Author's Note: This is the third little piece I've written for the Gallagher Girls. This is following them in my theme of missing little scenes from the stories. I've loved writing these so far, but I haven't received much feedback, so please tell me if you're reading and enjoying. I would love to have the encouragement. The other two are titled "Remnants" and "All We Had", if you're interested. And this is Abby/Townsend, which you could probably guess from reading. I just adore them and believe that they are perfect, in their own way, together.
Thanks for reading!(:
Hope
She stood beneath the sky of orange in a meadow full of the colors of autumn. There was silence around her, blessed, peaceful silence, but she felt no peace. From where she stood, at the opening of the meadow, she could clearly see what was in front of her now. She had found the answers that she had been searching for, without truly looking, all this time, but she felt no reassurance. Only sadness and a memory of what was loss and what could never be regained.
"It's time," the voice behind her was softer than she had ever heard, but she felt no anger at the pity within it. She felt nothing, except some type of solace that her numbness provided her. She did not move, did not truly comprehend his words until she felt something on her hand: a warm, comforting touch, which pulled her from the edge of the cliff and the jagged rocks that fell below.
She clung to the warmth, burying herself in it.
Basking in it, she closed her eyes.
However, when she awoke, her warmth was gone and she was instantly frozen, back in that meadow alone. The beauty of the meadow was gone, replaced by a sinister darkness as death surrounded and consumed her.
She blinked once, twice, and she saw red, mixed with dirt. She marveled at it, at the ugly amongst the beauty. Then, her vision blurred once more before fading quickly to black.
This time, she awoke to black, ruined by fluorescent shades of yellow. The numbness was gone, and she finally felt the hurt. But no tears came to her eyes, no thoughts came to mind. She just sat covered in the darkness, reassured by the pressure of a palm in hers. Her eyelids grew heavy, but she resisted the release of sleep. Her nightmares found her more when she was awake than when she was asleep, and she deserved it. She deserved the pain, the suffering. She deserved to feel the hurt.
Because it was her fault. It was her fault.
"Sleep," the smooth voice told her, squeezing her hand gently. She blinked at their joined fingers, but did not look up to him, just as he kept his eyes trained on the road ahead.
She blinked again, as if she hadn't heard him at all. "My fault," she murmured, not to herself and not to him, maybe to no one at all.
But the next time sleep called her, she listened.
The sun was high in the sky the next time she awoke, and, from behind her, she could hear the snores of their companions. His eyes were wide and alert, despite not sleeping for days, as they searched the road cautiously and constantly, always looking for an escape route. Sensing her watchfulness, he straightened ever so slightly in his seat as if he was preparing for battle.
The battle never came. Instead, she grasped his hand from its resting spot on his knee and held it firmly and surely within her own.
His lips turned up, very slightly, and he looked at her, finally. She breathed. And, for the first time in days, she felt something other than a sense of numbness and pain.