Page 104 of Awestruck at Dusk
“How is she doing?” I asked.
“She’s better now,” he replied, looking tired. “She crashed on her bed, the poor thing. Sleeping will do her right.”
I looked down at my dress, and it was blood-stained here and there, again, with William’s blood. The sight of that reminded me of the shooting. There was something primitive and protective that ignited inside me whenever William got hurt. It brought back this tidal wave of feelings that I’d buried way down in the depths of my being.
I could stillfeelthe adrenaline of it pumping through my veins.
“We should go to bed,” I suggested, not that I was going to be able to sleep. At least not until the rush settled.
“Come.” He pulled me out of the house and took me to the terrace table. “Choose your seven flowers.” He smiled.
“Oh, of course.” I leaned in to choose them, grabbed my seven flowers, and we walked back into the house. The brothers sat with their father in the living room. Lily must’ve stayed upstairs after helping Zara.
“Off to bed?” Joel asked us.
“Yeah, I’m knackered,” Nathan replied, placing an arm around my shoulders. I saw William eyeing the flowers I was holding, and he looked away after that.
Nathan and I said good night to everyone, and we disappeared off to the guest room, feeling how half of my soul wanted to reach out to William.
That damn feeling was back. Or was it ever gone?
Never.
Us
NATHAN LAUNCHEDat me as soon as we shut the door behind us. He unzipped my dress and pulled it down in a pro move, but I wasn’t in the mood for sex for a few reasons.
First of all, I felt like I needed to shower to wash off William’s blood splattered on me. I didn’t feel clean. Secondly, they were all still sitting out there, just outside our room in the living room, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. Sivert was sitting with them, for crying out loud. What if somehow they listened to us having sex? The thought mortified me beyond reasonable measure.
And last but not least, I couldn’t stop thinking about William telling me how he’d burn this house down if I had sex with Nathan here. Not that he would ever find out about it. But this was his guest bedroom, and he was out there sitting a few feet away from my door. I didn’t know if I’d enjoy having him sleep with someone else in my house.
Well, I did know. I’d hate it, even when I shouldn’t have because the last time I saw William, he made it perfectly clear that he didn’t give a shit about me anymore. That he was William Sjöberg, and he had immediate access to any girl of his choosing at a snap of his fingers.
And I’m not going to pretend like I wasn’t glad that Zara had to call it a night. That way, I’d have one less thing to worry about when trying to get some sleep at night because I didn’t want to take another sleeping pill. I was afraid to become dependent on them, so I tried to leave a few days in between takes. But I trusted I was tired enough to hopefully collapse on the bed.
Nathan kissed me, and I was having trouble stopping him because I didn’t want him to stop, but I had to. After explaining points one and two, he understood and agreed with point one completely. Nathan even ran the shower for me, but he didn’t agree as much with the second point.
He didn’t care that everyone was sitting out there or thought that anyone would listen to a thing. And he was probably right, but I’d left out point three out of the equation.
We agreed that I would take a shower, and he would go out with the excuse of wanting to grab a glass of water and check if they were still out there or not—to give me peace of mind. So I relaxed and agreed. Maybe if they had all gone upstairs, I would have nothing to worry about. And stressing about William was a waste of time. I refused to let him affect my relationship with Nathan.
I showered and removed the excess humidity from my hair with the blow dryer. When I came out, Nathan was sound asleep and snoring. I couldn’t help but laugh a little when I saw him spread out over the bed like a star.
The other empty bed asked me to come forth, so I jumped inside the covers and rested my head on the delicious pillows where I’d previously placed the seven flowers before taking a shower.
These were the same kind of pillows William had on his bed. And they were great. I just wanted to piss him off before by saying they were too bulky. They weren’t. They were perfect.
My eyelids felt heavy, and I was exhausted, but I couldn’t make myself fall asleep. I dozed off for a few minutes, but then I found myself tossing and turning in the bed again.
Naturally, my thoughts attacked me and entertained themselves at my expense. So I watched them as if it were a movie, trying to let them pass and avoid engaging with them, just as my therapist recommended.
Writing my thoughts down was the other recommendation, and I would try everything and anything that would help me go back to sleep. So I grabbed the Moleskin notebook I carried around with me and jotted down a few things as I usually did every day. But when I left the notebook on the nightstand, the sleeping pills winked at me. I ignored them and picked up my phone to check the hour.
4:08 a.m.
I tossed my phone on the bed beside me and gave up. Maybe a glass of milk would help.
Yes.
