mine {h.s.} | {b3}

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

— CHAPTER SEVENTEEN —

october, year two.

In the middle of the night on Halloween, I wake up to a scratching at my door.

I'd long since gone to sleep. We hadn't done anything over the top for Edie's first Halloween. Harry—permanently festive as he is—wouldn't let the day go by without some form of celebration, even if she was too young to partake in the majority of it. Naturally, that left us dressing up hours early due to the fact that Harry had signed himself up for the night shift, hardly thinking in advance. What I didn't know is that when I told Harry to go out and get her costume, he would take that as instructions to buy us a three piece family set. When he had returned home, I had thrown something of a fit insisting that he and I need not dress up for the holiday—seeing as we weren't even planning on going out—but he refused to budge.

I had been the one to cave.

Pictures now exist of us holding our little baby, the three of us dressed up as characters from The Little Mermaid. Harry is dressed handsomely as Prince Eric. Edie is snuggled up in a cute little costume of Flounder the fish. I, on the other hand, have my hair stuffed up into an obnoxious red wig and have slipped into a fake green tale with a little sea-shell bra on top. Harry and Fitzy were having a field day with the camera.

But the festivities are since over. Now, I instinctively reach for my husband on the bed beside me upon waking to the scratching at the door, but frown when I find the mattress cold and empty. I sit up, terror momentarily seizing my gut as I think about my daughter defenseless in her room just down the hall. Within a matter of seconds, I begin running through every possible scenario that will keep the intruder away from her.

Blindly I reach for my nearest weapon, it being the lamp that I keep on the bedside table beside where I sleep. "Jesus," a familiar voice hisses, flicking on the overhead light and revealing Ruth to be just inside the bedroom door. "It's just me."

Hand on my heart, I lean back against the headboard, sucking in a deep breath. "Don't do that," I scold, closing my eyes as I try to focus on calming down my erratic heartbeat. "Obviously come in if you need something but don't do it so... don't be that scary."

"Alright, I'll work on that next time I wake you up at 2:30 in the morning."

"Okay, thank you." I say, fumbling for my phone on the table beside me. When the screen illuminates, I see that Ruth hadn't been lying about the time.

"I was being sarcastic."

I blink slowly and look up at her curiously. "Were you?"

"Yes, of course. I don't plan on repeatedly waking you up at 2:30," she answers, her own brows dipping low. "Is that surprising to you?"

"Admittedly, yes. I used to do it to Harry all the time," I laugh, pulling up my husband's contact on my phone, reminiscing on all the times that I showed up in his room before we were together, waking him up; something that started back on his first birthday that we celebrated together when I went stumbling into his room at three in the morning eager to deliver him what I believe was his only birthday present that year—also, the same necklace that he has hardly taken off in the time since.

You okay?

I've something for you.

What?

It's kind of stupid.

No it's not. Gray. Take it back. Thank you—

Well, open it!