“Ethan…” I echoed through a sigh, blinking rapidly. Sweat built up between me and the sheet and my hair stuck to my face. I kicked the top sheet off me. The room was dark, but I managed to make out Ethan’s silhouette as he took a seat beside me on the edge of the mattress. He wiped a cold towel over my face like he did every other time in the middle of the night. “You said you wouldn’t come anymore.”
Ethan stayed silent, gathering my hair in his hand and pulling it off my neck. The cold towel at my nape soothed the fever of my night terror.
“Ignoring your screams is torture,” he mumbled.
The night terrors had come every night since Ollie left, and I could rarely recall what my nightmares were about, but for seven months, Ethan had been the one to pull me from them.
My breathing steadied, and I rolled over and looked up at Ethan as he moved the towel across my neck and over my collarbone. He never touched me with his bare hands, only the cool hand towel he always had prepared.
And every night I needed it.
But tonight, I needed more.
Slowly, my fingers inched to his over the wet towel. My mind raced, and I didn’t know what I was doing, but my body starved for any source of physical comfort. Ollie was gone, and I was desperate. My irrational thoughts spun, thinking Ethan’s hands could heal me from the loss. Or perhaps I just needed someone to hold me because when my eyes closed, the ache surfaced. Ollie wasn’t here to take it away, but Ethan was.
Ethan didn’t move. He froze, seeing what would come of it. His eyes stayed on mine as I pulled his hand to my face. I closed my eyes against his warm skin. It was nothing like Ollie’s hand, but comforting in its own way. Releasing an exhale, I held his hand there, waiting.
Ethan rubbed his thumb against my cheek and let out a small breath of his own. When I opened my eyes, I found him again. “Please, don’t leave me,” I choked out. “Stay with me for just a little bit. Until I fall back asleep?”
Ethan’s mouth set in a hard line as he pushed more strands away from my face, but his eyes never wavered from mine. “Don’t put me in that position.”
He removed his hand and turned his eyes away.
Then he stood and adjusted his belt. I used to fear the jingle of those keys, but Ethan’s presence had replaced that fear. I no longer flinched at the sound. Now, I begged to hear it.
Ethan turned back around to face me, and his eyes wandered up and down my sweaty body until they landed on my face. “I’ll see you in the morning, Jett.”
He’d never call me by my first name, and I never understood it. Rolling back over in the bed, each of his footfalls gripped my already broken heart before the door clicked closed behind him.
Chapter Two
“You’re desperate, Iknow, but
his touch is never goingto fix it.
You’re empty, Iknow, but
he can never fill the place Ionce did.
I warned you, mylove, but
you’re stubborn and never listen.”
—Oliver Masters
mia
“I HAVE TO SAY, Mia, I’m very impressed with how far you’ve come over the summer compared to where you were last semester,” Dr. Conway said as we sat in her office. “Do you have any goals for this year?”
One more week until school started, and between the support group I conducted once a week and my night terrors, there was still plenty of time for my mind to stray to Ollie. No matter how busy I tried to keep myself, he was everywhere.
“Goals,” I laughed lightly from the leather couch, “There’s a word I would never have attached to my name before.”
Dr. Conway’s face sank under her 80’s bangs. “Stop with all this self-deprecating…” she mumbled before turning in her chair and raised to her feet. My eyes followed her as she walked toward a small side table on the opposite side of the room and pulled out a drawer. “Ah-hah.” She held a green velvet notebook in the air, waving it around as if it were the winning lotto ticket.
“What’s that?”
“This, my dear, is your first assignment for the new school year,” she handed me the notebook, “I want you to start writing in a journal. It will be therapeutic.”
