Chapter 20 Unwritten Stories
Unwritten Stories
~MABELINE~
Iam far too hot.
The realization arrives before full consciousness does, pulling me from the depths of sleep with the insistent discomfort of a body that is overheating beneath layers it did not consent to.
My skin is damp with sweat, my hair is plastered to the back of my neck, and there is a weight pressing against my side that radiates heat like a furnace set to maximum output.
I mutter under my breath, something incoherent about temperature regulation and blanket distribution, trying to shift away from the source of the heat without fully waking up.
I cannot move.
There is an arm draped over my waist. A heavy, muscular, decidedly masculine arm that is anchoring me in place with the casual possessiveness of someone who fell asleep holding on and has no intention of letting go.
The weight of it pins me to the mattress, and every time I try to wiggle free, the arm tightens reflexively, pulling me closer to the wall of warmth that is apparently determined to cook me alive.
I pout, eyes still closed, brain still struggling to assemble itself into something resembling functional awareness.
Did I sleepwalk again?
It would not be the first time. I have a history of nocturnal adventures that my brain chooses not to document, wandering through shared spaces in communal housing, rearranging furniture, once memorably ending up in a supply closet hugging a mop like it was a long-lost lover.
The shelter staff learned to lock the exterior doors and accept that the Omega in Unit 7 might occasionally be found at 3 a.m. standing in the kitchen staring at the refrigerator with the intensity of someone solving advanced mathematics.
But this does not feel like a supply closet.
And this arm does not feel like a mop.
I force my eyes open.
The first thing I see is a chest.
A broad, muscular chest covered in a simple gray t-shirt, rising and falling with the steady rhythm of deep sleep. The fabric stretches across defined pectorals and shifts with each breath, and the scent emanating from this chest is familiar in a way that makes my stomach flip.
Storm clouds after rain. Fresh linen. The faint sweetness of old books.
Etienne.
My gaze travels upward, following the line of his neck to his jaw to the sleeping face that is approximately six inches from my own.
His dark hair is disheveled against the pillow, falling across his forehead in messy waves.
His lashes, dark and absurdly long for an Alpha, rest against his cheekbones in soft crescents.
His lips are slightly parted, and a faint murmur escapes them, syllables that sound French and dreamy and completely incomprehensible.
I am in Etienne Laurent's arms.
In what appears to be Etienne Laurent's bed.
Wearing what I realize, upon glancing down, is still Cal's oversized hockey jersey and nothing else on my legs except my underwear because someone apparently removed my sweatpants while I was unconscious.
What happened? How did I get here? The last thing I remember is the nurse's office and the examination and three Alphas standing around my bed like sentinels and then.
.. nothing. Blank. A void where memories should be, filled with the fog of whatever sedative the nurse used to keep me docile during the examination.
Did I sleepwalk into Etienne's room? Did someone carry me here? Did I have a choice in the matter, or did my unconscious body simply gravitate toward the Alpha whose scent makes me feel safest?
The flush that spreads across my cheeks has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the implications of my current position.
I need to escape.
Carefully, slowly, with the precision of someone defusing a bomb that might detonate if jostled, I begin the process of extracting myself from Etienne's embrace.
His arm is heavy across my waist, his hand splayed against my lower back in a way that suggests he pulled me close in his sleep and intends to keep me there.
Every time I try to slide out from under his grip, his fingers curl into the jersey fabric, holding on with unconscious determination.
He murmurs again.
"Ne pars pas..."
The French syllables are soft and slurred with sleep, carrying an ache that makes my chest tighten despite not fully understanding the words. He turns further onto his back as he speaks, his arm loosening just enough for me to slip free without waking him.
I wiggle out of his grasp, moving slowly until I am sitting upright on the edge of the mattress, my bare feet dangling above a floor I do not recognize.
This is definitely not my closet-sized room.
The bedroom is larger than mine but maintains a minimalist simplicity that feels intentional rather than sparse.
The walls are a soft gray, the bedding is navy blue and white, and the furniture is arranged with the kind of thoughtful precision that suggests someone who values order in their personal space.
A desk sits beneath the window, its surface covered with papers and sticky notes and what looks like a collection of journals stacked in careful piles.
A bookshelf lines one wall, its shelves packed with volumes that range from hockey strategy guides to what appear to be classic literature titles in both English and French.
Hockey posters dot the walls, but they are tasteful. Professional photography rather than the garish promotional material that Rafe's room is probably plastered with. Action shots of players mid-game, frozen in moments of triumph or tension or the pure, unbridled joy of a scored goal.
I study the space, cataloging details the way I used to catalog the environments of every new shelter I landed in. Looking for clues. Looking for danger. Looking for the small things that would tell me who I was sharing space with and whether I could trust them.
Etienne's room tells me he is organized. Private. A reader. Someone who keeps journals, which suggests introspection and possibly writing habits that extend beyond academic requirements. Someone who cares about aesthetics but does not need to broadcast his personality through aggressive decoration.
The opposite of Rafe in almost every way.
My eyes land on the nightstand.
There is a book resting on its surface. Not a published novel with a glossy cover and printed spine, but a notebook. One of those hardcover journals with thick, cream-colored pages, the kind writers use for first drafts and poets use for verses they are not ready to share.
The cover catches my attention immediately.
It is illustrated. Hand-drawn, from the looks of it, with the careful detail of someone who spent hours on the image.
A girl stands on the left side, her figure graceful and poised, dressed in a skating costume that catches imaginary light.
Behind her, an ice rink stretches into the distance, flanked by shining lights and cameras and the silhouettes of an audience.
She is mid-spin, her arms extended, her face turned away so only the line of her jaw and the cascade of her hair are visible.
On the right side stands a boy. A young man, really, with glasses perched on his nose and a stack of books clutched against his chest. He is surrounded by library shelves, by tables laden with papers, by the quiet, enclosed world of academia.
His face is turned toward the girl, and even in the simple lines of the illustration, there is a longing in his posture that transcends the medium.
Between them, the two worlds overlap. The ice bleeds into the library. The books scatter across the rink. They stand on opposite sides of a divide that is clearly meant to represent more than physical distance.
I cannot stop myself.
My hand reaches out before my brain can remind me that this is not mine, that reading someone's private journal without permission is a violation of trust, that I should put it down and pretend I never saw it.
But I am a reader.
I have been a reader since before I could properly hold a book, since the days when my mother would prop picture books against pillows and let me study the pages while she folded laundry.
Reading is the one constant that survived every upheaval of my life.
Every new shelter, every new housing arrangement, every period of instability and uncertainty.
Books do not abandon you. Stories do not judge you.
Words on a page are the most reliable companions a person can have.
And this cover is calling to me with a voice I cannot ignore.
I pick up the journal.
The weight of it is satisfying in my hands, the kind of heft that promises substance. I flip it open, and the first page confirms what the cover suggested.
This is a story.
Handwritten in neat, slanted script that is clearly Etienne's, the pages are filled with prose.
Paragraphs that flow into each other with the rhythm of someone who has been practicing their craft, sentences that are constructed with care, dialogue that is punctuated properly and indented correctly.
This is not a random collection of thoughts.
This is a novel in progress, drafted by hand in a journal that lives on Etienne Laurent's nightstand.
I begin reading.
The story opens with the girl on the ice.
Molly, her name is, a figure skater who has spent her entire life chasing a dream that is slowly slipping away from her.
She is talented but injured, passionate but exhausted, caught between the expectations of the world that created her and the quiet voice inside that keeps asking whether this is really what she wants.