Needing Noel | Prologue
Christian Jones stirred in his sleep. He rolled over to his wife’s side of the bed. His hand fell into something wet.
He fell back into deep sleep.
* * * *
He woke with a snap and bolted upright, his first thought on the emptiness of Noel’s side of the bed. He looked at the alarm clock on his bedside table; 3:10am. He tuned his ears to the house. Silence.
He rolled out of bed and checked the bathroom “Noel,” he called. No response. He looked into the upstairs guestroom. Empty.
He inched down the stairs, tension thumping a powerful rhythm in his chest.
Downstairs, he moved from room to room, turning on every light and calling her name, terrified of what he might find.
The kitchen looked the same as when Noel cleared the dinner dishes the night before. The living room was as it had been, in order except for the handful of his and her clothes thrown around after dinner.
Six hours before, they had been watching television. He’d caught her staring at him. He pushed her away playfully and she’d come back with an aggressive kiss, pinning him to the couch. They fell off to sleep two hours later, too exhausted to shower away the stink of sex. He’d slept deeply; joint-creaking, bone-weary, asleep-before-you’re-aware-of-it deep.
He finished walking the downstairs; the dining room, hallway closet, even through the laundry room and into the garage. As he stepped back over a pile of waiting laundry something in his sense memory clicked. He raced back up the stairs and flipped on the lamp and froze.
A stain the size of an open fist formed a black hole in the deep green of their satin bed sheet. Tentative, he felt the stain with his fingers, exploring its edges. When he brought his fingertips up to his eyes, he stopped breathing.
Blood.
A dog barking on the street snapped him back to the moment. He bolted back down the stairs and through the kitchen.
In bare feet still, he slid to a stop on the linoleum floor. The back door was open a foot wide, the jam split into shards.
Slowly, he swung the door open...
…To find nothing but a fresh night time breeze and the still-life of a suburban back yard.
The breeze raised Goosebumps on his arms. For a moment, he closed his eyes and tried to will himself to believe that everything was okay, that there was an explanation that would soothe the burning in his stomach. But it didn’t work. He reached for the phone and fell against the wall with the weight of his guilt. He slid to the floor, clutching the heavy receiver.
She was gone. And, unforgivably, he had slept through it.
* * * *