His mouth reached for my breast, but the hat prevented him from going any further. Giggling, I leaned forward, and my forehead collided with his chin. A harder laugh clenched my stomach as I hunched over the side of the tub. Water splashed over the rim, and I tried to recover, but Ollie’s frown only made my giggle fit worse, bringing tears to my eyes and losing my breath. “Lose the hat, Ollie,” I said between spurts.
His eyes glazed over. He was drunk. I loved drunk Ollie. “I don’t want to.”
I tilted my head and flicked up the rim of the hat, and when my palm rested over his chest, my laughter faded. Ollie’s cock jerked against me, and I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his neck. His pulse ticked against my tongue, and my hips rolled over him, desperate for friction.
“Oh, that feels amazing,” he whispered, tilting his head to give me more access as he dug his fingers into my sides. “Don’t stop. I don’t want you to stop.”
My lips moved up his neck and across his jaw and to his other side. Every inch of his tattooed skin begged to be touched, and I sucked, biting him slightly. His muscles tightened, all the way down to his groin.
I kissed his chin, then his lips, tasting the rosé lingering upon the soft edges. Intoxicated, my thumb ran over them before my tongue did. Ollie grabbed the back of my head and opened his mouth, catching mine, and his tongue slipped inside, falling into a wild kiss. Buzzing and utterly savage, he lifted me until our parts aligned, and I sank over his length. Ollie gripped the edge of the tub, his knuckles turning white, with his other hand in my hair. Chests crashed, and we both got lost in each other, grinding and letting this drunken haze keep us spinning and spinning …
Eventually, Ollie carried me out of the tub—in his fedora hat—and we laughed as he stumbled all the way to the bed, dripping wet.
We made love all hours of the night, pausing for pastries and to start a fire, then back at it until the sun came up … Because it was a Wednesday night, and Wednesday nights should be spent making out, making love, and eating glazed croissants. We could sleep when we were dead.
By five in the morning, we had the blankets pulled around us on the back porch to watch the sunrise, our buzz long gone but still drunk on each other.
“As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always woke before the sun. Now, me? I love mornings. But you? You like your sleep. Why on earth do you always wake up at sunrise, then go back to sleep for a few more hours?” Ollie asked, tapping the tip of my nose with his pointer finger. “One of the many wonders of Mia Rose.”
I thought about it for a moment, compiling the right words to explain to help him understand.
“It doesn’t last very long,” I said through a breath, gazing up at the sky. “It’s the tiniest moment, just when the sun peaks above the skyline, but the moons still visible—when darkness and light can co-exist. It reminds me of hope, and that I wasn’t alone or lost in this world. A reminder that anything is possible, even between two beings such as the sun and moon who only meet for a fraction of a second. During that small moment, together, they can create something so beautiful across the sky. I hoped that could be me, you know? That I wasn’t all bad, and possibly I could do something beautiful with my life too.”
Cuddled under a live oil painting, pinks, blues, and purples made up the sky—a pastel dawn. I pointed up. “See, Ollie. Look at how beautiful.”
Ollie stared at me for a moment. “I am looking, love.”
I turned to face him, and his lips grasped on to mine, holding our kiss for a beat longer than usual. He said nothing more as we looked up into the sky, and watched as the sun rose beside the opalescent moon, a fiery orange, bleeding into the vast gray of the night, washing out the darkness like watercolor until the moon faded and stars turned into dust.
“It’s moments like these that are impossible to capture in words, but I’ll never stop trying,” Ollie whispered.
Every morning I’d passed by the unused room off from the kitchen. Currently, it housed a desk, desktop computer, printer, and clutter, but Ollie preferred to write in his notebook in the garden or odd places throughout the house. Ideas sprung, and at any given time, he’d have his notebook folded into his waistband with pencils always tucked everywhere, behind his ear, in his pockets, between his lips.
This morning, Ollie had put on a pot of coffee and brought a mug to me in bed before heading out for an early meeting with Laurie, then mentioned he had to later check on Leigh to make sure she hadn’t gotten herself fucked.
I spent the first few hours, sipping on the hazelnut blend in my darkroom upstairs. It was my solitude, with windows blacked out and a set up with expensive equipment.
At first, I only took pictures outside in the garden, the rose bushes, and various flowers which blossomed late in June until the day I’d met Cora down the pathway, a little raven-haired girl, no more than eight or nine, who liked to jump puddles in her yellow rain boots. Her mom, Mrs. Morrigan, always worked in the garden out front after it rained, and gave me a few pointers on how to take care of our flowers. On days Ollie worked, her and Cora would come by, and she’d teach me her green-thumb ways.
And the flowers were prospering, and so was my photography. People quickly became my favorite muse. Cora’s mom was sick, and quite often, when Mrs. Morrigan was having a bad day, I’d take Cora into the village. Together, we’d people watch as I snapped stolen moments, frowns, kisses, smiles, seeing the true beauty of human kindness through a lens.
But today Cora had to visit her dad, and I made her a promise I would visit my biological dad too. It was easy to spill my secrets to a nine-year-old, but Cora’s advice was always so simple. “Just go see him.”
I was nervous about revisiting Dolor and spent the rest of the morning putting together a bundle of purple freesias, pink roses, and white lilies from our garden for Dr. Conway, and grabbing a to-go cup of coffee on my way out. The taxi waited outside our gate, and I climbed in with the flowers cradled in my arms. I had no idea what I would say or how this would go, but Cora’s words replayed over and over,“Think of the absolute worst that could happen, then the best. Most of the time, what will actually happen will lie right in the center.”
She’d said her dad told her that, and life was too short to worry, and worrying gave you frown lines.
The taxi drove through the iron gates of Dolor, and the memories from my time here gave me whiplash. “We’re here, love,” the old man said from the driver seat of the taxi, which smelled like stale tobacco, wearing a wool driver cap over his head. He drove around the circular driveway and parked in front of the doors. I paid my fare, exited, and walked up the steps in loose faded boyfriend jeans, tan leather slip-on’s, and a plain white tee, wishing I’d throw on the romper or the dress. I’d changed so many times, but there was no going back now.
I drew in a breath and opened the door.
“I’m here to see Dr. Conway, and Lynch,” I almost stuttered, but remained cool as the new security guard studied me.
“Put the items over the conveyer belt and step through the detector.” He motioned with his baton. “Arms at your side.”
I did, and my heart was beating so loud as my mind betrayed me at the thought of them being able to hold me hostage again. Could they? I stepped through, and he traced my silhouette with his hand-held metal detector, paying close attention to my hips. “It’s my phone. I’m a visitor,” I reminded him. “Not a patient.”
The security guard dropped his baton and looked over his clipboard. “I don’t see you on the list for today.”
