A Sleepless Night
A short snippet of Lithan's pre-married life. Hope you enjoy x
Lily couldn't sleep, and she couldn't understand why. She rolled silently onto her back, staring at the ceiling as she listened to Ethan's rhythmic breathing.
They had slept in the same bed before, of course. Having been a steady couple for nearly two years and having been engaged for a little under three months, they were not strangers to sharing a bed. Odd nights in her apartment or Ethan's house; weekends away in seaside cottages or city hotels; and a glorious week spent in the Swiss Alps as a late birthday present, which had concluded with Ethan getting down on one knee and asking Lily to become his wife. Lily was quite used to falling asleep on the left-hand side of the bed while Ethan occupied the right.
The moon was bright outside – Lily had seen it before coming up to bed – but the light slipping between the slats of the blind was artificial and orange, casting perfectly straight horizontal stripes of street lighting onto the wall by Ethan's side of the bed. There was a quiet hum of road noise, not far from the house. A cat meowed loudly, somewhere outside. Lily heard footsteps on the pavement below the window; she listened intently as they got further and further away. The world was still moving, the earth was still turning, other lives were still happening. These three facts were some that Lily had learned to remind herself of, whenever insomnia had its way and tried to bend her mind until she believed that she was the last one still awake on the whole planet.
She supposed that her sleepless night had this time been caused by change – she had never been much good at it. Tonight was their first night in their new house – the first place they had ever shared. It belonged to them both, they lived here together now, and although it was everything that Lily wanted, it was obvious that it would also take some personal adjustment.
There was no point beating herself up about not falling asleep. She wasn't on shift again until the middle of next week, so if she was tired tomorrow, it really didn't matter. She took a long, slow breath, in and out, and began to count deliberately backwards from one hundred.
When she reached sixty-two (feeling more relaxed although not particularly sleepy) Ethan rolled to face her, his eyes fluttering open drowsily.
"What's the matter?" he mumbled sleepily.
"Nothing," Lily whispered. "Can't sleep." She rubbed her eyes. "It's not a new experience, trust me. But I had hoped that I wouldn't disturb you."
"You didn't." Ethan yawned. "Woke up by myself, not your fault. What's the time?"
Lily reached over to her bedside table and clumsily flipped over her phone. The bright screen burned her eyes for a moment until her vision adjusted. "Two Twenty-seven." Her heart sank. She had rather hoped it would be later than that; then at least there might be less time ahead than behind her.
"C'mere," Ethan said, shuffling closer to Lily and holding her gently. "That's a long time to feel like you're the only one left awake," he whispered, and in that moment, Lily knew that he understood. She relaxed, putting her hand over Ethan's.
"Thank you," she whispered, curling down to kiss Ethan's hand, before allowing her eyes to close. It was infinitely easier to sleep when she knew that she wasn't alone. Her mind, which had been full of unpacked boxes and a to-do list eight miles long, gradually quieted and allowed her to slide into sleep, not a moment too soon.