8: Sonnets - pt.2

   She woke up nestled among a cocoon of cozy blankets, her head resting on a soft pillow.  She sat up in surprise and looked around the room, her eyes wide. It was too dark to see much, but she could make out bright yellow light from the streetlights outside illuminating the thin curtains that covered the nearby window. Sounds of the city drifted in through the glass. 

She looked down at herself. She was wearing a pair of soft button-down pajamas. She tore the blankets away and looked at her feet. They were covered by a thick pair of clean socks. How did that happen? Who had done this to her?

Across from her bed was a small, dark hallway, leading to several doors and then turning away from her line of sight. She continued looking around the room. When her eyes fell on the man, she scooted back towards the headboard, eyes wide, and pulled the blankets up around her shoulders. It suddenly came back to her - he had come up to her in the rain. He had acknowledged her sad existence, most likely to take advantage of her. She began to panic, eyes wide as she looked at him.

He was asleep on what appeared to be four chairs lined up together, with a fluffy navy blue blanket draped over his body. Under his head was a fat brown suede pillow. One of his arms had fallen and his fingers were just brushing the carpet. His hair, holding a slightly golden sheen, gleamed dully in the window's faint yellow light. She looked at his face. His eyelids were completely still. He looked so young - like more of a boy than a man.

He terrified her.

She clutched the blankets tightly to her chest and moved to the corner of the bed, as far away from him as she could get. If there was one thing she knew, it was that males were never, ever to be trusted. 

She had to get out.

She tossed the blankets aside, feeling exposed, and stepped out of the bed. A small wave of dizziness hit her. She grabbed the edge of the bed and stood there for a moment, eyes shut tightly as the onslaught of nausea caused her to rock back and forth, like a tree caught in a gale.

She moved backward and something hard struck her in the small of her back. Pain exploded across her spine. She went down with a crash, slumping against the bedside table that she had run into. The vase of flowers on the table toppled and shattered as it hit the carpet, a small puddle of water inching away from the site.

She watched his dark form leap up, his body cutting across the soft yellow light from outside. He turned and saw her on the ground, and for a moment she could see his eyes lit by the streetlight - terrifyingly bright and still. Then he came toward her.

She moved backwards, away from him, but she was wedged in a corner. He crouched down slowly in front of her and lifted a hand. "Are you alright?" he asked softly, moving his hand toward her.

"No!" she screamed, pressing her body against the bedside table, which moved a few inches over from the force. "Don't touch me!" Her voice broke mid-sentence, and she felt tears filling her eyes. She silently cursed herself for always being so weak and clueless. 

"I won't hurt you," said the boy. "I promise." Though his voice sounded pleading and sincere, she couldn't see his face through the stuffy dark air. 

"Why am I here?" the girl screamed in his face, tears spilling down her cheeks. She hated the way his body seemed to hover near hers, hated the subtle smell of pleasant pine that pervaded the air around him. She placed a hand on his chest and insistently shoved him backwards, wishing she could get away, far away, soar away - 

He took hold of both of her wrists, and she loosed a scream loud enough to raise the dead. She wrenched her arm out of his grip and smacked him in the face with the heel of her hand, squirming away. But when she brought her hand back down on the carpet, she felt the crunch of glass under her fingers and gasped as sharp pain roared across her palm. She had planted her hand right on top of the shattered glass vase.

She began to sob without restraint, curling up against the wall as she cradled her mangled hand. Small droplets of blood began to drip onto her knees, and tiny glass pieces gleamed among the bloodied flesh of her fingers, but she didn't care. She didn't care about anything anymore. 

A light went on somewhere in the room, but she continued to cry, emptying all of her broken self out to the world. Eventually her sobs died away into sad hiccups, and she sat with her head resting against her knees, hand still bleeding. She took a few deep, uneven breaths, hating the familiar feeling of dried tears on her face.

"Please, let me help you with that," said the boy. She looked up to find him sitting about a foot away, holding what appeared to be a small medical kit. She realized with slight embarrassment that he had been sitting there the whole time. 

A soft lamp in the corner lit up his features with a gentle radiance. He had a kind face, she realized, and her heart seemed to lurch a little. A crown of curly brown hair topped his head and glinted a little in the light. It just overcame the tips of his ears. He had a rather angular face, with a pointed chin and a slight shadow below his cheekbones. Then there were his eyes, blue and full of an unusual sort of gentleness. She looked at them and everything she had doubted about him seemed to fall away - as if she had shaken off what she had assumed about him, the things that were gray and dark and unkind, to find a constellation of glittering crystals at the bottom of the pan - a rare, beautiful element trapped in exposed bedrock, washed there by a storm upstream.

She looked away awkwardly, still not allowing him to see to her hand. "I don't trust you," she whispered frankly, refusing to meet his eyes now. She wanted to trust him, him and his starry kind eyes. But she couldn't trust anyone anymore.

He stayed silent for a little while. Then, in a quiet, melodious voice, he said, "But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end."

She looked at him sharply, and he watched her with a faint smile on his lips. Something awoke within her, something that had been dormant and cold within her battered soul for a very long time.  

    Something that felt like hope. 

He reached out his hand to her.

She took it.