Tomorrow, I Promise. - 1. Chapter 1

Half a year; six months; one hundred and eighty-one days; four thousand three hundred and forty-four hours; two hundred and sixty thousand, six hundred and forty minutes; fifteen million, six hundred and thirty-eight thousand and four hundred seconds…

That is all I have left, I mused as I fingered the edge of the letter repetitively, picking at the creased dog-eared paper.

“I’m home!” a voice announced, accompanied by shuffling feet and the slamming shut of the front door.

I shoved the source of conflict back into its envelope, sliding it under my pillow. I crossed the room and watch arms stretch to place a bottle of mustard onto the top shelf, through the doorway. A swath of pale skin peeked out from under the hem of his shirt, a playful seduction.

Ryan.

My feet picked up pace, my arms poised. Closing them around his lean waist, I pressed up urgently against him. A playful smile inched across his rosebud lips and his eyes locked onto mine, wide in pleasant surprise. I tangled my fingers into his chestnut hair and pulled his lips onto mine, crushing them with the weight of our inevitable parting. A bottle of mustard tumbled to the ground.

“My, my, feeling a little frisky are we?” he panted, a flush rising to his cheeks.

“I just can’t help it,” I teased, a cold tentacle of guilt slithering around my throat.

“Well, if you want to eat, then you’re going to have to wait,” he said, as he turned back to arranging the groceries on the shelf.

He bent over to pick up the bottle lying flat on the ground, pinned to it by invisible gravity.

“Ryan,” I said.

“Yep?” he replied, as he looked up at me from his half crouch, grey eyes sucking me in.

The tentacle squeezed hard.

“I love you,” I said.

“Me too babe,” he said, picking up the mustard.

Standing on his feet, he pecked my lips lightly.

Grey as a cloudy sky, I thought as I watched the colour pale and darken in the flickering candlelight.

“What?” Ryan asked, exasperated.

“Your eyes are just so beautiful,” I said, imagining the storm clouds that would appear when he found out. They would gather in clusters, accumulating moisture until they could bear their own weight no more.

“Seriously?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow, “It’s not like I don’t appreciate it and all but the candles, the sappy compliments?”

“You don’t have to try so hard to get into my pants, you know?” he teased, waggling his eyebrows.

A chuckle escaped me.

“I know that you’re easy,” I flirted.

“Hey!” he protested in mock offence.

“But you deserve it all: flowers and candlelit dinners, and to be reminded that you’re the most beautiful person. You deserve to be loved by someone who would give up the world to be with you,” I said.

“Like you?” he teased.

Someone not me, I thought.

I smirked.

“Oh god! I should’ve known I married a cheeseball,” he complained.

“Yes, you did,” I said, twisting the gold band on my finger.

***

I watched her stare at me with judgement.

Tell him, she whispered urgently in my ear.

I held her gaze, unwilling to be forced into submission.

“Hey spaceman,” Ryan whispered in my ear, “Close the windows and come to bed.”

“Just a minute,” I said.

“Fine, but draw the blackout curtains when you’re done. The radiation will kill you,” he sighed.

It’ll kill us all, I finished the thought as his footsteps echoed against the hollow floors.

I looked at her once more, glowing lightly, a silent assassin in the night. I pulled the blackout curtains together, and darkness fell.

***

“We’re all going to die, aren’t we?” he whispered, his lean back pressed against my chest.

“No, you’re not going to die,” I said, “I won’t let you.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” he said, his voice small and frail.

I am sure, I asserted in my mind, as I pulled him closer into my embrace.

“I’m just glad that you’re with me as we hurtle helplessly into the sun,” he joked, but his voice was tinged with a profound sadness.

Paper crackled loudly under my head as I adjusted myself. His warmth pressed against me as I held him tightly. Burying my nose into his neck, I inhaled deeply, trying to memorise the notes that composed this familiar scent. Sadness tugged at me insistently, but I raged hard against it: a war of many that I had to champion.

I nipped lightly at the delicate skin, teasing the light hairs on his chest with my fingers, trailing them down onto his abdomen: feeling the ridges tense with anticipation. A moan rumbled from deep beneath his throat. I rolled him around to face me. I studied every inch of his face: committing every pore and hair to memory. His hand grasped the side of my face as he pulled me into him: teeth clashing against mine, tongues wrestling in urgency.

He pinned me on my back and sat atop me, leaning forward to leave a trail of bruises down my jaw and collarbone. I stared at the dark ceiling: pleasure, pain and anticipation rotating. Sheets knotted around us as we danced into the dawn: the sound of paper crackling at every movement.

***

Tell him, she scolded.

I looked over my shoulder at the sleeping form she illuminated: brushing up against his pale skin, caressing his dark hair, casting shadows under his eyelashes. I took a step into the light and away from him.

“Fuck you,” I cussed under my breath.

“Fuck you!”

A cold laughter rang in my ears, mocking me. Tears slid down my cheeks, dripping onto the ground, glistening quietly in her bastardly light.

“Fuck you,” I whispered.

You still have to tell him, she mocked in between her menacing cackle.

I looked back at his sleeping frame once more, rising and falling with his rhythmic breathing.

My insides twisted, and the tentacles of guilt and weight of sadness piled atop of them.

I crawled back under the covers. The crackling of paper attacked me as I lay my head down. I shifted to rest my chin on his shoulder.

“Everything alright?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.

I buried my face into his neck and touched my lips gently to the bruised skin.

Tomorrow, I promise, I told myself.

And it will break him, her voice filtered through the dark curtains, her blood-curling laughter echoing into my nightmares.