It’s amazing how the smallest things can seem so epic and monstrous and all-consuming.
At the moment, though the hum of his breathing should have been something altogether comforting-a soothing susurration beside me- the steady intake of breath in and out of his lungs indicating that he was still indeed alive should have been something that I welcomed.
Should have.
But, instead, his steady beating heart and breathing in the still quiet of our bedroom amid the early morning light just peeking a sliver of a ray though the heavy black-out curtains taunted me.
No, it laughed at me really.
And with that laughter I flinched and stiffened.
Yes. He was still alive, still well.
And his sporadic mumbles in his sleep, his eyes shifting side to side beneath his eyelids amid his REM slumber caused the most unexpected flair of fury to rise within me.
The volume of his near-silent breathing rose, heightening each wave of sound in my ear, tickling every cilia in my ear canal, thrumming a screeching sound that was so maddening, so tangible that I could almost bite it. Almost crunch it between my teeth.
His breath in that early morning became a nail-splitting, mind-numbing buzz saw.
I felt him in my blood; I heard him in my sleep. He was attached to every sensory function in my body.
He was a part of me.
I tossed and turned for hours, unable to sleep, only to find him beside me, sleeping so peacefully, so soundly, that he barely even moved. The only motion I noticed was the slight twitching of his facial muscles or the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed in the moonlight, then dawning light, which shined on his painfully perfect face.
...his eyes sliding back and forth...and back and forth as he slept.
...the rise and fall of his chest.
I watched him for hours.
Hours.
KEEP READING
