It was a long time before that kiss was ever brought up again. The next day it was like it had never happened, as if there was some unspoken agreement to act like everything was normal.

So we did.

Weeks passed. Months. A year. Still no mention of the kiss. Perhaps we were both pretending that we didn't remember it, like we'd both had too much to drink and that evening was a blur. I feel stupid looking back on it now as if one glass of wine could have erased anything at all from my memory. I was so naïve back then.

Darkness.

Nothing before my eyes but black but there are sounds. I can't make them out yet. Wait, I can hear it now. A voice. Whimpering. Crying. A child's voice? One word, 'please', over and over and over like begging. Then I realise that they're begging me.

Please.

I'm moving towards the voice like I can't stop myself.

Please.

The crying is louder now and it turns into sobbing. The closer I get the louder it gets and it's ringing in my ears and it won't stop but I can't stop myself either.

No. No. No.

I stop in front of the voice and I'm looking at myself, cowering in a corner, tear-stained and frantic and I wake in a cold sweat.

At least the nightmares are getting more specific now. I was getting used to the blurred shapes and faint voices saying things I couldn't make out but now it's starting to make sense. There's an all-too-familiar throbbing pain in my temples but thankfully it's only brief and I can almost rub it away with the pads of my fingers.

I lay a while listening to the grinding of the cogs turning outside and it's strangely soothing but I know how this scenario goes and I know that I won't be falling asleep again any time soon so I decide to get up. The TV is still on downstairs; I can hear the faint voices through the roof and I make my way down.

It's Leanne. She's been with us for a long time now and as Vashyron always likes to say she's become something of a fixture. She reminds me of him a bit; when they're together they could be brother and sister. She has his sense of humour and his relaxed attitude towards life. That's probably why I like her so much.

"Can't sleep?" Her voice comes through over the ones on the television set, all soft and concerned and I shake my head as I make my way across the room to drop beside her on the couch. I feel strangely comfortable around Leanne now. At first it was hard for me to even look at a girl let alone live with one. She is similar to my age after all, me being close to eighteen and her at twenty-one and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't attracted to her, but she has so much personality and a strange ability to calm me down when I'm being too 'Zephyr', as she and Vashyron have taken to calling it.

She turns to look at me as I sit down.

"Another nightmare?" Hearing her voice is soothing and I sink back into the couch cushions to stare at the blue light of the TV screen.

"Yeah."

My voice comes out croakier than I wanted and I clear my throat, inwardly cursing as the sound causes her to let out an amused chuckle. I already had to suffer through puberty and it's still haunting me now.

"You…wanna talk about it?"

Her tone suggests that she already knows the answer. I never talk about the dreams to her or Vashyron; they're too personal, deeper than I dare to go with someone else concerning my own thoughts or feelings. I don't answer. She goes silent again and I feel comfortable just sitting with her without any conversation until light starts to break through the small windows.

"Vashyron's been out all night."

"I know," I reply, too quickly and it sounds like I'm snapping at her. I instantly regret it but she laughs it off, standing to disappear into her own bedroom, the one that used to be Vashyron's, the one that I slept in when I was injured and he took care of me and my eyes follow her there and my chest hurts.

I push that pain away, as usual, hiding it in the place with the nightmares and the guilt I still carry and every other part of myself that I don't want other people to see. It's becoming second nature to me.

Leanne and Vashyron are so open and I envy them for it.

That night it's Leanne's turn to go out. She has a lot of friends in the city and in Chandelier and it's really not surprising; she's an amazing person. I wish I could be like her. I'm on the couch again when she's leaving and she comes over to ruffle my hair over the back of the seat, just like Vashyron does and it's nice but it makes me feel like a child.

"See you later, Zephyr! Don't wait up!"

She's so much like him.

I stay where I am on the couch in utter silence long after I hear the door click into its frame and wonder when I got this boring. Leanne and Vashyron spend so much time out making the most of it while I'm sitting here and sometimes the quiet in the room when they're gone is deafening, but I can't bring myself to join them either because I just feel like I don't belong there.

Who would want a kid like me tagging along anyway?

The door clicks again as I'm still slouched there staring into space and I hear the familiar sound of Vashyron's boots against the floor and his usual phrase upon re-entering the house.

"Daddy's home!"

I play my own part, too, and ignore him and he comes over.

"Hey, where's Leanne? She go out? That's my girl, out there in the big world, making some friends!"

He leans on the back of the couch beside me as he puts a lot of emphasis onto the word 'friends' and I know all too well that it's a jab at me. I don't even bother looking at him as I reply.

"Have you been drinking?"

He fakes offense with a gasp and a hand to his chest but it doesn't last long and then he lets out a laugh.

"Always. But only the expensive stuff."

"Seems like you had a good time. Didn't think we were gonna see you again."

"You seem like you're mad? Are you mad?" I feel a pressure as he leans on the backrest of the couch again close to where my head is, "I didn't even have that much to drink, I just…I met someone and she was a lot of fun and we ended up spending the whole night out together."

The pain in my chest comes again and I outwardly grimace; it makes him chuckle.

"What?! I'm an adult, Zephyr, I'm allowed to go out and have a good time once in a while!"

I can't sit and listen to it so close to him and so I stand to pace across the room a little. He lifts himself from the edge of the couch and I can feel the smug expression on his face even from here, even while I'm not looking at him.

"What are you so mad about? Jeez, I thought that with you nearly being eighteen that we were past the moody teenage thing."

I still don't reply and I can hear him sigh as his own mood softens, as it so often does before we get into a full-blown argument.

"Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something anyway."

"Shoot. I'm listening."

"So…uh…remember…oh jeez," I hear him sit down, "Remember that night…on my Birthday…when we went out for dinner and I let you…have some wine and I had some wine, too, and-"

"And you kissed me?" I cut in before he can finish, turning to look at him. "Yeah. I remember."

"Oh God. Okay. So…I…wanted to apologise about that. I was out of line, I'd had too much to drink and I wasn't thinking straight and it was just this…heat of the moment thing and I shouldn't have done it. I knew right away that it was wrong and I felt so bad after because you probably were confused too but I didn't mean anything by it. I took advantage of you and I'm sorry."

My chest gets tighter and tighter the more he speaks and I almost want to stop him because this isn't what I wanted to hear. Hopefully he can't read the disappointment in my expression; I try to mask it with a look of nonchalance as I shrug my shoulders and shake my head a little.

"I, uh, I wasn't even thinking about it." I lie. I think about it a lot.

"Oh thank God." He chuckles, breathing a sigh of relief, "I really wanted to say something right after but it just felt too weird and I didn't wanna make you uncomfortable."

"I'm always uncomfortable," I chuckle to try and break the tension, "That's my secret."

I go to bed that night with the horrible feeling in my chest and it's hard to get to sleep. I do a lot of pretending; it's something I'm very familiar with. Pretending that I didn't remember the kiss or that I wasn't thinking about it was easy. Pretending now that it meant nothing to me too was going to be much more difficult.