'm saying you choose to see the innocence in people, the light side of the darkness and it's a beautiful quality."