inexcelsior
There was still so much between the two of them that seemed misunderstood, or perhaps neither of them was willing to breach into the other’s mind. Rose herself was always so standalone, so ready to bear any pain on her own and shirk and sense of discomfort it gave. Despite sharing a link to Henry’s mind she didn’t feel right pressing into the edges of it, and though she was always aware of his presence in hers it seemed he was never willing to do the same. So they stayed separate, yet together, under one roof in which the two of them barely spoke to one another … lest it be through text messages or picture images. Even then the conversations were soft, ending until another image popped up hours later.
Flowers. He liked to send her flowers, never asking what they were but always with a “perhaps you’d like these”. And she did. Rose was too easy a person to please like that. The night’s intrusion was a surprise in and of itself, her own gray and meaningless dream washed away by broken images of the horrific accident. Blood and glass, the screeching of the tires and the shout all mixed in a clout and it was difficult to make anything in sure out … outside of the car accident. Outside of the understanding of what happened.
Her own muted shout came with the lunged screech though Rose was unsure of what it was, whereas Henry knew exactly. But it wasn’t real. Not to her, and with the frazzled, broken imagery of just waking with such a start she began to puzzle together that it wasn’t her dream. It was Henry’s. With hair straggled over her face, matted with sweat to her forehead, Rose peered over to the door and clutched the sheet to her chest, expecting to see the too-tall figure looming in the doorway. With a hard swallow, something to lessen the harsh dryness of her throat, Rose nearly whispered his name. “Henry?”
His rush to her door was the hastiest he’d ever been within their shared quarters, perhaps the fastest he had moved in the last year and towards the last expected room he would ever intentionally visit. It wasn’t as if he avoided her but more respected the space they both enjoyed from the swarm of other people, and in turn, respected the peace their rooms were as their own. Now he was rushing toward it, breaching the space not only mentally but physically to ensure Rose was alright in light of the shared images and emotion. Though as he closed in on her door his strides shortened, his thudding steps softened to their normal mousy patters that betrayed his magnitude in height.
Despite hearing his name, Henry still knocked on her door to announce his presence, polite as always though with a more worried brow set above concerned eyes as he stepped through the threshold-- stepped through but only just through the door. Seeing the sheets held against her, seeing Rose at night and in bed, they were all foreign sights he had yet the privilege to witness, yet the thought to pass through his mind.
“I’m-” The deep rumble of his voice felt out of place, harsh against her whisper that he spoke softer after letting the silence regain the moment. “Are you okay?” What else could he say? Apologies spilled from his lips at every soft graze of their hands accidentally touching, at his clumsiness that spilled, shattered, and embarrassed himself in front of her but such a thing didn’t seem appropriate now. It wasn’t his wish to share the fright and nothing to bother her with the demons he handled for decades, though standing in her room struck the message she was connected not through him but by the proximity he hadn’t considered before. It was easy to fool himself that ignorance meant innocence, and in return she would know nothing and would be left alone. Foolish ideal, childish as always. “Did you-- Did you have the nightmare, too?”