AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I slowly shift my eyes down to find Mads curled up against my chest, breathing even, asleep. One of my arms is propped under my head and the other is around her, holding her tight. She would often sleep like this before. I don’t dare breathe too hard and wake her up. I just revel in this feeling of being close to her again. It truly feels like years since I held her in my arms like his. The hug we shared yesterday was incredible…but this, this is even better.
As I hold her now in my arms, I can’t help but think back on all of the times we’ve woken up together. The first night we ever spent together, when we talked and she fell asleep in my arms…I was sure that I had been dreaming. She fell asleep before me and it took me the longest time to fall asleep because I was in such awe of her. I couldn’t stop watching her.
That was the first night in years that I didn’t have a nightmare.
Most nights I took medicine to help me sleep. I started in high school when my grandmother learned about my nightmares. I tried to deny it, but after a while I couldn’t anymore. She gave me some generic sleep pills that helped, but it wasn’t until years later when Mads encouraged me to see a therapist that I was prescribed better medicine.
I don’t normally need them. I hadn’t taken them for a long time, but since Mads’ accident I have taken them almost every night.
Mads starts stirring, I suck in a breath…not sure what to expect. Her eyes start fluttering and she eventually opens them fully. She is met with my bare chest and my arm around her, she furrows her brows in confusion. She darts her eyes up to look at me and her eyes widen. She sits up quickly and the arm I had around her falls to the bed.
“I’m sorry…” She says suddenly.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry for last night,” I say evenly. She shakes her head.
“No…no it’s okay.” She wipes her eyes and tries to tame her wild hair. I love how she looks when she just wakes up. Her green eyes seem brighter yet heavy with lingering sleep. Her thick golden hair is always wild. She usually looks happy. She looks nervous now.
“Sorry…I just…” She pauses and looks around the room, then back at me. “I don’t know.” She smiles shyly, sheepishly.
I just grin at her. “Did you sleep okay?”
“I actually slept better than I have in a long time,” She admits quietly and my heart jumps at that.
“Me too,” I whisper.
“Do you have nightmares because of your childhood?” She asks softly, cautiously.
“Yes. I usually take medication…sometimes I do, but I forgot last night. I should have remembered. Yesterday was a very eventful day. I’m not surprised that I was triggered,” I admit. She nods, understandingly.
“I’m really sorry…about your nightmares…about what you’ve been through,” She says, lying back down next to me and turning to face me. There is about a foot of space between us. My heart picks up its pace again. She is staying. In bed. With me.
She looks down to my chest and notices my other tattoo. It is a small script ‘M’ over my heart, about an inch tall. She reaches her index finger out and brushes it over my tattoo. I feel the heat of her finger long after she takes it away.
“For me?” She whispers.
“Yes,” I whisper back. She smiles, her finger brushing over the tattoo again. “What do you want to do today?” I ask her, biting my lip to stop the goofy smile that is threatening to break out across my face.
“I was thinking—” She starts as she tucks her hands under her head. She smiles a little.
“Yeah?” I press gently.
“I lost my memories,” She sighs. “And I’ve been really hard on myself because of that…and I’ve been trying really hard to get them back so I can be myself again.”
I nod, waiting for her to finish.
“But that’s…been stressing me out. Yesterday’s date was fun…for the first half…” She blushes and I chuckle. “But…what if…instead of reliving or rehashing our old memories…what if we try to make some new ones?” Her voice is quiet, anxious. She looks up at me, nervously.
My heart warms and I can’t stop the smile that overtakes my face. “I love the sound of that!”
A few hours later we are in salsa dance lessons. Not my idea.
“Mads, I literally have no rhythm whatsoever,” I mutter as I step on her foot for the tenth time in one hour. She laughs hysterically. Our dance instructors are a duo named Alejandro and Mariana. They are lively and animated and move ten times faster than the rest of us. He is a few inches shorter than me, with long dark curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. He has a soul patch and an eyebrow ring. Mariana has wild dark curls and is wearing…a very little red dress covered in sparkles.
When Alejandro opened up his welcome speech by saying, “We are making Salsa hot again!” Mads and I completely lost it. But now as we are practicing our steps in pairs, he keeps yelling things like “If dancing salsa is a crime, lock me up!” and “Loose arms makes Alejandro grumpy!”
We are definitely the worst couple in the class.
“Stop making your arms loose, Mads. Alejandro is going to get grumpy,” I mutter into her ear and she loses it in a fit of giggles.
