original

Hold Me Close While We Glow

Chapter 1: You?

It was there, in the pit of her stomach, the feeling, it came to life the moment she decided to leave her apartment with her daughter. A warriness Merette has not quite felt in a long time. But she knew it too well, it's just so familiar to not be aware of it.

What takes her off is that why? Why is it surfacing again? Why is it throwing her off guard?

All the way to the farmer's market, Merette's head is crammed with thoughts that haven't emerged after the first year she had left him, lived without him. Merette sucks in a breath, something in her guts calling out danger.

Her hand on her daughter, Leisl's little one, tightens, heart picking up in her chest. The afternoon sun is blazing, its heat makes sweats break out of every pore in her body. Maybe it's not the sun's deed, it could have something to do with the anxiety crawling under her skin out of nowhere.

She tips her head down, eyes on her child who seems so content in looking around with her little, curious, glittery wide eyes. "Want Mama to carry you, Lei?"

Leisl's pale blue eyes cut to her mother's, and like all the time, the color prevails to bring her back to him… pink lips jutting out a little as she shakes her head, tiny blond hair swaying in the breeze.

A smile grazes Merette's lips, she reaches a hand down to push the hair out of her tiny forehead. "Doesn't your legs hurt?" She tries again.

The toddler frowns, tiny eyebrows hunching down as she shakes her head once again. A sigh slithers past Merette's parted lips. Leisl's gaze trails back over the road again, watching a man walking his dog, religiously.

It's not that Merette has any disdain in making her daughter walk, it's just that they're so slow, Leisl's legs too tiny to take big steps like her Mom.

The anxiety eating Merette's insider pries at her to take Leisl and run. It's just so strange, the thought. Though she doesn't have to wait for her to come along for so long, the two-year-old gets tired after a few minutes of walking. She has her tiny arms propped up in the air asking her Mom to hold her by the time they reach their destination.

The safety of their home.

Merette slots her free hand down her pocket, the other holding Leisl on her left hip, giant grocery bags dangling down her hand, to fish out the key. The door clicks open with the twist of her hand with the key.

Pushing past the door frame, she locks the door behind, throws the keys on the neighboring cabinet, and sets down the grocery bags on it.

Just as she's slipping into the indoor sandals a voice comes, "Where'd you guys go?" It's deep with soft edges.

Merette's head whips back, eyes sticking on the light beige wall of the hallway, hands working on Leisl's pink shoes. Throwing it down on the floor, she shuffles her way toward the voice.

"Why are you home?" Merette lets out, feet eating up the space between the couch where the man is slumping against and her, face pulled into a frown.

She feels Leisl's silky hair tickling her collarbones as the child lays her head on her Mom's chest, mouth shaping a yawn. Rey throws his head back on the headrest of the couch, green eyes finding hers. "Uh, I came to take you to the tavern. The shift starts early today, remember?"

No, Merette clearly forgot. Fuck. Her head shoots back, eyes flitting on the cloak proper up on the wall. Half past three. Great. She has to leave in just half an hour.

"Seems like you forgot." Rye chides, going back to watching some series on TV. Merette strolls to him, plopping Leisl on his lap.

"Gotta change." She announces, peeking a glance down at Leisl nuzzling his chest. Surely sleepy.

Merette's been working at the tavern for like a year and six months. It's one of the most popular in Angel's Cloud, over the coast. She moved here about three years ago. Running away with a shattered heart, she has to pick up all the pieces and glue them together. It couldn't get any worse as she got to know that she was pregnant. Three weeks along.

When her life decided to get into a shit hole there was nothing she could do than to follow it along. Get through all the shits that cut and gashed and shaped her into a new one.

A mother, stronger than she thought she could ever be. She's been a young girl, struggling to make ends meet at the mere age of twenty the first time got here. But, life's been playing out quite well lately. With Leisl and Rye.

Merette makes it fast, bolting upstairs, and ramming through her closet to find some pants and a shirt that could go with. Her eyes meet her reflection across the room through the floor-to-ceiling mirror and it does manage to draw her closer.

Feet padding against the wooden floor, clothes dangling off her hands, her eyes roam over her face from the way a darkness ghost under her eyes to the way her dark curls stick out at the top of his head.

Her hands reach for the comb, eyes on the mirror.

At nighttime, the tavern is as ever buzzing with energy, loud chattering and laughs of the people fill the night air, packed with delight. Merette sticks her head out of the kitchen, calling out to a colleague. "Lia, can you get table ten? It seems that they've been waiting for some time."

The girl's head whips to her side, meeting Merette's gaze. She mouths a yes, nodding. Merette eyes Rye holding three plates filled with various foods at a time to her left. "Don't break it, honey." She chides, managing to hold six bowls of soup in a big ass tray as she makes her way out of the kitchen.

Merette has left her daughter in the care of her neighbor, a woman in her late sixties, living with her husband. Leisl has been comfortable enough to be left alone with them. So it's no problem, she could work and get paid to cover some bills.

When she gets back to the kitchen with empty plates and new orders, Rye is already inside, putting grilled meats into a fresh plate. His head flits up at her footsteps approaching him. Rye huffs a smile, "Don't think we could get outta here anytime soon. It's so crammed."

A groan rumbles in Merette's chest, head tipping back. "Screw it. I don't think Leisl would be fine to go to bed without me. It's already past our closing time."

"Yep! But eleven's never been the longest we've pulled." That's right.

"But, Lei's been like— I don't know, off? She barely spoke four words to me. Grumpy and unimpressed all day."

"She's two." Rye laughs.

Merette gasps, mock surprise brimming her brilliant blue orbs. "Oh, she's two? How do you know?"

Rye laughs again, this time louder. He shakes his head, saying, "Get to the tables if you want to wrap up so badly."

Merette rolls her eyes at the retreating form of her cousin and best friend. She would have been damned if he wasn't there when she needed an anchor to hold on in life.

"May!" Merette's eyes reel in the packed kitchen, searching for the source of her voice.

Lia's head appears between the kitchen entrance and a guy struggling to carry a big tray full of champagne-filled glasses. "Can you go to the front desk for a minute? Brett wanted to use the bathroom." She calls out over the noises.

"Sure."

Merette pushes her body through the sea of bodies, gesturing a free space to the customers more times than not.

Just as she gets to the front, a man, tall and broad clad in a black suit, pushes out of the black SUV parked by the entrance. His long legs swallow up the space to the front desk before Merette could suck in a breath her lungs suddenly find hard to enroll.

"Do you have Canadian classics?—" The man halts as if breath got caught in his chest. "May?"

Merette's heart falls into the pit of her stomach, legs feeling like jelly while the floor beneath them slithers away. She stands rooted at the desk, throat clogging up with some unknown sentiment, eyes wide as they fall on the man standing before her.

The same man she ran away from almost two years ago.

This isn't happening.

This couldn't be.