04-20-2020, 04:19 PM
Thank god for Juliana.
Raffe made the coffees affably, keeping half an ear on the conversation. He delivered them with a smile, friendly but conservative and quite keen to keep out of the way. Juls seemed to have the situation perfectly in hand, and with a conspiratorial wink for Sterling he departed for upstairs. He shot Carmen a message as he did so, then shoved the phone in his back pocket.
The hallway was quiet, and most of him hoped Nox was actually sleeping, since he needed it. Distraction of the type Raffe knew he would be wouldn’t help with that, but he didn’t want to sit alone in his own room either; not when his thoughts kept circling back to that one phrase. I might not walk away from it.
“Knock knock.” He rested his head on the empty door frame. His smile was quiet.
Nox was flat out on the bed, but it was the worst impression of sleep Raffe thought he’d ever seen. The small room felt vast and empty without Nova, and strangely that pulled at his chest worse than seeing the bloodied pup flee into the darkness. Loss was one of the constants in life Raffe should have acclimatised to by now, but he never did.
He sat on the edge of the bed uninvited, leaned briefly to run his finger along the curve of one of the lotus’s broad leaves. He felt it shiver inside. It was doing okay. He turned to Nox. “Juls is handling the parents just fine,” he said, though there hadn’t really been any doubt of that. Kallisti looked after their own. “Make a little room for me?”
Raffe made the coffees affably, keeping half an ear on the conversation. He delivered them with a smile, friendly but conservative and quite keen to keep out of the way. Juls seemed to have the situation perfectly in hand, and with a conspiratorial wink for Sterling he departed for upstairs. He shot Carmen a message as he did so, then shoved the phone in his back pocket.
The hallway was quiet, and most of him hoped Nox was actually sleeping, since he needed it. Distraction of the type Raffe knew he would be wouldn’t help with that, but he didn’t want to sit alone in his own room either; not when his thoughts kept circling back to that one phrase. I might not walk away from it.
“Knock knock.” He rested his head on the empty door frame. His smile was quiet.
Nox was flat out on the bed, but it was the worst impression of sleep Raffe thought he’d ever seen. The small room felt vast and empty without Nova, and strangely that pulled at his chest worse than seeing the bloodied pup flee into the darkness. Loss was one of the constants in life Raffe should have acclimatised to by now, but he never did.
He sat on the edge of the bed uninvited, leaned briefly to run his finger along the curve of one of the lotus’s broad leaves. He felt it shiver inside. It was doing okay. He turned to Nox. “Juls is handling the parents just fine,” he said, though there hadn’t really been any doubt of that. Kallisti looked after their own. “Make a little room for me?”