Dissonance - Book One

twenty-four

"Um," he says, scratching the back of his head. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Right, of course, sorry, that was stupid of me to ask." I turn onto my side, and face the wall. I feel silly for asking him to sleep next to me, but I've come to fear the night since with it, come my dreams, or nightmares, I should say. And while my nightmares seem to be my only insight into understanding my past, sometimes I can't help but wonder if those memories were meant to be forgotten. Maybe some things are best left in the past, like my feelings for Wyler. I wonder where he'll be sleeping tonight and if Lex will be by his side or if she'll want nothing to do with him given the recent revelation that Wyler and I are more than just friends. I have to remind myself that it doesn't matter either way. His feelings for me aren't real. They never were. I was just a job.

As if relaxing weren't already hard enough, I have now managed to make it a nearly impossible task by asking someone, who is practically a stranger, to sleep next to me in bed. For a genetically superior human, I sure make some pretty stupid decisions. Just when I think things couldn't get any more uncomfortable, I feel the mattress move as Kelly slides in under the covers next to me. He lies on his back, for which I am grateful, because I suddenly realize how intimate it is to be lying next to someone I hardly know, in a bed so small. But there's something about Kelly. Despite our back and forth, I like him. He feels familiar, like in another life perhaps, we could have been friends, and I could definitely use a friend right now, considering my last two on Earth probably hate me.

"Night," he says softly.

"Night," I whisper back. To his credit, he doesn't crack a joke in order to make me feel stupid about asking him to sleep next to me. And to my great surprise, I find myself drifting off quickly. I fall into a deep dreamless sleep. It's the best night's rest I've gotten in a long time.

***

I awake to Kelly's body spooning mine and his left arm draped over my stomach. I almost jolt upright in shock, forgetting for a moment, who is lying next to me. As the shock fades, I'm filled with embarrassment over our intertwined bodies. I lie there for several minutes trying to come up with a way to crawl out from under his grasp without waking him, but it doesn't seem possible. I shift slightly and pretend like I'm just starting to wake up. I hope he will stir, see his arm, remove it quickly and think that I never noticed it was there. Then we can pretend this whole thing never happened.

"It's about time you woke up. You've been snoring logs," he says, as I move underneath the weight of his muscular arm.

He's already awake. So much for pretending we didn't spend the night snuggling with one another.

"What? No I haven't!" I say defensively. I'm mortified by the fact that I may have been snoring, and a little creeped out that he was watching me. My skin is burning with embarrassment and I feel the sudden need to flee the bed. I turn over, hoping to signal that it's time for Kelly to vacate the premises, but he doesn't budge. He seems perfectly comfortable being this close to me. He's not going to make this easy. Giving me a hard time is his forte, which means the only way out of this situation is to beat him at his own game.

"Even if I was snoring, you're the weirdo who was lying next to me watching me sleep."

"You mean snore," he corrects me. A smirk forms on his face.

"Whatever," I say, rolling my eyes. He just can't help himself. Getting under my skin has become his full-time job. "You can let go of me now," I say, eyeing his arm around my waist.

"Oh, right, sorry." He quickly removes his arm. He seems somewhat embarrassed, which is an emotion I didn't know he was capable of. "I just didn't want to wake you. You looked so peaceful." That was nice of him, I think to myself. "It's not a look I'm used to seeing on you." He smirks. And there it is again. He made it all of three seconds before teasing me.