401. Chapter 401

She has dreams about drowning.

Dreams about drowning, about her lungs burning.

Dreams about dying.

But she’s not herself, in these dreams.

She looks at the glass cage – the one that’s become the tank that she will die in, that she is dying in – and she doesn’t see her own reflection.

She sees Alex’s.

Because she’s not drowning.

Alex is.

Her Alex.

After the first couple of times she wakes up, trying not to gasp for air, trying not to scream, she stops sleeping all together.

Stops sleeping, that is, unless Alex is right next to her.

Unless Alex is in her arms – unless she’s in Alex’s – unless they’re naked and skin-to-skin and warm and dry and breathing, breathing, breathing.

She stops sleeping, unless Alex’s heartbeat is steady under her ear. Unless Alex has her arm wrapped around Maggie’s shoulder, holding her so, so, so close, Maggie’s leg wrapped over Alex’s, arm thrown over her stomach, her head on Alex’s bare chest, listening to her breathe. Listening to her heart.

“I love you,” she’ll whisper with every breath, with every exhale, with every kiss she presses to Alex’s collarbone.

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” she’ll murmur long after Alex has fallen asleep, long after Alex’s breathing has evened out. Long after Alex has twitched away the initial images she has when she closes her eyes now. Long after Maggie has kissed away her nightmares.

“I love you, Ally,” she’ll tell her as she drifts to sleep herself, her body wrapped around Alex’s, alive, alive.

Alive.