Page 33 of Sanctuary

“I can’t even imagine how you got through that.”

“I don’t know either, if you want to know the truth. The next several months are a blur to me. I don’t know why I didn’t simply kill myself too, but I didn’t. That’s when I started traveling. At first, I only scavenged enough to keep myself alive, but eventually I got good at it and started trading or delivering messages. It was easier. Always moving. Never being at home.”

“That makes sense to me. I like to be on the road too. Sometimes being at home feels like… like a weight. A burden I don’t have it in me to bear.”

“Yeah,” he replies, his voice barely a breath. “That’s it exactly.”

We stare at each other in the near darkness for a long time.

He feels human to me now. In a way he never really felt before.

He’s a man. He’s been a husband. A father. He had the beginnings of a successful career. He found his entire family dead.

He’s been running from the ever-present pain of life just like I have.

“I never thought you were a monster,” I say at last.

His face changes very slightly. He nods. “Good. Because I… don’t want to be one.”

And that’s all we say. There’s nothing else that can be spoken in the profound space our stories have created.

I lie back down and pull up my blanket since the air in the church is getting cooler.

Aidan adds another piece of wood to the fire, poking the flames before dropping it in.

Then he lies down too, and we both go to sleep.

When I wake up the next time, I’m shivering.

So cold my teeth are chattering.

I sit up in alarm, confused about where I am and what’s happening.

We’re still in the church, and it’s still dark outside. It’s dark inside too. The fire in the stove has mostly gone out.

“Sorry, love,” Aidan says, startling me by speaking. He’s gotten up and hurries over to the stove. “Slept too long.”

“That’s o-o-kay.” I huddle under my blanket, unable to stop shaking. “I could have w-w-woken up too.”

Aidan works a few minutes until the fire is blazing again. I sigh in relief as I start to feel waves of heat pulsing through the frigid air.

“Should warm up in a minute,” he says, standing over where I’m huddled.

“I…kn-kn-know.” My teeth are rattling violently, and I can’t seem to stop them, no matter how hard I try.

I’m dazed by sleep and cold, and so I don’t immediately process what’s happening when Aidan lowers himself beside me, adds his blanket over mine, and then climbs under them, positioning himself behind me.

“What are y-y-y-you d-d-doing?”

“Warming you up.” He presses his big body behind mine and wraps me in both his arms. “I’ll move if you want me to, but this seems smarter. I’m freezing too.”

I snuggle back against him, telling myself that this is ridiculous. We have no reason to be spooning like this. Pretty soon the stove will warm up the room again, and I’ll be perfectly fine under my covers by myself.

But he smells familiar somehow. Safe. And his body is already warmer than mine is.

I like how this feels, so I don’t tell him to get up or move.

We lie together in silence for several minutes until my teeth finally stop chattering.

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