Chapter 162: A kind of stillness
Morning dawned softly, as if it'd inhaled quietly throughout the entire night, holding its breath for us to wake up. Light seeped through the gauzy curtains in slow, golden waves, and I heard in the distance a bird—far from chirping, but calling, low and beat-like, as if singing some music that only the trees could hear.
I rolled over in bed, covered in warmth and the scent of Caspian on the blankets—soap, body, the slight smoky smell. My arm extended out across the bed involuntarily, running over where he had been, still warm.
As I rolled over, I found him already awake, one arm thrown back over his head, his eyes on the ceiling. He had a gentleness in that moment—a texture of quiet that I saw very little of. No lines of tension carved into his forehead, no flash of phone on the nightstand. Only bone and breath and morning's quiet.
He shifted his face toward me when he sensed me staring. "You were talking in your sleep," he told me, his voice still with a brusque rim of sleep.
"Was I?" I sat up from where we lay together, yawning. "God, I hope I didn't give myself away."
He gave the smallest smile, one which barely touched the rim of his mouth.
"One word."
I arched an eyebrow. "I'll bet. 'Coffee'?"
His eyes never wavered from mine. "Mine."
For an instant, I could not breathe. Not the word itself—it was how he said it. No smile. No jest. Just dead certainty. As if he was reading from some ancient destiny.
"Well," I panted, attempting to regain my voice, "maybe my subconscious is simply more honest than me."
Caspian rolled towards me. Sheets sighed against us, and then he was there—closer than I let myself imagine. His fingers were around the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the spot right under my ear.
"You can be mine," he said. "If you want to be. If it's safe for you."
That was the contrast with him. Always. He did not take. He did not command. He waited. And that forced me to give him everything.
"I do want to be," I whispered. "You know that already."
His lips touched mine in the silence between words. Not hungry. Not desperate. Just a light, certain kiss. Like a hesitation after a promise.
The kiss that didn't ask anything or tell us anything—it just was.
We just hung there, muffled in the stillness of early morning, neither of us wanting to disturb either one of us. The world was far, far away. There were no emails. No impending danger. No past, no future. Only his breathing and the warm, heavy bulk of him beside me.
And then, at last, hunger or maybe habit woke me up. I slipped into the kitchen in bare feet in one of his old shirts that caught the scent of cedar and something clean, something unmistakably his. The hem ticked against my thighs, and the sleeves drooped at my wrists, but I didn't mind. It was a kind of armor. Soothing. Protective.
He was already facing the counter, rolled-up sleeves and hair still wet from a quick shower. There was something irresistibly charming in seeing him spread butter on toast and slice strawberries with the same staid seriousness he applied to everything in life.
"Really going for the domestic fantasy," I teased, resting against the doorframe.
He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes traveling down the shirt I was wearing. "I like this fantasy."
I smiled and scooted over. "Let me."
"No," he said, nudging me onto a stool by the counter. "Sit. I've got it."
And he did. He laid out all of it just as if it mattered—scrambled eggs, toast, strawberries, a small dish of honey. He filled my coffee just the way I liked it, then laid out the whole production before me with a peck to the temple.
We sat by the window, legs around the table. The city was waking up in the distance. Spots of water from the night before clung to the glass and cast light like minuscule prisms. It was our own world—one that didn't ask anything of us.
"I've been thinking," I said, rotating my coffee slowly. "Maybe I deserve this. Peace, I mean.".
Caspian pushed his plate aside, the squeeze of his eyes minimal.
"For a long time," I continued, "I didn't think so. Like happiness was something other people got to have. Not me. Not after everything."
He placed his hand over mine, warm and weighty, the soft pressure a ball against my fingertips.
"You're allowed," he stated bluntly.
There was something in the way he spoke—not a pep talk, not an important speech. Just permission. Like he was giving me a key that I did not know I held.
We lingered at breakfast, our conversation in whispers. About nothing. About everything. He told me of the time he tried to cook and nearly incinerated his kitchen. I told him of the way at sixteen I ran to a bookstore for four hours in order to become an anonymous face.
And somehow, amidst all of that, I no longer held my breath.
When we'd finished cleaning, the three of us stretched out on the couch, where sun filtered in just far enough to cast lazy shadows on the rug. I leaned against him, head on chest, fingers tracing idly the curve and dip of his breathing.
"You know," I said after a minute, "it's the first time in weeks I haven't thought about the messages. About… him."
Caspian's fingers rubbed down my arm. "That's good."
"It is. It's like—like the volume's finally turned down. Not gone, but manageable."
He waited a moment before he spoke, but when he did, his was a low, peaceful voice. "You don't owe anyone your peace. Especially not someone who tried to break it."
I gazed at him, my eyes meeting his. "And you? Do you think you owe anyone your calm?"
He paused, and smiled, a little. "Maybe I did. At one point. Not now, though."
I slid my hand up to caress his jaw, my thumb scratching the stubble.
"Good."
He bent forward and kissed my wrist, then the inside of my palm, then—softly—to my lips. All of them promises. Not big. Not dramatic. Just honest.
We stood there like that until the sun moved again, casting the room in a new light. There was a silence between us, not oppressive, not mournful. Just full. Here.
And with my eyes blindfolded against his chest, my ears tuned in to the heavy thud of his heartbeat, I knew something I hadn't let myself dream of yet.
We weren't just getting through it anymore. We were living.
And I did not want to miss a single second of it.