Page 87 of Reading Between the Lines
“I’m touching you, D. I hope you don’t mind.”
He hummed with something resembling pleasure, and I stilled.
“Are you awake?”
Another hum. He rolled his head to face me and cracked his eyelids, peering through slits. “When did it get dark?”
“When the sun went down. Do you want the light on?”
“No.” He wet his lips. “What time is it?”
I glanced around for a clock, but they were all buried under a blanket in the corner. I chuckled. “After nine. Not sure. Do you need more pills?” It hadn’t been long enough, but I was desperate to do something.
“No. Did you eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Another hum, this time of disapproval. His eyes fell closed.
I continued to stroke his forearm, figuring he’d fallen back to sleep when he spoke again, his voice quiet in the still room.
“This too shall pass.”
“What was that?”
He smacked his lips and opened his eyes to slits again. “That’s roughly what it says. The tattoo. This too shall pass. It’s a… Persian phrase. It means everything is impermanent. It talks about the temporary nature of the human experience. Sorrow. Pain. Discomfort. Positive experiences, too, but that’s not what I focus on.” He lifted his arm, displaying the ink. “Got it when I was eighteen. It reminds me that there will be an end to the bullshit. It doesn’t last forever. It won’t always hurt.”
I found his hand and weaved our fingers together. “There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.”
His eyelids fluttered closed, but he opened them again. A faint smile touched his lips. “You’re my light, Tallus. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
My heart squeezed as Diem’s fingers grew lax. He drifted and left me with the profundity of his declaration.
I let him sleep and curled up beside him, leaving a generous few inches to respect his constant need for space. I wanted to be close to this emotionally compromised man who had come into my life unexpectedly. Every day, I fell harder under his spell. Sooner or later, I’d have to tell him the truth about how I felt and hope the honesty didn’t make him run for the hills.
At some point during the night, Diem woke and adjusted himself on the bed. In a shocking display of affection, he urged me closer, insisting I rest my head against his chest. Then he wrapped his uninjured arm around me, keeping me close. I didn’t complain, and we stayed like that for the rest of the night, his steady heartbeat under my ear a comfort I didn’t know I needed.
***
Neither of us was prepared for the house-shaking clamor of Ivory’s seven-a.m. wake-up call. Diem jolted, then shouted in pain, arching his back off the bed. I tumbled to my feet, ready for battle and blind without my glasses, wearing nothing more than underwear. Like the previous times we’d been tossed into the fray, it took a second for me to figure out what was happening.
My first instinct was to go to Diem, but with the vitriol of curses spilling from his mouth, I thought it best I find a way to shut off the noise, but there wasn’t a way. The clocks under the blanket in the corner vibrated and sang, fighting for dominance over my boyfriend’s caustic threats. I truly thought if he could have gotten off the bed without trouble, he’d have smashed them to bits.
So, I did it for him.
As fast as a cheetah, I snagged one of his lead-weight boots and brought it down on the moving pile of blankets, over and over and over, with all the force I could muster, screaming, “Shut up. Shut the fuck up.” I hammered them, channeling Diem while spitting my own slurry of foul words at the offense.
Only when the pile stopped moving and singing did I quit. Chest heaving—it was more cardio than I expected—I stared at the unmoving mountain, ensuring there wasn’t a sneaky bastard playing dead who would chime again the second I got to my feet. All was quiet. In fact, the entire house had gone silent.
I tossed the boot aside and brushed my hands together. “See you in hell, motherfuckers.”
A low, rumbly laugh, laced with threads of pain, sounded from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and found a blurry Diem, half propped on an elbow, clutching his injury and chuckling.
“Ah fuck, it hurts.” But he kept laughing, seemingly unable to stop. He fell onto his back again, chest bouncing like I’d neverseen before. “Jesus fuck. You can’t make me laugh when I’m in pain. Oh shit…” More chuckling. “That was the best fucking thing I’ve seen in my life… Oh god, it hurts.”
But still, he laughed.
I rose to my feet and stood with a high chin of pride until I realized how ridiculous I must have looked going apeshit on a pile of timepieces with no glasses, my hair mussed from sleep, and wearing only underwear.
