Page 86 of Indigo

I close my eyes and plead with God, or whoever’s listening, to let me wake up and let this all be a dream.

Please don’t take her from me.

Let me wake up.

???

The week goes by in a flash, and I spend the entire seven days wrapped in my mother's patchwork comforter on her bed, surrounding myself with her smell.

Pax hasn’t left me for more than an hour at a time and comes in to check on me every twenty minutes to make sure that I’m still breathing.

As much as I want to ask him to hold me while I fall apart, I can’t bring myself to lean on him right now. I’m angry. At who, I’m not sure, but he seems to be the one who cops the brunt of it, which I know isn’t fair.

I’ve told him to leave more times than I can count. Everything hurts a little less when I’m alone, when it’s quiet, and I can pretend that none of this is happening.

Paisley is nearly as frequent as Pax with her check-ins, and I often hear her and Pax talking from the living room. Jagger and Matt bring flowers nearly every day, and Mrs Neil has cooked every dish known to man. None of which I’ve eaten.

I’ve started locking the door to the bedroom when I hear Pax greet someone.

I’m a bitch, I know. I know I should be grateful that others care enough to visit, to offer their condolences, but I just… I can’t.

A knock on the bedroom door jerks me from my mind, and after a moment, it opens, revealing Pax standing there with a mug of coffee and a packet of Tim Tams under his arm. “Snack time,” he says, walking to my side of the bed and placing my coffee and biscuits on the bedside table.

I haven’t had coffee since she died. Can’t stomach it. The smell, the taste, the thought of enjoying something makes me sick.

I roll away from him, not wanting him to see the fresh tears burning my eyes, and mumble, “Thought I locked that door.”

I hate myself for talking to him like this.

“Yeah, you did. I picked the lock while you were asleep earlier.”

The image of him on his knees picking a damn lock flashes through my mind, and I wait to laugh. I wait to feel the humour of it, but nothing inside of me changes and that just makes me feel worse.

Will I ever be happy enough to laugh again?

“Baby, please eat something,” he whispers as he sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress shifting with his weight.

His hand reaches out to brush the curls that are sticking to my cheeks, and as his fingers touch my skin, I close my eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

“You aren’t taking care of yourself, Blue,” he says, more firmly this time. “She wouldn’t want–”

I open my eyes, turn my head, and glare at him, every ounce of pain and hurt radiating from me as I hiss, “It doesn’t matter what she’d want because she isn’t here, Paxton. She’s fucking dead, so if she wants me to eat and drink like someone whose mother didn’t just die, she can come back and tell me so herself. Until that moment, leave me be and stop trying to force feed me. I’m a grown woman. I don’t need you to baby me.”

After a beat of silence, and the ache in my chest increasing to the point I wish that I’d just die right here to numb the pain, he whispers, “I know she was your person, Indie. I know. But you’re mine, and I need you. I get that you’re angry. I can take that, have no issue with you laying that on my shoulders. What I can’t take is seeing you wither away to nothing when I know it’s the last thing in the world your mother would want. Please, just have one biscuit. For her.”

My throat tightens, and a pathetic whimper leaves my mouth as I snuggle further into her pillow, trying to smell her, but her scent is fading, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when it’s gone.

“I… I could put on Gilmore Girls for you. Hmmm? Fix the pillows behind you so that you can sit up for a bit and watch it while you have some Tim Tams?”

I grit my teeth, not wanting to move, but the look on his face as he waits for my answer has me nodding and shifting my sore muscles around so that I’m sitting.

He fusses around, fluffing each pillow before propping them behind me, turns on the tv, and opens the packet of biscuits before handing me my coffee as if I can’t do it myself.

Once the show starts playing, he looks at me as if he’s going to ask another question, but hesitates. His expression turns sombre, and then he turns and leaves the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Pax,” I call out, just as the door clicks shut, my voice straining from the effort to raise it loud enough.

Within a second, it flies back open and the look of hope on his face fucking crushes me. “You okay?” he asks, racing to my side and leaning down to meet me at eye level.

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