Page 88 of Iced Up Love: Part Two

---

I can feel him.

His hand comes to my hair, brushing it back from my face slowly, carefully, like he’s fixing something instead of holding me here.

“You need to sleep,” he murmurs.

I want to tell him I don’t.

I want to tell him I don’t want anything he’s giving me, that I don’t want to close my eyes again because every time I do, I lose something else when I wake up.

But the thought doesn’t come together properly.

It slips.

Fades.

“Just rest,” he says.

There’s something in his hand.

I see it for a second before it disappears from my focus again.

Then everything softens.

The edges blur.

My body sinks into the mattress in a way that doesn’t feel natural, like I’m being pulled under instead of choosing to lie down.

I don’t know how long I’m asleep.

I don’t know how many times this has happened.

I don’t know how many days have passed.

I just know it isn’t the first.

Or the second.

Or the third.

It’s more than that.

Enough that the idea of time itself feels distant.

Unimportant.

When I wake again, it’s darker.

Or maybe it’s just my eyes.

My head feels heavier than before, my thoughts slower, like they have to push through something just to exist.

He’s still there.

Or maybe he’s back.

I don’t know.

It doesn’t matter.

---