Come to Me Quietly(52)

Dry laughter filled my room. “You’re right… because I won’t ever let it get that far.”



Pain fisted in my chest. I was wrong. He could hurt me. He already was – hurting me and hurting himself.

But I guessed hurting himself was what he knew how to do best.

I laced my fingers through his right hand, lifted them so our hands shone in the dim light. My skin looked so pale woven with his, his skin darkened with the sun and his fingers marked with the year of his birth: 1990. Life.

I squeezed his hand, willing him to hang on to it.

He pulled our twined hands to his mouth and pressed gentle kisses to my fingers. He ran his lips along the back of my hand, brushed them over the puckered scars on the outside of my thumb. My throat constricted, and I was struggling to hold back tears.

“I need to go, Aly.”



Panic rose in me, and I struggled to hold him tighter. “Please,” I begged, trying to tug him down, “just lie with me. Just for tonight.”



His sigh was heavy and filled with sadness. But in it was his surrender. His arms tightened around me, and he pressed his lips to my forehead. His warm breath filtered all around me, wrapped around and cocooned me, and I shuddered as I fell completely into his embrace.

Maybe if I lay here and never closed my eyes, I’d be able to hang on to him forever.

And I tried. But inevitably they drooped and fell because there was not a safer, more comfortable place than resting in the security of Jared’s arms.

In the morning, I woke to an empty bed.

I hadn’t expected anything different. It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. For a few seconds, I held my eyes closed because I didn’t want to face the wedge Jared had driven between us last night.

Rolling to my side, I pulled the sheets with me as I sought some form of comfort. Something crinkled on my pillow as I moved.

I lifted my head. A small piece of parchment paper sat folded on my pillow. My throat constricted, and I turned onto my stomach, eyeing the washed-out tan piece of paper, one side tattered from where it had been torn from some sort of journal. My fingers trembled as I reached out to take it in my hand. Slowly I unfolded it.

Tears welled in my eyes when I saw the simple statement written in a strong-handed scroll.

When beauty sleeps.

Turning onto my back, I held it against my chest, cherishing the words that Jared otherwise didn’t know how to say.



Two weeks had passed since the last time Jared left my room. He’d become distant. Withdrawn. Rarely was he at the apartment. I’d hear him creeping in at ungodly hours of the night and he was usually gone before I got up, as if he could hardly stand to be anywhere in my space.

And I missed him.

The hardest part was in those moments when he was in the apartment and I’d catch him looking at me.

Looking at me as if he missed me as much as I missed him.

Just as quickly, he’d look away, drop his gaze, and pretend all those nights he’d spent lying with me in the sanctuary of my room had only been figments of my imagination.

As if they didn’t matter.

As if they hadn’t changed who we were.

But I didn’t push him. The last time it had backfired. He’d panicked and had driven this unbearable space between us.

Somehow I knew if I pushed him any further, I’d never see him again.

Sighing, I forced myself from bed. Exhaustion dragged my feet. Restful sleep had been scarce for the last two weeks. There was always that hope, this little flicker of anticipation that he might come back, slip inside my room, wrap me up in his arms, and whisper that he’d made a mistake.