Lie with Me - Prologue

Prologue

18^th December 2022

2 a.m.

He is finally asleep. The dead weight of his enormous arm clasped across her chest, protective, caring. Leah knew if she were to fill out one of those online quizzes right now, the ones that can tell you all about the state of your relationship by the way you sleep together, they would get a ten out of ten. An A-plus for Leah and Nathan, imminent wedding bells all round.

The fact she can’t manage to fully open one of her swollen eyes and her left shoulder might be dislocated says otherwise. And now to move, to still her breathing, to try and slide out from beneath his loving grasp. She tries to lift his arm, her movement slow, slower. She has to press her torn shoulder in against the mattress, to make herself smaller than she already is. She moves carefully, deliberately, wincing against the pain.

The pillow is ready at the side of the bed, so she can tuck it beneath his arm. The quick swap to replace her sleeping form. This isn’t the first time she has performed this trick. It’s an all-in-one movement that has to be both delicate and swift at the same time.

She rolls off the bed and quickly fixes the pillow in place. It works. The pillow is pinned and she is free. She kneels by the bed for a second, waiting, making sure that he is still sleeping,  because sometimes he stirs. And, even in a completely drink-and-drug-addled state, he has a bizarre, proprietorial sense of whether she is captured beneath his arm or not. So, if she moves and he starts mumbling, complaining in his sleep, she has to soothe him.

Just hearing her voice is enough – once he realises that she’s close by, he settles immediately. He knows, even in sleeping, that she hasn’t escaped and his twisted game of cat and mouse will continue . . .