Marry me

Chapter Twenty-One.

I couldn't sleep.

I didn't know whether it was because of the fact that I was mildly insomniac, or that my room was freezing cold, or maybe because my bed was harder, way harder, than the normal, average bed needed for normal people to sleep in.

I had a feeling it was because of all three.

Groaning a little louder than needed and successfully managing to sound like a female gorilla during labour, I rolled over to the extreme edge of the bed only to roll back to my previous position. I wiggled my hips deep into the bed tring to find a way to make my stone-hard bed somewhat comfortable to my behind.

Goosebumps trailed over my arms as I sat up straight and rested my back on the rock-hard headboard of my rock-hard bed. And somehow, it felt like the headboard was less harder than the bed itself. I wrapped the night robe of my silk nightdress tighter around me and shoved my legs deeper into thick, soft comforter. The pads of my fingers found their way into the roots of my bedraggled hair and tried to knead my scalp. Keyword being tried. "Come on, brain," I murmured in the freezing air of my beloved room. "Give me some sleep. Dammit."

My eyes flitted around my new room, looking for something mounted on the wall that looked like a heater. But there was nothing–

Zilch–

Nada–

Rien–

–That could keep me warm at all.

Only a flatscreen television hoisted up right in the middle of the beige wall across my bed with the power cord dangling and unplugged, looking smug like the cold temperature in the room wasn't affecting it (or maybe, I was just crazy). And a translucent screen door leading to the walk-in closet where my clothes hung idly and where the door leading to the bathroom was situated; another door leading to the bedroom balcony outside. A few feet away from the king-sized bed stood a dresser with a vanity mirror perched right above it on the wall securely.

As I caught a glimpse of my dishevelled reflection on the mirror, I mentally composed a letter I knew I'd never write, much less mail:

Dearest Despised Fake Husband and Ex Paycheck-Payer,

If I freeze to death, I swear I'll haunt you.

Your dearest freezing wife,
Mrs. (Fake) Trevelyan.

"Stupid bed." I scooted off the bed abruptly with a goal set in motion. My feet slid into my panda-bear slippers and, with the Mission Impossible theme song playing in my head along with the sound of my teeth chattering from the cold, I padded out of the wannabe Antartica, also known as my new room.

The warm blast of air that hit my shivering skin the moment I whipped open the door, caused an exhausted sigh to escape my lips and morph into fluffy white wisps.

I ventured out quickly, feeling the coldness of the marble-tiled floor through my thin slippers. I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there, like I was prying in business that I wasn't supposed to pry in; I looked around. The whole house was asleep and so silent, I was certain that even slightest movement would have been heard from the ground floor below. I could see the dark-blue nightsky filled with a light scatter of stars all the way from where I stood to the windows that were high above, a few feet away. Everything, including the paintings, furniture, and the antiques stretched around, looked oddly still (duh?). I shook my head, clearing my thoughts, the aftermath of staying in that goddamn room, and the lack of sleep was probably messing with my head.