Page 78 of In Love and War

Is this still a dream? This feels like a dream.

I kept my eyes closed and remained still, afraid that any sort of movement would wake me up or ruin whatever was happening in some other way.

Then, the memories of the night before started to trickle in, and I remembered where I was.

Zac.

I was cocooned in his arms with my forehead resting against his chest. It was his hand that was playing with my hair. I breathed in his scent and nuzzled closer.

Then, I realized my eyelashes were wet. Praying that he hadn’t noticed, I stirred and brought a hand up to wipe my eyes with, hoping it just seemed as though I was rubbing them like people did when they first woke up.

“You had a bad dream,” he said to the top of my head. His hand didn’t stop.

“How do you know?”

“You were whimpering like a puppy a minute ago.”

“Oh… sorry,” I responded to his chest, embarrassed.

I hadn’t had that dream in years. Why did it have to pick today, of all days, to make a reappearance?

His other hand moved from around my waist to my chin, tilting it up toward his face. It was early enough that the room was still quite dark, but even in limited light I could perfectly make out the ink-blue strokes that painted his eyes.

“Why are you apologizing, Amelia?”

I swallowed when he said my name, a ball forming in my throat. “Why don’t you call me Milly like everybody else? Why do you always use my full name?”

“Why do you keep avoiding all of my questions?” His thumb was slowly drawing small circles on my chin now.

“Why do you keep avoiding mine?”

“Do you still hate the way I say your name?” More circles.

“Would you stop if I said yes?”

“No, I wouldn’t.” His devilish grin melted me. “And I call you by your full name because it suits you, and I love that I’m the only one that does it.”

“My mom used to call me ‘Amelia’ too.” I didn’t know why I decided to tell him. The words sort of just fell out of my mouth.

His thumb stilled.

“She did?”

“Yeah. She said the same thing, that it suited me… the name was her idea.”

“Tell me about her,” he coaxed gently.

I swallowed and blinked back the new layer of wetness that flooded my eyes. I hadn’t talked about her to anyone in a really, really long time.

“Um, well… she passed away in a car accident when I was five, so my memory is a little foggy. But I remember her laugh more than anything else. I remember realizing how empty the big house was without it once she was gone.”

He remained silent as he watched me, but he was lightly caressing my skin again. It was beyond comforting.

“I have her eyes,” I continued. “People used to tell me that all the time. My dad actually couldn’t look me straight in them for a while after she died, but I don’t think he realized that I noticed.

“Everything changed… he was devastated. For a really long time it honestly felt like I lost him too. He drowned himself in work, to the point where I rarely got to see him. I think it was his way of dealing with the grief. I honestly think you had more meals with him than I did between the ages of five and thirteen.”

“I’m sorry.”