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Seventeen
Eoghan
Just last year,my penthouse was a silent, cavernous space.
Empty.
Furnished but still vacant within.
A place where I rested my head, where I ate, and where I worked out.
It had become a home in that time. A home that was still a haven just not as quiet as it had once been.
This hotel was noisy.
This hotel wasnota haven.
I even preferred listening to Inessa and Victoria’s horrendous taste in boy bands over this hotel.
Four AM every day, a delivery van came with fresh bread from only God knew where.
A half-hour later, the owner’s shower kicked on and the pipes started creaking.
Fifteen minutes after that, the furnace began raging.
Another hour in, the washing machine switched on in the kitchen.
Then came the cooking.
Followed by more pipes creaking and the furnace grumbling as guests woke up.
I’d slept in quieter barracks in Afghanistan.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
The whisper had me tilting my head on the pillow so I could see her. This creature who had come into my life and who had made a penthouse a home, and who had changed my world.
She didn’t know it. Neither had I until the other day.
“Why aren’t you?”
“You were huffing.”
“I was not,” I argued, immediately sitting up on my elbow. “I don’t huff.”
She sniffed. “What woke me up then?”
“Considering we’re staying in a hotel that makes an orchestra look silent, take your pick of what woke you up.”
“Grouch.”
“You sleep like you’re dead,” I retorted.
“You sleep like you’re a princess.”
“A princess?” I snickered. “Which princess do I take after?”
“The princess and the pea.” She yawned. “Go back to sleep. It’s still dark out.”
