After eating a small, relatively tasteless microwave dinner of spaghetti and atballs with the necessary healthy side of stead vegetables, I get ready for bed and I slip under my covers, excited to open the Raven book and see what all the fuss is about. The storytelling is pretty decent, and I find myself already hooked in the first Chapter.
The female lead is a freshman college student running through the forest after she was lured out by one of the guys in her class. When he becos aggressive with her, she gets away but ends up lost and injured in the eerie woods that also happen to have a reputation for strange and unexplained events occurring at night.
Unfortunately, I’m exhausted and start nodding off just when a mysterious creature finds her in the dark, and the story really seems to be getting good. But god, I haven’t had a good night sleep in who knows how long, and my eyelids are slowly losing their battle with gravity. I can’t resist. So I give up on the story for now and place the book at my bedside before nestling down into my pillow.
All I want is a good night’s sleep. Please, please let have a good night’s sleep.
And I get it... at first. But after an unknown period of perfect, dreamless bliss, the sexy man of my dreams eventually swaggers his way in again. When he does, I am absolutely defenseless as always. His presence is too strong.
He curls behind in bed, one arm propped up behind my head and the other running up my leg and then under my shirt, teasing the sensitive skin there just at my waistband and running his thumb under it like he will shimmy my sweat pants off at any minute. But he doesn’t. He stays behind , nibbling my ear and whispering things I can’t understand.
This ti, I am bolder than before and get the confidence to turn and face him before he does anything. The shadows of the room along with his dark unruly hair obscure most of his face, but I see those brown eyes gleaming in the night, catching reflections from the moon and streetlights out the window. And his eyes are deeper than usual. They aren’t just hooded with desire this ti, they are piercing and seem almost... infinite. A shiver runs through when I get the unmistakable feeling that they are seeking sothing more than just this exchange of flesh. They are seeking... I don’t know what. My sanity? Definitely.
He looks down at my lips, a hand gliding over my cheek and the line of the jaw before rounding on my chin. Then his thumb reaches up and pulls my bottom lip down ever so slowly before letting it go. A seductive growl rolls softly from his chest, and when he starts to descend to take my mouth, I jolt up in bed again—awake. Totally awake.
This ti, we didn’t do anything. We didn’t really do anything intimate at all—he didn’t even kiss —but... but it almost seems like we did more sohow. Because we made that intense eye contact. Because I got a small peek into the depths of his soul, and I realized that there is more that he wants from . This isn’t just about sex. But what the hell is about?
I open the drawer of my bedside table and scribble down what happened again on night seventeen. This is a solid streak of seventeen continuous nights.
After I’m done describing it, I stop and stare at the ssy, frantic words on the page. This ti I couldn’t capture the essence of it at all. And that is terrifying, because if I can’t capture it, then it won’t go away. I don’t want to hear him roaring again in my ear, traversing that expanse between dreams and reality. I don’t want to end up on dication just to get a dreamless sleep... just to keep myself sane.
ntally and physically exhausted, I place the notebook back in the drawer. I would read the Raven book to distract , but I’m too tired. I would go to sleep, but I’m too fearful. So I lay back down in bed and clutch a pillow to myself, curling around it and staring aimlessly into the night that has infiltrated my room.
The clock at my bedside says 3:33 am. Maybe my sister Lorelei is awake. I doubt it, but if there is one person in the world I can text at this ti of the morning without them imdiately thinking I’m crazy, it’s her.
’Hey Rory, are you up?’
The blue bubble pops up and waits, lonely on my screen. ’Rory’ and ’Raya.’ Those were our nicknas as kids. She is only a year younger than , and we were always close. It wasn’t until we both got into college that we drifted apart.
Rory pursued her love of writing, and I went into graphic design and marketing. And then life just... happened. Now she lives with her boyfriend Westin on the opposite side of the city and stays busy writing as a food critic, of all things. It’s perfect, because Westin is a chef. They are so cute that I want to be jealous, but I can’t. She’s too happy, and that makes happy for her.
When I don’t receive a reply, I lock my phone and sigh into what has now beco my emotional support pillow. I have a teddy bear around here sowhere... I should dig him out. ’Huggie.’ That’s what I nad him. I’ve had him since I was three years old, and his plush body is all matted from being so well-loved.
Since there is nothing else to do, I jump out of bed and start rummaging around in my closet in search of him. Yep, I rembered correctly: Huggie’s raggedy form is in the hope chest that Nana left when she passed away. I pull him out and tuck him under my arm before noticing the quilt that Nana made for one Christmas when I was still in High School. The colorful patchwork fabric brings back mories of when we went to the fabric store together. She told to pick out whatever prints I liked.
When I hear the phone buzz back at my bedside, I quickly pull the top of the hope chest back down in place where that mory will stay safe for another day.
’Well, I’m up now. Is everything okay?’
’Not really. Do you have ti to et for lunch tomorrow?’ I send back.
’No, but how about coffee?’
I groan, not wanting to commit to sothing before work especially when this is a conversation I would actually like to devote a little bit of ti to. But even if it’s brief, at least it will help to get so of this off of my chest.
’Sure, sounds good. Where?’
’Moe Joe’s at 7?’
’Great. See you there.’
At least that coffee shop is close to the office. I can get a good 45 minutes with her before I have to face another day of acting like I am completely fine and put together and not slowly and surely losing my mind to soone who doesn’t even exist.
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