The Little Dove #2 ✔️

21. Won't You Stay

CHAPTER 21: Won't You Stay

When I left Vancouver, Marvin decided to stay for another week. I told Mom and Dad that I wanted to be early, and get a head start on a few of my test preparations. I only stretched the truth a little. Leaving the academy was easy. It was staying gone that was hard. I trained, and I worked. Seeing Mom and Dad again. It was relieving and did make me feel like myself for a change. Those nightmares played on reoccurring loops. Tonight, was the first night where every nightmare flashed and collated with one another to drive me into a higher level of caution, risk, and fear.

I stay staring at the sink, at the kitchen counter with a plain expression on my stricken, hollow face. My cheeks felt sunk in as I take quiet, frequent sips from the tea I made not ten minutes ago. My lungs felt condensed, as if overused or filled with salt water from the remnants of the nightmare I had barely half an hour ago. The icepack had helped, but soon after, I held a numbing fortress around me. I felt as though I had to breathe faster, it was too slow and the salt water clutched me in its bitter arms, pulling me further under.

I felt overexerted and hadn't even noticed the other body swaggering in the room. I jump when two heated fingers run down the bare length of my arm, and I turn to see two silver orbs staring down at me intently, "Nightmares?" He whispers one word that speaks a thousand.

I purse my lips, "Of such. Why are you awake?" I ask him, taking another sip of my drink. He takes a seat on the tabletop of the kitchen counter.

"We went to bed early." He murmurs, gesturing me closer. I step in between him and the table. He cups one cheek and leans down, running the tip of his nose up my forehead, just as always; this time, he was warm.

I smile to myself, "Why do you do that?" I whisper in curious question. He did it often, very often since we'd gotten closer; first couple of weeks were rocky as if we were at each other's throats and still ignoring one another...but afterward had changed the more incidents happened. As if something in him snapped, and he no longer wanted to keep his distance, I stopped pushing away, needing him, perhaps for protection or something else.

"You relax more when I do." He murmurs, pressing his lips against the baby hairs of my hairline. I place the cup down behind me, turning back to face him, and I look up at him closely.

"How so?" I whisper, looking down.

He sighs, before I feel his hand move towards my lower back, "Your shoulders droop ever so slightly, you sigh whether it be in disappointment, defeat or content, you do it every time and you move closer, always. Your lower back will arch further into me, you'll close your eyes and act as if you're taking your first breath." Well, that was certainly something.

I huff, dropping my head between his pecks, I close my eyes. Damn, he was warm. Not exponentially heated, just the right temperature. He lets out a masculine breath, one hand still curving into the crook of my lower back and the other entangles into my hair.

I place my hand under my head, he sharply inhales, "Christ, lemon. You're ice cold." I immediately remove my hand but he captures it with his, shaking his head and putting it back. I curl my fingers around his thumb, he was warm.

I furrow my eyebrows, "How are you so warm? Even from sleeping on the couch." I murmur, looking up at him, wonder and curiosity in my mists, but really I wanted to numb my thoughts of anything else. The dream was still colourful in my mind, unforgettable.

The hold he had on my wrists felt so bloody real, one hand cups my cheek and I look up into Edmund's silver eyes, before something drops from my right eye and he watches the bitter salted tear roll from my bottom lashes, it crashes against his thumb.