Page 24 of Ex Somnis

What else.

What else, what else.

My father’s voice. The last time I heard it was on the phone the morning he died, which I didn’t know would be the last time, so I wasn’t paying the right kind of attention. I’ve been paying attention ever since to everything, all the time, just in case, and it’s exhausting. It is genuinely exhausting to pay that much attention to everything.

“Feeling safe,” I hear myself say. “How you only feel safe when the people who made you are still alive. You know someone is always going to come if you call. And then they’re gone, and you realize you’ve been calling for them in small ways your whole life without knowing it, and now…”

I stop, and he continues to watch me steadily.

“Now what?” He prompts.

“Now you just call anyway. Into the quiet. And nothing answers, but you call anyway, because the habit of loving someone doesn’t stop just because they leave.”

Tessa’s hand finds mine on the tablecloth with a sad expression, but his expression is more open than I’ve ever seen from him. The careful façade of him is briefly and completely absent, and what’s underneath is something I don’t have a word for.

That surprised him.

I don’t know why I think that.

I don’t know what I said that did it.

“You should have more wine,” he says pleasantly after a beat of silence, façade back in place.

“I should,” I agree and empty my glass.

Hmm.

I still don’t know his name.

CHAPTER SIX

Nevan

The book is upside down.

I figure this out after about ten minutes of staring at a page that isn’t making any more sense than the ones before it, which is when I notice the chapter number at the top of the page is a mirror image of what it should be. The letters are doing the thing where they flip and slide into configurations that don’t exist in any language I’m aware of.

I turn it the right way up.

It doesn’t help.

The words rearrange themselves into something almost English. I catch a sentence about REM cycles before it slides into gibberish, and I lose another one about reality checks entirely before I even get halfway through.

I close it.

Open it again.

Close it.

The swing creaks under me. It’s cold out here, proper autumn cold now, and I’ve been sitting in it for twenty minutes in a hoodie that isn’t quite enough, because going back inside means doing something. There are towels to fold, radiators to bleed.

But right now, the list of things I can do without wanting to put my head through a wall is very short and mostly involves sitting on this swing holding a book upside down.

It’s been four days since she drove away. During that time, I have slept a combined total of maybe eleven hours. That wouldn’t be a problem if the hours I was awake were spent doing something useful, but mostly they’ve been working, the book, the swing, the cold, and the loop that starts with I kissed her, ends with she ran, and then starts again.

My mouth still remembers it.

Feels unfair.