Page 19 of Shade
"Shade?"
There was silence for a moment, then a sound of something sliding on the floor.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
"What happened? Was that you?"
"Ah, yes. Pixie threw your phone, and I was worried it would break, so I caught it."
While the bathroom door was open and there was a shaft of light spilling into the room, along with whatever light was coming in through the windows.
"My phone's not worth you getting hurt over."
"If it broke, we wouldn't have been able to talk," Shade reasoned, and I shook my head.
"I'm going to take a shower. Both of you, behave."
Shade
While I waited for Diego, I entertained Pixie with my shadows. She seemed to find the smaller tendrils fascinating, and kept leaping on them and trying to bite them.
I'd had a cat some years ago. She'd been tiny, a kitten, and as dark as me. I'd found her while hiding in the shadows in analley one day, and she'd liked playing with my shadows just like Pixie.
I'd taken her into my shadows sometimes, just so I could actually touch her and play with her.
Something about being in there had changed her, given her my ability to travel through shadows.
One day, she'd disappeared into a shadow and never returned. I had no idea where she was, or if she was even alive. I'd tried searching for the traces of my shadow, but something had blocked me. I just hoped it wasn't because she was dead.
I ducked down as Diego knocked on the bathroom door, waiting until he'd closed it before moving up to the very edge of the bed's shadow so I could see him.
Diego rubbed a towel over his dark hair, then hung it over the back of a chair, his movements as easy as if he could see. It was fascinating to see how different his posture and movements were in places he was familiar with versus in places new to him or places with a lot of people.
He didn't need his cane when he moved around his house, and he knew exactly where everything was because he was the only one touching things. Except for his cat, but she seemed to know to let him know where she was at any given moment. Had he trained her to do that, or had she just figured it out herself?
"Okay, is it dark enough outside?" Diego asked, and I peered at the windows.
"Yes, the sun's down."
"Finally!"
Diego closed the thick blinds, blocking out most of the light coming from outside and dousing the room in darkness.
I stepped out of the shadows, wrapping my hand around Diego's. He grinned, tilting his head up toward me, and Ileaned down to press a soft kiss on his lips before pulling back to ask a question that had just occurred to me.
"Why do you have such thick blinds anyway?"
Diego turned his head away, as if he didn't want me reading the answer on his face, but that reaction was an answer all on its own, and it made my heart leap.
"Diego? Did you do it for me?"
He was silent for a long moment, but then he sighed and turned back to me. "Fine, yes. Even though you disappeared, I never lost hope you'd come back, and I always made sure to have a place you could be comfortable in."
I didn't know what to say. The fact that Diego had waited for me all these years was humbling, and I felt guilty I'd never gone back to him. Why hadn't I even checked in on him?
Because it would've been too hard to leave again, and I'd thought he was better off without me.
"I guess you were never planning to," he murmured, his head lowering as he once again hid his face, though this time, I thought it was his attempt to hide his hurt from me. "If I hadn't tracked you down, I'd have probably grown old and died waiting for you."
