Still Thinking: Chapter 1

It was the middle of the night as she stumbled on down the stairs to get herself a drink of water. She was desperately in need of quenching her thirst. As she opened the door to the bottom of the steps, her vanilla cream satin robe caught on a loose nail in the wall, ripping a slight tear in the pocket. With a deep, deceived sigh, she thrust her way through the door and stumbled to the floor.

The room was dark, unusually dark for that time of night. She would know, she was down the stairs and to the bathroom about the same time every night, due to her lack of ability to sleep better. Her toes caught on the tiny ledges of the doorways, the bottoms of her feet sticking to the laminate floor. With the flick of a light, her head started to pound as she entered the bathroom. The soft carpet eased her sweaty feet, the wall cooling off her warm cheeks.

Slipping into a chair in the living room, she noticed a light in the kitchen flickering poorly. She knew they needed to rewire the house. She pulled the satin robe across her body and close to her chest as she rose up to dim the light to darkness. As her hand approached the knob, a strong, rough hand grabbed her wrist.

“Gabriella, don’t turn that off. I’m reading.” It was only her roommate John.

John was a tall, stout fellow. He stood over six feet tall, dark luxurious brown hair, soft blue eyes, a tone face, and a personality everyone got along with. In the middle of the night he often enjoyed reading a romance novel, or a gruesome horror that would chill his bones. In the mornings, she would awake to find him doing a crossword puzzle, reading the newspaper, or working on one of his own latest novels. He didn’t write much, just in the early dawn when he couldn’t catch his slumber.

“I’m sorry, John. I wasn’t aware you were in here; I couldn’t see you. Will you be up much longer or are you coming to bed?”

Gabriella and John had a thing. She found his reading glasses, and knack for finding a great book by glancing at the cover quite quirky, but cute. His ability to do a crossword in less than ten minutes never ceased to amaze her. John was instantly attracted to Gabriella’s beauty when they first met. She caught his eye by walking straight past him in her business suit, long, wavy, dark brown silky hair, and a smile beaming as white as the ethereal clouds. She turned to glance back, and he was immediately drawn in a pursuit to find her. They hit the local café a few times before deciding to finally move in together. Fully, and clearly, they had stated that they were strictly roommates and what happened between them, remained on the casual side of things, and never interfered with their living status.

“I’ll be to bed soon, just let me finish this chapter.” He replied in a dull manner, too intent on reading the last few pages he could.

After sipping at a new glass of water, she dumped the rest, walked back to the stairs and tiredly stumbled back up them. Within minutes she was fast asleep beneath the Egyptian cotton sheets.

John stayed in the living room for some time after that. He watched a few television shows that he enjoyed during the daytime, but missed because of his management job at the city’s greatest club. Eventually he turned the television off, dozily climbed his way up the long never-ending staircase, and slumped into bed next to Gabriella. To his amazement, she didn’t awake.

Gabriella was usually a light sleeper. She required a minimum of three hours of sleep, but no more than eight. During the night, if John were to roll over in bed, she would awake and ask him if he was too. Most of the time he’d mumble, roll back over and fall back asleep, ignoring her prodding pokes and whispers. She was a fine lady, waking up early, getting off to a nice warm start for work at her sparkling magazine company “Starlit”. She’d come home before John and make them supper, cooking it at a slow, marinating pace so the flavor could soak in. John usually savored every drop. She’d stay up late writing letters or finishing up business work for the office. Sometimes she’d make visits to her family across town and deliver them supper. Later on at night she’d crawl into bed to sleep and await John’s midnight arrival beneath the sheets.

As Gabriella peacefully lay in bed, John couldn’t help but notice a slight pitter patter just outside the window. Upon their balcony, raindrops were falling at a slow, cooling rate, keeping the pattern off balance. John just leaned over, wrapped his tired arms around Gabriella, and let the rainfall slip him into a deep slumber. It was the cool of the night through the window, the drops of the rain on the solid, warm concrete, and the feeling of comfort in Gabriella’s arms that made him never want to awake from any moment in the middle of the night. He regretted ever making the decision to part from his past life because of the tragic events that unfolded before him, and he wished that he could change the fact that his early morning visitor had to sneak around the yard, awaiting John to appear, for fear of waking Gabriella in her soft state of sleeping. But under all the regret and decisions, he cherished every moment of being able to touch her.