Page 115 of These Tears

I’ve done it! No alarms, no hands yanking me back to strip me or whatever.

God.

How am I ever going to survive this?

And it’s only day one!

Eyeing the locked door with a mental note that I will be getting back to it, I grab the picture frame and beeline for the bedroom.

After I quietly return the frame to its place, I slide beneath the duvet. Elias hooks an arm around me almost instantly, dragging me back into the heat of him without waking.

I hold my breath until his body closes every inch of space behind mine.

With my back pressed to his bare chest, his breath weaving softly through my hair at the nape, I lie motionless, eyes fixed on the ink knitting over his wrist. The ashen mouth of the fireplace gapes silently behind us. The frame I’ve disturbed still sits inconspicuously between the others. And I stare at it until sleep finally takes me.

I dream of chains, blue eyes and cold lips stealing the breath straight from mine once upon a summer’s day.

The sharp trill of the alarm clock wakes me. It feels as if I’ve just closed my eyes a breath ago.

Cracking one eye open, I glance at where the wretched device perches on the old bookshelf. The sound cleaves through the haze in all its cruelty. My lids feel glued shut from exhaustion, the ache behind them pulsing, and my damn pyjamas are soaked from sweat.

It had been nearly three when I’d fallen asleep. Now, the tiny clock hands point – mercilessly – to exactly five.

The air in the cabin is too hot to breathe. I glare at the blistering hearth – fervent in its intent to get me out of the bed. I don’t even bother examining the window too closely – I can already see the frost biting at the corners of the glass there.

I look around the room.

He’s not here.

Then back towards the fireplace – already lit.

That makes my heart kick up – that I haven’t felt him leave the bed. For good measure I check my clothes and make sure there’s nothing missing or… wrong in any way.

After putting on my jeans and a warm white jumper, I head out of the bedroom.

It doesn’t take long for me to find the Post-its.

And I realise, with a somewhat amused clarity, that this man’s fondness for short notes runs far deeper than I thought.

They’re bloody everywhere. Small things like: Feed the fire, waiting on the armrest of the couch when I step out of the bedroom.

Not entirely sure if he’s in the house or around it, I do exactly that.

Beside the hearth, a small hatchet lies in wait, metal edge catching the darkness of a Nordic morning like an almost-threat.

My hand hovers over the handle. It just sits there. Waiting to be used. In more ways than one.

I take it. Its weight anchors me, dragging my thoughts down to the first ring of the seventh circle of Dante’s hell.

Before something wrong can be born from this, I leave it exactly where it was. I need my tea before I start plotting murder this early in the day.

I don’t hear the sound of his footsteps anywhere.

The scent of ash and old smoke rises from the hearth’s blackened mouth. It makes my grip loosen around my own fingers before I realise I’ve been clenching my fists.

My gaze drifts over the view beyond the window and I pick out the softer details around me instead: the fire settling, timber creaking, wind worrying at glass, the smell.

Nan’s house had always smelled like this. She kept a stack of logs by the range, and I used to split kindling as soon as I could swing a hatchet.