Chapter 166: Please Don’t Wake
When she had co up with the idea of the list. Emily had fully expected the two of them to at least have a few similar points in the lists that they wrote down. But looking down at Derek’s list, she had to admit the eeriness was sothing else. It was unnerving.
The points might have been written down, using different words, but they all boiled down to aning the sa thing. It was almost as though she and Derek had been sitting side by side while writing their list, both of them leaning over from ti to ti to copy from one another and then edit a point, and make it seem as though it were their own.
She looked from Derek’s list over to him. He too seed to be having the sa reaction that she was, upon reading what Emily had written. His attention going from the list in his hands to Emily, Derek spoke up.
"We seem to have similar thoughts when it cos to the things that we are comfortable with," He said, gesturing to her list, and Emily nodded. "Whatever needs to be added, we can do so in the future, but for now I am satisfied with everything," She told him.
"Shall we go upstairs and see how this works out?" She said it easily enough, but even as the words made their way past her lips, Emily felt her heart rate pick up. Finally, finally, this was it. They were going to do it.
Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her bag and followed Derek upstairs. As expected, the ocean the carried on even in Derek’s room. The walls were white, the sheets were white, the blankets, however, were a cool blue, and draped over one corner of the bed. It was warm enough that Emily doubted that they would be needing them. But she could still appreciate how they added to the beauty of the overall room. But that was not what her attention was fixed on. Sure the decorations and the covers were eye-catching. But what really had her attention was the centerpiece of the whole room...the bed.
It was huge. She was pretty sure that ten Emily Molsons could fit comfortably in the mammoth thing.
Not only was it huge, the lights in the room were arranged in such a way that they fell upon the bed in a way that made it stand out against everything else. And even the headboard, sothing that was normally easy to dismiss when it ca to other beds, was different.
Derek’s headboard was not the usual one that went flush against the wall and was vertical. No, this headboard was sothing else. Emily had no idea if it was made of actual bamboo. Or if it was wood that had been made to look like bamboo. But either way the light brown structure was stunning. It rose up from the bed, going vertical for a bit before curving down slightly, giving the illusion of a canopy. Emily was pretty certain that if she woke up to that every day, she would be confused for a few seconds, thinking that she was staring at the base of a real tree.
And to add to that illusion, there were plants on either side of the bed. Huge green things that Emily had never seen in her life. Moving over before she could think better of it. Emily reached out, and touched a single leaf. She gasped, taking a step back. Wow! It was real! An actual living plant, a healthy one too by the looks of it. Sohow she had expected it to be fake, but the fact that it was real made the whole thing even better.
"Those were a gift from my mother. According to her, they give the room a sense of life," Emily nodded. She had never personally t Derek’s mother, but she had to agree with the woman. The plants really did uplift the whole room.
"How do you keep them so fresh?" She asked, genuinely curious. And Derek shrugged. "I have no idea. I only ever rember watering them once, and that was the day I got them. They have been here a few years and they are still as healthy as ever. If you ask , I think they have so sort of supernatural ability to just keep regenerating without any care given to them," Nodding, Emily stepped away from the plant, and shrugged off her bag. Reaching deep inside for a confidence that she did not feel, she looked Derek directly in the eye. "Are we going to sleep any ti soon or what?" She asked.
In answer Derek tilted his head, indicating towards an artfully hidden door. The white of it blending seamlessly with that of the walls around it. "The shower is through there. You use it, and I will use the one downstairs. Then we can et up here and see how things go," He told her. With that he walked through yet another well-hidden door, and when he ca back out, he was holding a set of pyjamas. Seeing him with his change of clothes in his hands, Emily had to suppress her smile. She rembered very clearly the last ti that they had shared a room, and Derek had forgotten his clothes on the other side of the shower door. And judging by the look that he was giving her, a look that dared her to say anything. Derek clearly rembered that incident as well, and he did not want it being brought up. He marched out of the room without a word, and Emily let him go.
Once he was gone, Emily opened up her bag and rummaged through it. She pulled out a set of pyjamas and a toothbrush. With those, plus her shampoo and lotion in hand, Emily headed for the shower. And after taking a few monts to marvel at the pristine blue tiles that made it seem as though she were underwater. She quickly stepped into the shower and started scrubbing away.
Normally, Emily liked her evening showers to be longer, a way of rewarding herself and of tricking her body into sleeping a little while longer. It was a simple thing but it normally got her around an extra ten minutes of sleep. But this ti, Emily was quick about it. She wanted to get down to the business of sleep as soon as possible.
Shower done, she blow-dried her hair, combed it out and then stepped out of the room, her pyjamas soft against her skin. She walked into the bedroom a few seconds before Derek did, and the two of them stared at each other. And Emily could not help but note how tired Derek looked. The mask of power and control that he wore during the day, stripped away.
No doubt, when he looked at her, he saw all of the exhaustion that she kept hidden away during the day as well.
"I guess we are doing this," Emily said, making her way to the left side of the bed. Derek nodded. "I guess we are," Both of them got settled in bed, a huge amount of space between them.
And then, without saying anything else, Derek snapped his fingers and the room was instantly bathed in darkness. Emily lay there for a few minutes, counting to one hundred in her head. She began to feel drowsy around number sixty.
But as she felt the pull of sleep get stronger, Emily did not dare celebrate too early. After all, for her, the problem had never been getting to sleep. The problem had always been staying asleep.
She fell asleep sowhere around number ninety-three, and as her eyes fluttered closed, she sent out a prayer that this ti she be able to wake up in the morning. With no nightmares cutting her slumber short.
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