Elias - 3. Part 3

A lot of them were bleached white by the sun and splotched with moss. No one still left flowers here. They weren’t allowed to as it messed up the aesthetic of the graveyard for tourists and everyone buried up here was generations too far in the past for people to remember them. The grass was as mowed and kept clean as the rest of the property, but you couldn’t stop natural decay and what the weather does to stone. Looking at the first one I came to, I could make out the name and the date, but the etching of the words and numbers had smoothed over time. They were shallow and if nothing was done, they would eventually fade completely away.

“Hey, this guy’s last name is Carlson,” Kaelie announced and I looked up hearing my last name. She was standing in the third row, her hand resting gently on the top of the stone. Straightening up I walked over to her just as the ghost darted to her other side. He looked at it and then at me, then back at the stone again.

“I knew my Dad’s family were some of the founding members here,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I couldn’t escape that fact when the school used to do family history days in elementary school.”

“We didn’t move here until the fifth grade,” Kaelie said, frowning. “How do generations of people stay in one place for so long?”

“That’s not a bad thing,” I said smiling as she took her hand off the stone. “And we’re stubborn, there’s like a hundred of us and we all live within fifty miles of one another.”

“I know, right?” She said, her eyes going wide. “No wonder your brothers had to practically leave the state to find girls to marry without marrying cousins.”

“Shut up,” I groaned, reading the grave we stood at. My relative was married, they were buried together. She died first, but he followed two years later and I had to count up on my fingers how old they were when they died.

“Sixty four and seventy two,” Kaelie said just before I got through the woman’s age and was still a year off. I knew better than to check Kaelie’s math though, she was going into mathematics for college and was the only reason I averaged a wimpy B in every math class I took.

“Do any of the names stand out?” I asked, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Kaelie look up, about to answer. I was looking at the ghost though and when he shook his head he left to continue his search.

“There has to be about two hundred graves here,” Kaelie said and I looked around trying to find any sort of hint or difference. Some of them looked older, some had chips and pieces missing. Some were just names on a squared off smaller stone like the Witch’s back at her clearing. The graveyard didn’t look as large when we approached it, but I had mostly focused on the massive tree that partially shaded the place.

“Just look around for a man that lived to be about eighteen,” I said as I grabbed my phone to use it as a calculator so that I wouldn’t have to think. “I’ll start on the bottom and work my way up, we’ll meet in the middle, look for a name that starts with an e.”

“Back then people died young all the time,” Kaelie said wrinkling her nose. “They thought bloodletting was a cure all.”

“I remember blood,” the ghost said as he hovered past me as I walked down to the lower left corner of the graveyard to start.

“Where?” I asked as he checked the names on the grave before looking up at me. In the shade of the oak and the less intense light of the fading afternoon sun, he was easier to see.

“On the stone,” he said, cocking his head as he shrugged and moved to check another grave.

“Do you think you died at that stone?” I asked as I made my way to the first grave. It was a woman so I moved along.

“I did die there,” he answered as he came to hover on my left side.

“Thirty years old,” I said as I glanced up at him. “Do you think you were thirty?”

“I can’t remember,” he said after he flashed in and out of focus for a few moments. “I’m getting tired, I may not be here much longer.”

“We’ll stay an hour or so,” I said as I looked down at the next grave I came to. Seeing that the name didn’t start with an e, I moved on down to the next. I knew I was placing a lot of trust on a ghost that didn’t remember a lot about himself. He had repeated the e and that’s all I had to go on. The next one in the row was a married couple by the last name of Claxton, next to it was a young girl’s name Agatha with the same last name. I watched him attempt to put his hand on her grave, a flash of sadness crossed his face before he gave up on touching the stone and moved along. Doing the math in my head, the girl was only six years old when she died.

“I found a row of some of the former Mayors,” Kaelie announced from a distance. When I looked up she was in the row that was in line with the oak tree. The graves were larger than the ones around them, so I figured they were either rich or important. Being mayors you couldn’t be more important.

“What was the Mayor’s name that stopped the witch’s execution?” I asked hoping that she would remember the stories better than I did. The curator of the place would know, we probably could have saved ourselves a lot of time by asking her for the cemetery records. At least there we could just scan the names instead of walking from grave to grave. This seemed to make the ghost happy, or at least hopeful to find a piece of something that he forgot. Some of these people were born just before the civil war. Looking across to the next rolling hill towards the very old and wooden homes, I realized just how much of a miracle and thorough upkeep it took for them to still be standing. I wondered how many had fallen to ruin and left no sign of existence at all if those were the last remaining ones. The church had been burned down twice, I remembered that in the retelling of history. Once was during the Witch’s trial. It didn’t help her cause, but she had been doomed at the start of it all, no one back then came back from that sort of accusation. The fact a standing mayor stayed her execution only made it more of a story. No one knew why, all accounts of the woman up to her and including her name were erased from history. The only thing that lived on was that she was a witch and the unmarked stone was her final resting place. She had died mysteriously less than a year after the mayor saved her life.

“Elias!” The ghost yelled and I jumped and dropped my phone. I watched it bounce off a gravestone and flip end over end until it hit the grass. Bending down I snatched it up and scanned the graveyard for him. He was at a grave two rows behind the row of Mayors that Kaelie had been distracted by.

Making sure my phone survived the fall before I slid it into my pocket, I jogged over to where he waited. Looking down at the grave, I didn’t have to do the math, he was only alive for seventeen years. Born in the eighteen fifties. Taking a step back I looked up at him.

“Do you think this is you?” I asked, glancing back down to read the last name. “Does Elias C. Blakely sound familiar?”

“I know I am Elias,” he answered, smiling up at me. “Elias C. Blakely.”

“I think we found him,” I yelled and I watched Kaelie walk around the last gravestone on the first row of former mayors.

“Good,” she said as she came to stand next to me to read off the name.

“How do you feel, knowing?” I asked as I watched him hover around the stone reaching out his hand attempting to touch it. Like before, at the girl’s grave his fingertips just went through it, but his smile didn’t falter when he glanced up at me.

“Help me remember,” he said as he rushed over to me. “I might forget tomorrow.”

“We can help you more,” I said, looking down at the town and off to the side of it where we parked. The small museum had archives, the Mayor’s estate had portraits and photographs. The women that ran the place liked talking about it to whomever would listen to the history. I hadn’t visited since elementary school. I couldn’t remember seeing anyone that resembled him. Now that I had a name though I was a little more confident that I could find him down there.

“When?” He asked and I felt the cold air trail across my arm as he tried to touch my hand. Moving my hand away, he frowned only for a moment before his smile returned.

“When there are people working here who can help me,” I answered as my stomach growled. I heard Kaelie snort beside me and when I glanced over at her she had her hand on her hip.

“I hate not being able to be part of your conversations with him,” she said looking around the graveyard with a hopeful look, but when she turned back to me she huffed and started walking down the row we were in. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Alright,” I said as I started following her then stopped and turned to look at him. He was still standing at his grave and when I walked back up to it he looked up at me. “Do you want to stay here?”

“Do you want me to stay here?” He asked and I watched him look towards the oak tree. “You don’t want me at your home.”

“You scare me,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders. “I’m not used to you being around.”

“I can stay here,” he said, still looking at the tree. “I’ve never been here, maybe there are others that come out at night.”

“Don’t say that,” I said, shaking my head. “I want you to be the only ghost around here.”

“I don’t,” he countered, turning to look at me. “You’re the first being I’ve talked to since I woke up at the stone. That talked back anyhow.”

“Since 1867,” I whispered, not wanting to upset him, even though I knew he read it on his gravestone. “What do you usually talk to?”

“Birds, mostly,” he answered with a brief smile before he left his grave and went towards the tree. “You can leave me here, will you come back?”

“I will,” I answered, nodding my head as I looked for a spot to hide the ring along the oak tree. Reaching into my pocket I pulled it out by the chain and looked at it. When I opened my other hand and placed it on the palm of my hand I watched him shudder and look over at me.

“I feel warm when you touch it,” he said as he looked down at the ring in my hand. “I’ve not felt warmth for a long time.”

“Do you get cold?” I asked, “Like in the winter?”

“No, I didn’t feel anything until you,” he answered, cocking his head slightly. He reminded me of a cat that thought it heard something moving along in tall grass when he did it. “I will miss the feeling when you’re gone.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said as I lifted up a chipped piece of stone that was nestled in between two large tree roots at the base of the tree. When ants scattered into the grass I grimaced and looked around for loose bark or something I could tuck the ring into. Leaving it here didn’t feel safe anymore, not with him hovering beside me, his watchful eyes taking in everything I did.

“I mean when you’re gone,” he said when I looked back over at him.

“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, I promised to help you,” I said as I slid my fingertips across the tree, but the bark was rough and firm. There weren’t any cracks that I could see.

“Then I won’t see you again, will I?” He asked and I let my hand fall to my side. I wasn’t going to find a crack or a crevice that I liked here. The ring was large and the only reason it hadn’t been found yet, was because no one wanted to disturb the witch’s stone, and it was too heavy to move. I was just the idiot that decided to put all my weight on it and pushed it over.

“I don’t know,” I answered and when he nodded and looked around at the tree I felt my other hand reach for him. Swearing to myself I balled it into a fist and shoved it inside my pocket then looked down at the ring.

“Maybe I’ll remember who I am,” he said, still looking at the tree. “I feel better knowing my name, maybe I won’t forget it again.”

“Are you coming?” Kaelie yelled as she came back into view. I wondered how far she walked before she realized that I wasn’t following after her. She could drift off in her own thoughts sometimes and they could take her anywhere, even mid conversation with me. I had given her a lot to think about today too.

“Yeah, in a minute,” I yelled and closed my hand over the ring with a sigh as he smiled and turned to me. “You coming?”

“I have to,” he answered, his smile widening as he came up to hover beside me and I shook my head and started walking again.

When we walked up to Kaelie she was looking at her phone, but when I got up to where she stood she was frowning. Hearing my approach she looked up shaking her head and my heart rate ticked up when she walked up to me just as I cleared the fence.

“You touched his ring on the anniversary of his death,” she said as she held out her phone. It was zoomed in on the date of his death. The fifth of September.

“Really?” I asked as I squinted and took the phone from her. I zoomed it in a little further then read the full date on the weathered white stone. It had moss covering the date, but I could just make it out.

“Do you think that’s the reason you can see and talk to him?” She asked, looking at me. “I mean I touched it too, but you did first.”

“Maybe,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“So I was that close to being in your mess,” she said as she held up her hand with her index finger and thumb less than an inch apart.

“Guess so,” I said and I watched her sigh relieved as she turned and started back down the hill.

“Thank you for being a greedy and grab happy little bastard then,” She said as she kept walking and I rushed to keep up with her.

“You usually are,” I countered as I fell in step beside her as we hit the path that led to the front building and the parking lot. “If the ring had a hint of a diamond on it, I would have pulled back a bloody nub.”

Like before, he disappeared when the car was moving and I wondered if that had anything to do with my speed. Kaelie sat quietly beside me as we ate our chicken nuggets and fries. I had to endure a joke about ordering him something and if she should have sat in the back. I wondered how many of them I would have to endure, she could beat a joke half to death. It was better than her running screaming away from me when we were parked behind her parents cars in the driveway she looked over at me.

“Will you be okay with him by yourself?” She asked as she held her balled up bag of trash in her hand.

“I think so,” I answered, turning to look through my rearview, but I didn’t know if I could even see ghosts in mirrors or not.

“What do I tell your parents if he murders you in your sleep?” She asked and when I glared at her she smiled and shrugged.

“Not funny,” I groaned and she unhooked her seatbelt and opened the door as she laughed.

“Come meet me tomorrow, we’ll go to the museum. It should be open,” she said and when I nodded she closed the door behind herself. I watched her walk around her parents’ cars and up to her front porch before I started backing out of the driveway.

Driving home in the early evening light I looked around and it seemed like I was looking at the town where I grew up for the first time. I had let the history of the place fade away. Now I wondered just how we got here, how our founding families decided that this was the best place to be. Glancing down at my lap I frowned when I saw that my finger had absently been tracing the circle of the ring.

When I got home Dad and Mom were at the table eating spaghetti. Seeing the bag of take out trash in my hand Mom wrinkled her nose. She was a bit of a snob when it came to food and insisted that we ate her cooking. Smiling at them I wanted to get down stairs, I had a laptop waiting for me and I wanted to see if I could get a head start on the ghost town on the other side of town.

“Where have you been all day?” Dad asked as he lifted a glass of wine halfway to his face.

“Out with Kaelie,” I answered and when I saw his knowing smile and nod towards Mom I tensed, but he didn’t see it.

“Sit down and have a salad, you need one after all that grease,” Mom said, offering me a smile as she patted the table beside her. “We’ve not seen you all day.”

“I’m really tired,” I said, taking a step towards the hallway.

“What did you and Kaelie get up to?” She asked and this time I watched her glance at Dad and I sighed. Kaelie was the first girl I brought home, she was the first person my age I brought home aside from Brady. I knew I would need to put a stop to their line of thinking soon, but I didn’t think I wanted to until I had a better reason. A boyfriend to show off to them being that reason, if I was going to upend our home with my news I wanted it to count.

“Just went for a drive and stuff,” I said hoping none of her friends drove by the museum parking lot and saw my car.

“How are you feeling?” Dad asked just as I took another step. “You still look anxious to me.”

“I’m fine, I didn’t sleep well last night,” I said, shaking my head when Mom patted her lips with her napkin and made a move to stand.

“I can make you some herbal tea and come down there and we can talk,” Mom said as she gently pushed her chair back with her knees.

“I’m okay, really,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “I’m going down stairs now, love you both.”

“If you’re sure,” she said as she stepped partially around her chair. If she saw any hesitation she would be at the cupboard searching out the perfect tea cup and filling water to boil.

“I’m sure,” I said and offered them a small smile before I turned and walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway. I could hear muttering behind me and I half expected Mom to follow anyway in about an hour or two. It made it worse that I just had my nineteenth birthday, but she had been a stay at home Mom her entire life, aside from working as a volunteer during our sports seasons. That was still just so that she could be there with us. She had a very embarrassing evening when she stormed the field after my oldest brother Casey didn’t get up after being tackled. He just had his breath knocked out of him, but he may as well have been on his deathbed. She had to beg not to be banned for the rest of the night, and it was her that caused them to station a security guard at all the chain link gates from that night on.

Rushing down the stairs I kept the light off in my living room and walked down the narrow hall to my bedroom. I hadn’t felt any cold air or heard anything since. Not knowing where he was unnerved me, but more than just the fear of him popping up in my face. I had questions now and I wanted to talk to him, I wanted to know who Elias C. Blakely was anyway.

Opening my laptop I pressed the power button and grabbed it off my desk and walked to my bed. If I was honest I would usually be stripped down to my underwear and grabbing earbuds and the paper towel roll from the bathroom I kept under the sink. Feeling my face flush I slowly reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I felt the ring fall to the bottom now that it had more space and I looked around again as I reached back into my pocket and looped the ring and chain on my finger. Pulling it out I started looking around the room. I didn’t shudder or edge myself away from where I stood, no cold air washed over me.

“Elias?” I asked, my voice a rushed whisper. Swallowing, I looked down at the ring as it fell further down my finger. Kaelie was right, it was double the size it needed to be to fit a person’s finger. I wouldn’t even really call it a ring. Taking it off my finger, I slid the chain off it and put it into the palm of my hand. When I closed my fist gently around it I finally felt the rush of cold air and relaxed and sat down on my bed.

“I,” he started as he started taking form at the foot of my bed. “I was going to stay away, you wanted me to.”

“I changed my mind,” I answered as I slid the laptop into the center of my bed. When he didn’t move away from the foot of the bed, I waved my hand for him to come closer. He smiled and moved around the foot of the bed and hovered at the other edge of it.

“What is that?” He asked, looking down at the laptop in the middle of the bed. When I pulled it over towards me I turned the screen towards him.

“It’s like our phones,” he said, “what Kaelie and I use to talk to one another when we’re not in the same place.”

“I’ve seen people use those before as they visited the stone, I didn’t know what they were called, they never seemed to look away from them I thought them possessed,” he said as he stopped moving completely, it was the most still I had ever seen him.

“You can come closer,” I said looking down at my bed. “Can you sit down?”

“I sit on the stone,” he said, his eyebrows pressing together as he looked down at the bed. ‘This is a bed, your room, it’s private.”

“You had no problem being in here earlier,” I countered, offering him a small smile.

“I was worried about my ring,” he said, shaking his head. “I felt its pull in here, so I came here. You don’t want me to be here.”

“I’m fine,” I said, sighing. “Don’t worry about it, I changed my mind.”

“You are asking me to join you in your bed,” he said as he hovered just at the edge looking from the spot beside me then to where I sat, his eyes wide and his eyebrows raised.

“Do you want to try to find answers to your questions or not?” I asked, reaching over I patted the side of the bed. “This box I have might be able to find something.”

“I will, if I have to,” he said, scowling at me as he hovered to the center of my bed. It wasn’t what I would call sitting when I watched him lower himself down to my level. Happy that he was there I opened up the browser.

“Elias C. Blakely,” he said and when I looked from the screen to him, he smiled over at me.

“Why are you repeating your name?” I asked as my fingers felt the keys. I knew he wasn’t the only Elias C. Blakely ever to exist and just typing in his name wouldn’t be helpful. His records were old too and he died so young. I wondered if the lack of information around his name would upset him.

“I don’t want to forget again,” he answered as he edged closer to me. I could feel the cold that radiated from him now and fought the urge to lean away from it.

“What if your first name is Elias, but we got your last name wrong,” I said and I watched his eyes widen before he turned away from the screen to look at me. “Did you feel connected to more than just Elias?”

“I felt the name, I felt like I would have answered if someone had called out,” he said, his voice soft. “I felt a weight of it when you spoke the name to me, it meant something to me once, it has to be mine.”

“Alright,” I said swallowing as I studied him a few more seconds before I turned away from him and typed in his full name and pressed enter. I saw the endless pages of people living today that had his name. When he saw them too he looked at me, confused and expectant.

“These are people that share your name,” I said, hitting the images link and scrolling slowly.

“All of them?” He asked and I nodded and watched him work over what I told him.

“We’ll find you in this mess,” I said more for my own benefit than his. I wanted to know him now that he was here with me.

I quickly typed in his name with the date of his birth and death, this time the first link that popped up was of the museum. I knew I should have just typed that in to begin with. Quickly clicking on it, I groaned when the page loaded to just his name in a list of others. Leaning my head back I glanced over to see him watching me.

“What’s the matter?” He asked as he focused on his name on the screen. I tensed when he darted forward and his face hovered inches from the screen, which was in my lap. “That’s me?”

“That’s you,” I answered and when he looked up at me, I knew I was confusing him with my tone. “All it says is that we’re invited to the museum to learn more about you and your history, it doesn’t say anything about you.”

“The museum,” he repeated, turning back to the screen still fixated on seeing his name on it. The glow, even in dark mode distorted his features.

“We’ll have to go tomorrow, I won’t find anything in here,” I said as I reached up and dodged his face, I made to close the screen. When he dodged it as I shut it I heard him gasp and look over at me.

“What happened?” He asked as his hand darted towards the screen and I felt the air tickle the hairs on my arm making them stand up. “I want to see it again.”

“It won’t get you answers,” I answered, sliding the laptop off my lap and back onto the bed. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to wait,” he said, looking over at me as he darted from the bed. “I, I might forget, I might not come back.”

“Where do you go?” I asked, holding my hand up. Seeing it he stopped moving around my room and settled back at the foot of my bed. When I moved my hand to wave him back to the side of the bed he darted through the bed and back to the other side of the bed.

“Somewhere foggy and hard to see through,” he answered, turning to look at me. He had tried his best to imitate how I leaned up against my headboard, my back on a pillow. If his form didn’t fade away at his waist and into the bed. “I wander around feeling the pull of the ring.”

“Why can’t you stay here?” I asked and when a sadness flashed across his face he covered it with a small smile.

“Being here, I have to fight to be here,” he said, turning to look around my room. “When I get too tired to fight, I have to go until I can fight to come back.”

“You mean it drains your energy to be here,” I said and he nodded.

“I can hear you,” he said as he moved closer to me. “When you’re moving around your room, when you’re talking. Hearing your voice, it is frustrating when I can’t follow it back to you.”

“To me,” I said, feeling my heart respond to the words. He didn’t feel the weight I felt and only nodded and looked away from me. His eyes kept landing on the closed laptop so I knew he was still hyper focused on his name.

“It is better knowing my name,” he said, finally taking his eyes off the laptop. “Thank you.”

“You found your name, I haven’t done any of this on purpose,” I said, offering him a smile.

“Your girl Kaelie is nice,” he said and smirked, shaking my head.

“My girl, she is only a friend,” I said, rolling my eyes as I smiled at the thought. The pair that me and Kaelie would have made, if I were the right guy for her. Would have been something to see for sure. She had way too much energy.

“Don’t you want to marry her someday?” He asked and I looked up when I heard footsteps above my head. Back here I was below one of the upstairs bathrooms.

“No, I want to marry a man,” I answered, my voice falling to a whisper.

“You can’t marry a man,” he said and I watched his eyebrows raise as he thought over what I said.

“You heard what I said earlier,” I countered, feeling my face getting warm. This wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have with him. I didn’t know why it bothered me that he wasn’t understanding me, but I clenched the muscles in my jaw and looked down at my lap.

“I did,” he said and I felt cold air graze my arm where my t-shirt sleeve stopped. Looking up I didn’t see him reaching for me, but he must have done something.

“What?” I asked when he studied me. It bothered me that his hair was still flowing around his face even if the rest of him was focused and still. It looked soft and it had a hint of trying to curl at the ends. I wouldn’t know what color it was, or his eyes for that matter. They looked pale, like they could be blue or green.

“You looked sad,” he said, offering me a small smile. “I still forget I can’t touch you.”

“You know I can feel you too,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s the coldest air I’ve ever felt on my skin.”

“Not as good as your warmth,” he said, his smile widening and I turned and glanced over at the ring on the nightstand. Reaching over I slid it off the wooden table and into my palm. Turning it over in my hand I looked over at him. He was watching me, his eyes darting from the ring to my face. Swallowing I slowly closed my hand around it and watched as he closed his eyes and sank a little farther into the bed. He looked just human enough for me to ball my other hand up into a fist as I lifted my fingers off the ring and slid it back onto the table.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said and quickly rolled out of the bed and walked straight into my bathroom, closing the door behind me.

Looking at myself in the mirror I turned the water on and bent forward and splashed my face. I hadn’t let the water warm at all, usually the cold water would refresh me, wake me up and out of these unwanted thoughts. Now it did nothing but make my face wet.

“Have I made you angry?” He asked from just outside the bathroom door. Reaching over I grabbed the hand towel from the hanger and bunched it up in my fist, then gently wiped my face.

“I’m good,” I answered, letting the towel fall to the counter. I quickly brushed my teeth, ignoring myself in the mirror.

I didn’t hear him, but I didn’t think I would unless he was talking to me. Turning, I opened the bathroom door and walked back into the bedroom. Looking around I didn’t see him anywhere. Glancing down the hallway, he wasn’t where I could see him. I knew he could fade completely away, he did that before. Walking down the hallway and into my living room I looked over at the couch and then in every corner. The room felt warm to me and I didn’t realize until now that it wasn’t always like this. Looking up at the ceiling I decided not to go up there to look for him, I wasn’t worried about Mom or Dad seeing him. If Kaelie couldn’t, they wouldn’t be able to either.

Turning back around I walked back down the narrow hallway and grabbed my laptop and placed it back on my desk. Then I walked to my bathroom door and reached just inside and flipped the switch then back to my bed.

Glancing around the room once more, I sighed and pulled my shirt off over my head. Then I unzipped and unbuttoned my jeans. Kicking them off I slid into the bed and when I was settled onto my pillow I reached over and turned off the lamp then rolled over on my back and stared up at the ceiling. For a moment I wanted to reach for the ring, to see if I could summon him back, but didn’t think I could come up with a good enough lie to tell myself. His voice was just deep enough to sound husky, even if the way he talked was odd to me. It lingered in my mind every time he spoke, but I couldn’t imagine it now, I couldn’t think back on our conversation at all and think I was doing it any kind of justice.

Closing my eyes, I grabbed my other pillow and pulled it over my head, hoping he was actually gone and not watching me now. Even if all I was doing was laying in the bed, he couldn’t see how my mind raced and my eyes were searching for him. He definitely couldn’t now, and I sighed rolling to my side, willing myself to keep my eyes closed and brain to ease into other, safer thoughts.