Page 64 of Wild Then Wed
Chapter 12
SAWYER
I wake up gasping.
The ceiling swims above me, dark and too close, like it’s about to cave in.
The sheets are soaked. My skin’s freezing. Hank’s claws scrape against the floor a second before he jumps onto the bed, landing heavy at my side. He presses his head against my lap, breathing hard as if he’s the one who had the nightmare.
I scrub both hands over my face, dragging in a shaky breath. The phone on the nightstand glows when I reach for it.
3:14 AM.
I lean back into the pillows, closing my eyes, trying to slow it all down. The nightmare’s still fresh.
The slick sound of tires on ice. The low thud of impact. The Christmas lights on the neighbor’s porch swinging in the wind. Sirens somewhere too far away.
The wrong kind of silence settling over everything after.
I breathe through it. Count backward from ten the way Dom once taught me to do when this happens.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Name five things I can feel: Hank’s head heavy against my leg. The wet cotton of my T-shirt clinging to my back. The cold press of the sheets. The dull throb in my temples. The slight, steady rise and fall of my chest.
Four things I can hear: Hank’s slow breathing. The hum of the heater kicking on. A tree branch scratching against the window. My own heartbeat, loud and uneven in my ears.
Three things I can see: The faint outline of the dresser. The red glow of an old alarm clock. The way Hank’s eyes blink up at me, patient and worried.
I exhale, slow and rough. It doesn’t erase it. It never does. But it’s enough to keep me from drowning in it tonight.
I scratch behind Hank’s ears, feeling his whole body relax under my hand.
“Good boy,” I murmur, my voice wrecked and low.
He lets out a soft whine, nuzzling closer. I close my eyes again, my body still wired and aching. There’s no going back to sleep now.
There never is, after nights like this.
Grief isn’t loud.
People expect it to be—all shattered glass and wailing, pain that demands an audience. And sure, I’ve had those moments, too. But that’s not the truth of it.
The truth is, grief is quiet. It slips in like a draft under the door, unnoticed until the whole room is cold. It lingers in your bones, becomes a part of you, until you forget what it felt like to breathe without its weight pressing down on your ribs.
Most days, it’s just background noise. A song you don’t like but know all the words to anyway. Other days—like today—it gets its hands around your throat before you’re even fully awake.
I don’t dream about the accident, not the way you’d think. I dream about before.
The little things—the ones that didn’t seem like anything at all until they were everything.
Julia in the kitchen, barefoot on the tile, swaying her hips to some old Christmas song she loved even though she could never quite stay in key. The way she used to hum along anyway, making up half the words, laughing when I caught her.
