Human

The time on the clock reads 4:16.

In the morning.

I count the breaths it takes until the clock ticks to 4:17.

Fifteen.

And a half.

The clock ticks to 4:18.

I have work tomorrow.

Well. Today.

In less than three hours.

Gray is sleeping peacefully beside me.

My mind works one-hundred miles an hour.

Thinking of nothing, but thinking of everything.

I close my eyes and will myself to fall asleep.

The clock reminds me that it’s 4:30.

Gray shifts beside me, a happy sigh falling past his lips.

I know you can’t sleep, it teases.

How pitiful; the sleepless woman.

I blame my boss for my sleeplessness, as odd as it seems.

He put me in the field, to report on a jumper.

I live in the building she jumped from.

I saw the blood, and the matter of her brain;

Saw a life ended too soon;

Saw my life, my love, flash before my eyes.

The clock tells me it is quarter of five.

Gray rolls onto his side and wraps an arm around me.

I feel like I’m going to be sick.

But I can’t move.

My limbs are heavy.

It feels like there are cement blocks attached to my entire body.

When the alarm clock goes off, Gray kicks back the sheets.

He gets ready before making an attempt to wake me up.

He’s tying his tie as he sits next to my hip, hand on my shoulder.

“Indie, get up, baby,” he coos.

“I’m staying home today,” I whisper. “Stay with me?”

Gray places his palm on my forehead, like he’s a mother, checking her child’s temperature.

He agrees not to go to work.

As we are watching a movie around noontime, he asks the question hanging between us.

“Indigo, what’s plaguing you?”

I breathe as I try to form the right words.

“It is amazing how human you feel after you experience death.”