Chapter 6
Ellie openedher eyes in darkness. Her bed was soft and warm. The house was quiet. And yet, somehow, the air felt different. Heavier. Closer. Like the pressure building before a storm that wouldn’t break.
She turned on her bedside lamp, already suspecting what she would find. He was there.
He stood in her doorway. Arms stretched out, gripping the frame. His face was gold and shadow in the soft light, while a chasm of darkness loomed behind him. As if he had emerged from some grimly veiled place. Like a fallen angel. Beautiful and fierce and separated from the world.
His eyes met hers, filled with emotions she couldn’t name. Perhaps he didn’t know them himself—lost along with his memories. Perhaps that was the curse of a fallen angel: their past was torn from them as they tumbled.
Perhaps she should be more careful about what she read before trying to sleep.
She sat up in her bed, dragging the covers up to her chin. Her cotton pajama bottoms and worn gamer T-shirt were somehow far too flimsy a defense against the weight of his presence.
Her pulse picked up, butterflies stirring in her belly. Could it really all be in her mind? Could he really be nothing more than a fantasy?
Her covers were warm and heavy, smelling of fabric softener. They were tangible. Solid. She had to remember that he was not. “You aren’t real,” she whispered.
His forehead furrowed, eyes dark in the low light. “I feel real,” he said.
Ellie huffed. God only knew what real felt like. The most real she felt was when she was imagining herself as someone else. A character in a world she’d invented. She didn’t have an answer, so she stayed silent. Watching him as he watched her.
He hung more heavily on the doorframe, the muscles of his arms bunching in the warm light, but the shadows under his eyes looked even darker than before.
“What are you doing here?” Ellie asked eventually.
“I’m… I thought you’d prefer me to stay out of your room.”
She wrinkled her nose. That wasn’t a real answer. “But watching me sleep is alright?”
“I wasn’t.”
She let out a bark of incredulous laughter, and he let go of the frame to scrub a hand through his hair, mussing it further. “Okay. I was. But only for a second. I… woke up here.”
“You woke up in my room?”
“Apparently.”
“Where were you before that?”
“I don’t know.”
Hell. What would that be like? To wake up somewhere, not knowing where you were or why you were there, or even who you were. Every time she saw him, he looked more drained, more exhausted.
The thought made her pause. Would her subconscious create such a nuanced hallucination? Would a fantasy gradually grow more tired? It didn’t seem likely. But then, was it more likely that she had developed a brain injury sometime after she was released from the hospital? And she hadn’t taken any painkillers since she first saw him, just in case—even though her ribs ached and the healing scars on her legs still burned and itched—so it wasn’t that either. But if he wasn’t a figment of her mind, what was he? Some kind of spirit? A phantom?
“Are you haunting me?” she asked.
He stepped forward, seeming not to notice that he’d crossed the invisible boundary into her bedroom. “I think you are haunting me,” he admitted roughly. “Why do I keep coming here? Why do I hear your voice? How did I… Shit.” He bowed his head, hiding his expression, tension written over the tight lines of his shoulders. “None of this makes sense.”
He could be lying, but the look on his face before he turned away, the combination of horror and grief and exhaustion… that would be hard to fake. And she knew—she knew—exactly how it felt to be horrified and grieving and exhausted. She knew how hard it was to be alone.
“Are you going to hurt me?” she asked quietly.
“No.” His eyes flew to hers. That intense gaze locked on hers. “Fuck, no.”
“Okay.” Somehow she believed him. Despite the darkness curled around him, he sounded sincere. She watched him for a long, silent moment, both of them caught in a strange stalemate. He wasn’t going to take another step without her invitation, she knew it deep in her bones. It was up to her.
She could tell him to leave, and he would. She could roll over and pretend he didn’t exist—and perhaps he didn’t. Or she could stop trying to think through every possible consequence for every possible action, stop tying herself up in knots, and do what felt right.
Ellie pushed away her blankets and slowly stood. The thick carpet was soft under her feet. Cold air whispered in from the open window over her suddenly too-exposed skin. But she was committed to this path now.
She walked across the room and stood in front of him. Up close, he was even taller. Even more solid. She held out her hand. “I’m Ellie.”
She didn’t know what to expect. Perhaps he would disappear, fade from her world never to return, exorcised by her acceptance. Or perhaps his hand would pass through hers, as insubstantial as mist.
She didn’t expect his fingers to close over hers, big enough to engulf hers completely. His hand was strong and firm, but icy cold. She couldn’t help her gasp, or the way her hand twitched in his, wanting to hold him tight. Wanting to pull him closer and wrap him in her arms and breathe heat back into his body. But he let her go immediately.
“You’re so warm,” he said, forehead creasing. “I didn’t realize how cold I was until now.” He swayed fractionally closer, as if he might take her hand once more. Or bring her in against his body. But then he retreated again, as if suddenly realizing how close he was to touching her.
Her hand still tingled, and she almost swayed with him. Almost. But she made herself stand still, looking up at him. “What shall I call you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Ellie stepped back, breaking the unspoken dance. Freeing them both. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, suddenly colder than she was before. “We should give you a name.”
He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. “What name?”
Hell. She racked her brain for inspiration. “Ah… Jonathan? Billy? Or how about Jim or Steve?”
He let out a gruff chuckle as his expression lightened for the first time. “Are we in a supernatural horror?”
Ellie snorted. He’d caught her. But then she realized what he’d just said. “You remember Stranger Things?” Her smile spread. “That’s good, right?”
He started to nod, but it turned into a slow shake of denial. “I remember some things. I remember pizza. I remember swimming in the sea. I know that I like red wine better than white. It’s the other stuff—the important stuff—that I don’t know.” His expression grew grim once more. “Who am I? Where do I come from? All of that is gone.” His voice lowered to a rumble. “And sometimes I’m not even here. Sometimes, all I know is darkness.”
Her hand itched to reach out. To press against his face and take away the pain she saw flickering there before he could hide it. But there was so little she could offer him. This stranger. She couldn’t give him answers. She didn’t even know where to start. But maybe she could help him feel that she had heard him. “I probably have some frozen pizza if you like. Definitely some red wine.”
His lips twitched, and he almost smiled. Almost, but not quite. “Thank you but… it’s hard to explain. I don’t feel hungry. I haven’t wanted anything to eat since I woke up here the first time.”
She bit her lip, thinking. She couldn’t call emergency services when there really wasn’t an emergency and he might disappear any moment. “We could look online. Maybe someone will have posted something? Or perhaps there’s a forum for missing people?”
He seemed to hesitate for a second before replying. “Yeah.” He looked away for a second, and then back to her. When he spoke again, he was more certain. “Yes, we should do that. But could we… I’d rather face it in the morning.”
The rational part of her thought they should be trying to work out who he was. They should do the work. And the work should come first. But another part of her—the part that had spent hours looking for him when he’d gone—wanted to spend just a little longer with him before they found where he should be. Or worse, discovered that he didn’t really exist.
She’d already decided it was time to live more. Listen to her heart more. “Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s look in the morning.”
He glanced over her shoulder into her room. “Shall we sit for a bit? Downstairs maybe?”
Was that what she wanted? There wasn’t much furniture in her bedroom. The super king bed with its forest-green and cream covers dominated the room. Beside it, side tables held small ceramic lamps, while the far wall was covered almost entirely by a heavy, ceiling-to-floor mirror, positioned to give her a view through the window no matter which way she lay. She liked her sleeping space uncluttered, but now it didn’t offer a lot of seating options unless he sat on the bed with her. Would that be a mistake?
She hesitated for a second and then let her worries go. She didn’t want to have to go downstairs. She didn’t want to break this strange truce, or put more space between them. He was in her room already; he might as well stay.
She waved him awkwardly to the end of the bed and then climbed in herself. The covers warmed her chilled skin. Gave her a shield against the constant awareness of being with him. Although, now that she had it, it felt more like a barrier than a shield. A barrier she didn’t want.
He sank down. Not onto the foot of the bed as she’d expected, but onto the floor. He leaned his back against the mattress, bent one knee, and rested his arm on it. He looked tired, like she felt, and she almost invited him into the bed. Almost threw caution away entirely. But then she would want to hold him. She would want to smooth the lines on his face with her fingers. To curl her body into his. She would want more. So she kept silent.
Neither of them spoke. They just sat quietly, two people surrounded by the night, keeping company.
She left the light on. But it was warm and hushed, and she’d been so exhausted, her body had been so battered. Her eyes grew heavy, even as she tried to fight it. Having him there, sitting with her, gave her a sense of calm. As if he would watch over her.
It didn’t make any sense. But they were connected. He was?—
“Jon, I think,” he said quietly, and she opened her eyes again.
She blinked slowly, half asleep. “The misunderstood loner who becomes a hero.”
“No. I’m not a hero.” His voice was rough. He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to be a hero.”
She waited quietly until he finished. “It’s the sound of it. It seems familiar.”
“Okay, Jon. It’s nice to meet you.”
There was a beat of silence, and then he replied, “It’s nice to meet you too, Ellie.”
There was a stranger in her room, but for the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt safe. Her ribs ached, and she turned over on her pillows, finding a more comfortable position. The pain eased, and she sank further into her mattress.
“Jon?” she murmured his new name, trying it out.
He didn’t answer.
“Jon?”
“Oh. Hmm?”
“What does “real” feel like anyway?”
He was silent even longer, but she could hear him shifting against the fabric of the covers where he leaned against the bed.
“This,” he said eventually. “This feels real.”