“But I thought she wanted to be called Ella.”
“There was never a consensus. Was there a consensus?”
Slowly, my eyelids flutter open.
Silence explodes, coating mouths and walls and doors and dust motes. It hangs in the air, cloaking everything, for all of two seconds.
Then
Shouts, screams, a million sounds. I try to count them all and my head spins, swims. My heart is pounding hard and fast in my chest, recklessly shaking me, shaking my hands, ringing my skull. I look around fast, too fast, head whipping back and forth and everything swings around and around and
So many faces, blurred and strange.
I’m breathing too hard, spots dotting my vision, and I place two hands down on the—I look down—bed below me and squeeze my eyes shut
What am I
Who am I
Where am I
Silence again, swift and complete, like magic, magic, a hush falls over everyone, everything, and I exhale, panic draining out of me and I sit back, soaking in the dregs when
Warm hands
touch mine.
Familiar.
I go suddenly still. My eyes stay closed. Feeling moves through me like a wildfire, flames devouring the dust in my chest, the kindling in my bones. Hands become arms around me and the fire blazes. My own hands are caught between us and I feel the hard lines of his body through the soft cotton of his shirt.
A face appears, disappears, behind my eyes.
There’s something so safe here in the feel of him, in the scent of him—something entirely his own. Being near him does something to me, something I can’t even explain, can’t control. I know I shouldn’t, know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but drag the tips of my fingers down the perfect lines of his torso.
I hear his breath catch.
Flames leap through me, jump up my lungs and I inhale, dragging oxygen into my body that only fans the flames further. One of his hands clasps the back of my head, the other grasps at my waist. A flash of heat roars up my spine, reaches into my skull. His lips are at my ear whispering, whispering
Come back to life, love
I’ll be here when you wake up
My eyes fly open.
The heat is merciless. Confusing. Consuming. It calms me, settles my raging heart. His hands move along my body, light touches along my arms, the sides of my torso. I claw my way back to him by memory, my shaking hands tracing the familiar shape of his back, my cheek still pressed against the familiar beat of his heart. The scent of him, so familiar, so familiar, and then I look up—
His eyes, something about his eyes
Please, he says,please don’t shoot me for this
The room comes into focus by degrees, my head settling onto my neck, my skin settling onto my bones, my eyes staring into the very desperately green eyes that seem to know too much, too well. Aaron Warner Anderson is bent over me, his worried eyes inspecting me, his hand caught in the air like he might’ve been about to touch me.
He jerks back.
He stares, unblinking, chest rising and falling.
“Good morning,” I assume. I’m unsure of my voice, of the hour and this day, of these words leaving my lips and this body that contains me.
