33. Brooke
It takes me hours to get to sleep, and even then, my dreams are broken and obsessive and full of images of Lev telling me he no longer wants me.
I wake up in a sweat. Summer is coming, and the nights are getting hotter.
I roll over and feel the empty space next to me. I slide my hand across the cool sheets and curl into the pillow. When I slept in his bed, even when he was gone, his comforting scent still lingered in the sheets. But these sheets smell like soap and no one.
The loneliness is unbearable because I know what I am missing. Two months ago, I didn’t know what his warmth next to me at night felt like. I didn’t know how protected and safe and cared for I felt. When I woke up and felt the weight of him lying in the bed next to me.
But now that it’s no longer an option, it feels like I have lost something special.
I sit up and hug my pillow. It’s dark, but moonlight fills the room and stripes the floor.
Despite the heat of the evening, my sweat cools on my skin and I shiver. I don’t want to be alone.
Maybe it’s the emotion of the lingering pain, or perhaps it’s the cold longing coiled around my body that makes me swing my legs over the side of the bed and walk toward the door.
I’m wearing nothing but a sheer nightgown as I open the door and creep down the landing to Lev’s bedroom. He might turn me down. He might yell at me and turn me away. But I can’t stand one more moment missing him. This ache. This longing. I would rather him give me a reason to hate him again than sip from the cup of this midnight poison one second longer.
His bedroom door is closed, but it is unlocked when I try the handle. I open the door quietly and creep inside. The room is dark. Quiet.
Empty.
He isn’t here.
I walk to his bed where, only days ago, he held me as I slept. Where he made love to me with deep emotion. Giving me one orgasm after another until my body was weak and exhausted from coming.
In my memories, this room is warm and comforting, a place of love.
Now, as I stand in a ribbon of moonlight and stare at the empty bed, the room grows colder and colder.
I miss him.
I want him.
I pull back the covers and slide in between the sheets and curl myself into his pillow. His scent settles over me, and my longing for him crashes hard through my body.
I hold his pillow tighter as the tears begin to fall, and quietly cry myself to sleep.