⭐️ (elyas)
It’s the fourth time he’s staying over, asleep on the couch. His voice is soft – buried in uneasy sleep, his brows furrowed as he pushes his face into the pillows. He sounds troubled. Mutters something else in a language she doesn’t speak, but it sounds Arabic, she thinks.
She sets the glass of water down on the coffee table for him, so he has it in the morning. Reaches out to tuck him back in, the fuzzy blanket soft against her fingers as she covers him with it – and then, one single word that sounds utterly lost:
“… Leila… ?”
She wishes she could blame the whiskey for the way tears suddenly press against the back of her eyes, but that’s not it. Not all of it, anyway, though she’ll argue it bears the brunt of the blame, at least then. She doesn’t know enough about him, not yet, but she’s pieced parts of it together. Has already seen the similarities; wonders if he sees the same.
Her knuckles are gentle over the curve of his cheek. Elyas is still asleep; tension in his face easing. She walks upstairs on quiet feet, and thinks, not for the first time, about what life back in Texas might have been like had she had a sibling. If it would have been two of them walking out of hell. If she would have made it out at all.
( Elyas knows it isn’t Leila, even through the haze of sleep – it doesn’t smell right. But the scent is still familiar, is the thing. Still safe. He fades into darkness, after that; calm and blissful darkness. )