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The Sound of Silence
Christina
“Do you always thrash in your sleep?” said a low male voice.
Jolted awake from a panicked dream, I squinted in the dark. Where was I? In a guy’s arms, my cheek against his chest.
That patronizing tone sent memories flooding in: leaving Kappa Sig, snowflakes falling on my cheeks, a huge hand holding mine. Money spitting out of the ATM and flashing in front of my eyes. Lips capturing mine, a rolled-up bill sliding between my breasts.
“Patrick,” I murmured. He shifted, and I bit my lip at the soft drag of his skin against my arm. My breasts nestled against his chest, my thighs hugged his massive leg. And against that leg, my crotch throbbed. Tender, sticky, sore.
“Do you?” he repeated.
“Thrash in my sleep? Not usually. I had a nightmare.” Though I was sweating in Patrick’s arms, I shivered. “Last night was…well, it was really bad.”
His muscles tensed. “You mean, you and me?” His voice was careful. I couldn’t read the tone.
“No.” I almost laughed. “I mean the night before this one, when I was home with no heat or electricity. That’s what I was dreaming about.”
He relaxed, brushing damp hair off my forehead. “What was so bad?”
“I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal. There are so many worse things. But it was freezing, it was pitch black, and no one else was there. I was huddled under my covers, alone, looking at my phone until the battery died and there was no way to recharge it…” I broke off. I was shaking. “I couldn’t get out of the dark. I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t see myself, I didn’t know what was real… I felt like I was no one. I was absolutely nothing.”
Silently, he rubbed the back of my head, pulling me close. He was comforting me. Right when I thought this night couldn’t get any crazier.
“I was so scared,” I confided, because I needed to. I wanted him to know.
“It’s not happening anymore. Everything’s okay now.” His voice was soothing. I felt myself relax into his embrace. “Are you afraid of the dark, Christina?”
I looked away. “It’s such a little-kid thing,” I muttered to the pillow. “It’s embarrassing. No one else knows. And I hate being cold and alone.”
He stroked my hair. “You’re not cold here, right?”
“No.”
“And you’re not alone.”
“No.”
“Maybe you like the dark more than you think.”
I couldn’t see his knowing smile, but I sure as hell heard it. Rolling over with my back to him, I pressed my face into the pillow. Patrick didn’t push, but I knew he lay awake behind me as I drifted off to sleep.
*****
An alarm clock jangled the air. My eyes opened just enough to see that it was 8:00 am. I pulled the pillow over my head.
This time, I knew whose room I was in. Whose sheets were twisted around me, half-covering my naked butt. Whose waist, hard and unyielding, my arm had so recently been draped over.
“Wake up, Christina.” His deep voice cut through the pillow.
“An alarm?” I grumbled, pushing the pillow aside. “At eight am on a Saturday? God, I really do hate you.”
“I have things to do.” He climbed off the bed and stood in front of the dresser, unhurriedly picking out clothes. I eyed the carved marble of his back.
I should be jumping out of bed, in a rush to leave after what I’d done last night. What he’d done to me.
I stayed under the sheets.
