Mistakenly Eaten

67. Boundaries!

Althea looked at Nicholas with eyes blooming full of hope and her heart thumping loudly, pumped with enthrall, wondering what Nicholas would answer, just after she had asked a very important question from him.

“Can you please stay with me, tonight?”

Nicholas’s eyebrows rose for a minute, as he wondered what should be his answer.

Of course, any guy would’ve jumped right in to the puddle, the moment any girl, at a vulnerable stage, segregated by fear and empathy, would be an easy target to make when it would come down to stripping her and relaxing by toying with her body but it was not what Nicholas simply aimed to do.

He aimed to make her feel comfortable in his presence and perhaps, that point was reached by him and that’s why, when she asked for him to stay, he realized that he had succeeding in forming that line of comfort between them.

His silence and empty eyes were substantially enough to let Althea know that her little desire wasn’t much welcomed by Nicholas.

She cleared her throat and straightened up realizing that she might have come off a bit too strong in the aspect of friendliness, since Nicholas had never gone too far and beyond with her.

She realized that he might be just looking for a friend, whilst she might have suggested a lot more than that to him. that though alone made her squirm with embarrassment, as not just her but she might have placed Nicholas in a great predicament.

“It’s fine…”

She had just said those words as another thunder flashed right outside the window and Althea immediately closed her eyes, placing the earmuffs that Nicholas got her, over her ears.

She sat still, as her heart began palpitating vigorously and her breaths hitched as she tried to calm her nerves but all in vain.

She felt a gentle touch on her hands, which made her open her eyes and she found Nicholas perched down on the bed, right in front of her.

She breathed, gently at first, letting lose of her fears that stretched out and stretched away, just at the minute feel of Nicholas’s touch.

He didn’t say a single word and silently and simply nodded, majorly because he knew that Althea’s wouldn’t get to listen to him anyways, due to the earmuffs that she had on.

Sensing that the sound of the thunder must’ve passed away, Althea took off the earmuffs and looked yet again at Nicholas, wanting his verbal consent.

Nicholas sighed and nodded with a soft smile, “I will stay. It’s fine and if you also feel alright, I am okay to spend the night with you, until the storm is over.”

Althea smiled, “Don’t worry! I won’t try to take advantage of you.”

She laughed sarcastically, making Nicholas scoff and shake his head at the same time.

Nicholas walked towards the other side of the bed and laid down and Althea also put a large pillow in between.

“Boundaries.” She told him as she laid down next to him and Nicholas shook his head, looking up at the roof, turning his gaze on a scene that wasn’t the one in which Althea laid on the bed.

Because only he knew how hard it was for him to stay in the same confined, walled and such a comfortable lay, wrapped around with sheets, laying on the same bed, only a few inches away from her.

His body ached and his fingers itched for him to reach out to her.

He sighed in great displeasure, feeling no gratification in having to lie down on the same bed as Althea and not even being able to touch her.

What he imagined a situation to be, in his head, if he was not lying to his own self, was at times, image of him and Althea, naked on top of each other, rolled under piles of sheets, with their hands in each other’s hair and his head on her breast, that he always imagined to be the soft budding tip of a flower and he mothed towards the nectar of her n*****s.

Nicholas felt snapped out of his thoughts as yet another thunder flashed in the skies and he was startled that one time as well.

He immediately looked at Althea and found her with her eyes closed and ears gleefully shut.

Nicholas gently reached out to her and tapped her shoulder, making her open her eyes look up at him in confusion.

“Yes?”

He bit his tongue for a moment, until he decided to speak up.

“Can I ask you something?”

He laid back down, attaining Althea’s attention who looked at him for a concerned amount of time and then decided to go on with his curiosity.

“Yes?”

“Why are you afraid of the thunder?”

He asked, shutting his eyes closely at the same time, regretting asking that question.

He knew the answer to it but he just wanted to see or perhaps let his heart persuade the fact that Althea would be honest with him.

Althea scoffed as she heard that question.

“Wow! I never thought anyone would ask that question.”

“What do you mean?” he looked at her, as the direction of her gaze shifted and she then looked right ahead at her, staring in to a void which was the roof.

“Well, I mean, isn’t it natural to assume that thunders, flashes and the rumbling sounds of the ionic clouds clashing is mysteriously yet amenably threatening and parlous to say the least.”

Nicholas laughed out a little, “Yeah well but this amount of fear that you show, for someone who would slap any guy that she just thinks might be trying to take advantage of her, is actually quite weird. So, I ought to ask.”

This time, Althea laughed out a little.

“I am sorry for that.”

“Ah! Here comes the apology that I have been waiting for.”

Althea snickered even more at Nicholas’s words, “Actually, my Dad, he passed away in the ocean, consumed and defeated by the storm. Ever since then, I have been afraid of the thunders and storms.”

She confessed the truth, afraid of the fact that it might carry some sort of inadvertent effect on her friendship with Nicholas, who contrary to her beliefs was actually quite happy that she spoke the truth and his heart had never been in much of a potently happy place.

“Oh! Your father must have been a very brave man.”

Althea hummed, “Yeah! He was. Just one thing that ever defeated him and till this day, I am afraid of it. When he left during the storm, being a fisherman, he became slightly greedy, hoping that his boat would be able to withstand the storms and that he would get the largest hunt of the night due to the high rise but he was simply blindsided and just didn’t know when…”

She paused, taking in a deep breath and holding back her tears and her urge to cry. Her voice felt shaky as she spoke the last words and gulp her sorrows down, that formed a hard knot of anxiety in her throat.

Nicholas gently reached out his hand across the pillow and touched Althea’s hands.

“I am pretty sure wherever he is right now, all he would want for you is to be happy and brave and if he couldn’t. he would want for you to stay strong and fight those very storms that he couldn’t.”

Althea gently smiled, as a lone tear, escaped her top eye and swam down through her nose, gently touching her pillow.

She sniffed her cries away and wiped her face at the same time.

“I am sorry! You must be think that I am pushing my personal problems on you.”

“No! it’s fine. I don’t mind. I guess, we have become good friends enough to share such thoughts with each other.”

Nicholas shrugged, which made Althea turn her head and look at him with a challenging gaze.

“Really?” she asked and he shrugged.

“Sure!”

“Then, will you tell me something personal as well?”

Nicholas gulped hard, suddenly getting tensed at the very thought of that question.

It was just his family and had witnessed the most distorting moment of his life. His colleagues and his subjects who worked under him only had heard about the bizarre incident and that was the end of it.

He had never spoken of it and neither did he ever planned on doing so.

But what Althea had asked of him, felt to him, ripping apart a part of his own heart and presenting it in front of someone else.

Suddenly his heart seemed in a moment of turmoil, since he didn’t ever imagine, reaching a moment where he would actually end up presenting his heartfelt details to anybody.

Nicholas felt slightly tinged but just as Althea laughed out slightly and gently squeezed Nicholas’s hands.

“It’s fine! I know you don’t want to talk about what you go through with everyone and trust me, no one knows and understands that better than me. I had a boyfriend of six years and I never actually told me him about my fears of thunders and even at stormy nights, he would see me afraid and frightened and yet he also, just like everyone else assumed about the parts of me but never cared to ask or recognized my fears truly. And also I understand, 'Boundarie'. She laughed making air quotes and at the same time Nicholas, looked at her with nothing but sheer surprise, filled in his eyes.

So, I guess you just don’t feel the same way, I feel for you and…”

“I got left at the altar.”

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