DON’T STOP (Lila and Darrell) novel Chapter 118

Rag in his Heart 118

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I woke up gasping

It was a nightmare. A big, bad one!

The room was dark and still and exactly as it had always been, and for a long, terrible second I couldn’t separate what was real from what wasn’t. My heart was slamming against my ribs. My face was wet. My hands were shaking against the sheets

I sat up.

The other side of the bed was empty.

Of course it was empty. He had left. After everything, after the talking and the crying and the things we had finally said out loud to each other and then the sex that followed, he had gotten dressed quietly and told me he frad feelings for me.

And I’d told him we shouldn’t go there.

And then he had gone.

I reached for my phone with hands that wouldn’t fully steady themselves and found his name and called It rang twice.

“Daisy?” His voice came through immediately, low and alert, like he hadn’t been fully asleep. “What’s-”

“Come over.” My voice broke completely on the second word. “Please. Please just come.”

A sharp silence. “Are you crying? What happened? Are you hurt-”

“Just come.” I was crying hard now, loud and uncontrolled, the dream still sitting on my chest like something physical. Please Norman just come, please-”

“Okay.” His voice changed immediately decisive, no hesitation. “Okay, I’m on my way. I’m coming right now. Just breathe

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“Please hurry.”

“I’m already moving. I’ll be there. Just stay on the-”

I ended the call.

I couldn’t stay in the house.

I don’t know why the walls, the dark, the way the room still felt like the dream was in it somewhere – but I couldn’t. I grabbed the first thing my hands found, pulled it around my shoulders, and went outside.

The night air hit me immediately, cool and wide and open, and I stood on the pavement outside my building and cried. I couldn’t stay still. I moved a few steps one way and then back and then the other way, arms wrapped around myself, tears running freely, the dream replaying behind my eyes every time I blinked.

The bench. The sunshine. His cold hand.

I pressed my fist against my mouth.

His cold hand.

I started walking down the road without deciding to, eyes scanning the dark street, watching for headlights. Every car that appeared made my heart jump, and every car that passed made me move faster, further down the road, like I could close the distance between us by will alone.

Then I saw what I was looking for.

Headlights slowing. A car pulling to the side of the road further down, further than I had realized I had walked, and then the door opening and a figure stepping out and-

Iran.

I didn’t think about it. My feet were already moving, the pavement cold beneath them, and I was running down the middle of the road toward him because he was there and he was real and he was alive and I needed to reach him immediately.

He saw me and started moving too.

We closed the distance fast, and then I was the.

Successfully unlocked!

and his arms came up and caught me, and I

grabbed onto him with everything I had – arms around his neck, face buried in his chest, sobbing in a way I hadn’t since the night Treasure’s name had sat between us in the quiet of this same house.

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Back in his Heart 178

He held me tight

ang hardim my back, one at the back of my head, pressify me into him like he was trying to make sure I could feel that he was solid and real and warm and there.

“I’m here,” he said. Low and certain. “I’m here I’ve got you.”

My shoulders shook. I couldn’t stop it. The crying moved through my whole body in waves, loud and ugly and completely beyond my control.

“I’m here,” he said again. “I’m not going anywhere. Talk to me. What happened!?”

I held him tighter and said nothing.

Not yet.

For now I just needed to feel that his hands were warm.

He pulled back slightly after a while, just enough to see my face, and raised both hands to my cheeks. His thumbs moved carefully, wiping the tears away, one side then the other, gentle and unhurried in the middle of the empty road at whatever hour it was.

I looked at him.

His face in the dark was warm and real and looking at me with an expression that had never once been difficult to read, not really, not if I was being honest with myself.

“Talk to me,” he said softly. “What happened?”

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