It wasn’t long after I fell asleep that I woke back up. It was 3:23 AM and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Whatever I tired, I couldn’t erase the picture from my head. I heard footsteps in the hall and I looked to the threshold of the door. It was Nick. He was standing there in a pair of boxers and a white t-shit with his hair sticking up in every direction, but he was still absolutely adorable.
"You’re still awake?" he asked in a whisper.
"Can’t sleep," I replied.
"Me neither." He walked in the room and shut the door before sitting on the bed beside me. "What’s up? Why can’t you sleep? Talk to me baby!!"
I laughed. "I can’t shake what I saw. The expressions on their faces, the blood…I just can’t shake it." The thought made me shiver in fright. What about you?"
"Worried about you."
I smiled. "Well, don’t worry about me, I’m sure I’ll recover."
"Yeah, but still…I can only imagine what you’re going through."
"It’s a lot, I’ll admit that. But like you said, they’re in a better place now," I said back. "My problem is gonna be shaking that picture."
He nodded. "So, what’ll take you mind off of it?"
"If I knew, I’d be thinkin’ about it!"
Good point!" he said, trying to laugh.
"Do they know who it was?" I asked.
He nodded. "Some guy named Ryan Walker. Sound familiar?"
"No."
"Good, I don’t want you knowing any idiots like that."
"Oh, but I do!" I laughed, pinching his cheeks.
"And you love it!" he joked.
I sighed. "There is no such thing as love."
"Sure there is!" he argued.
"In my eyes there’s not."
"How come?"
"Well, look at our world. People get married because they’re "in love," and two months later are filing for a divorce. Love is an excuse, it’s all bull crap. People are so worried about it they literally force themselves into it."
"That’s not always true though. A lot of people genuinely fall in love, and it lasts a lot longer than two months."
"Well, tell me Dr. Love, how do you know if you’re in love?"
"Well," he said, thinking for a minute. "You just know.
"See, you don’t even know."
"That’s because I haven’t fallen in love yet."
"And you never will."
He looked at me sternly. "That’s not true."
I shrugged.
"You’re so hardheaded!" he laughed.
"I know, sorry," I said back as he kissed me.
"Something tells me you’re going to change your mind."
"Don’t be so sure of yourself," I said back. Nick was the only person I had ever talked about that with before. I didn’t dare say anything to Erin about it because she swore she was madly in love with David. But the conversation did do me a lot of good, it got that picture out of my head. We fell asleep an hour later, and after that I slept like a rock.