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“Do you know any lullaby songs?”
The question came out of nowhere. Uttered in a quiet, sleepy chime before the fireplace of a house with too many stories and too little people.
His eyes were heavy, half-lidded already, head slowly but surely lolling on my shoulder, ruddy hair poking my cheek. And the little monster glued to the other side of my hip was already stone cold out. A night so peaceful, so unproblematic that I almost felt like it didn’t belong to my life.
What did I do to deserve this? Why does my chest feel so strangely light?
Oh right, this might be the light-heartedness that everyone talks about, or something close.
After all, somewhere deep in my chest there’s a fruit of anxiety growing ripe. A small, annoying reminder that this will end as soon as my eyes fall closed. And the unpredictability of it makes my head spin a little when I swore to myself I'd just let it be.
My silence seems to have bothered the little one to look up at me with that signature curiosity in his eyes. A slight furrow on his brow, the orange ring in his grey irises catching the firelight. He’s inquiring me like it’s going to make me break.
It does.
“Pardon me. I was distracted,” I say because it’s easier than saying the word overthink. “What is it?”
“I asked if you know any lullabies,” he echoes the question, and his lashes flutter. He’s trying so hard to keep them open it’s funny.
He frowns harder when I ask, “Why?”
It’s probably very personal. And though we’re literally cuddling with one thin blanket over or shoulders and a dying hearth before us, Riddle still seems to think that he can’t open up about his feelings or he will die or turn into a plant—or something of the sort, since I don't really understand the whole complexity of this world yet. His silence reveals more than when he runs his mouth, but he insists on it and keeps glaring at me with faith that he will make me speak by will alone.
No judgement. It’s not like I’m not the woman with unresolved attachment issues who sleeps thinking about what could’ve been of me if only my luck had been different. If only God had liked me a little and gave me a chance.
Even though... Riddle always sounded awfully like a second chance.
Grim purrs under my other hand.
“Fine, fine.” I sigh. “I do. But don’t expect some sappy story about my mother singing to me when I was little. I wasn’t sung to. But yeah, I do know some lullabies.”
I'm glad he didn't ask "why?", because then I'd have to explain how I spent about six months browsing and researching, looking through old discs in my old house for soothing, calm songs, anything that no one would ever have sang to me. How my browser history was filled with questions about whether or not music can prejudice a baby. How I got into calmer rhythms and learned how to sing just so I could chime at night while I stroked the bump on my stomach and dreamed.
And I would never explain all of that.
“Can you sing it?” His voice is low when he asks it. Almost like he doesn’t want me to hear it.
As if. That's the problem with kids like him. I took him in because I thought I we would make a pair —we both had faced darkness in the only ways we knew how and got called out for that. He wanted to be embraced, and I desperately wished to embrace something I could call mine. Then he trusted me, and I didn't know what to do with it.
But the more I see the sorrow in his eyes, the more I wish I had never touched his life.
I am messy. I am sharp. I am the kind of person who has done things that don’t rinse off, the kind of person who can be cruel without even trying, the kind of person who knows the taste of control and how sweet it can be when you’re starving. I know, with a sick clarity, that part of me will want to hold him too tightly. To decide what’s best. To become a leash in the name of love. I’m selfish as to keep him like he’s mine. And he’s naive to cling to me like I’m warmth and not a wildfire.
Yet I want to keep him. And I hate that I can’t help being selfish. And I hate that he can’t help being naive. Sometimes leaving would be kinder. Even dying would be simpler.
I shrug— “Yes,” only enough for him to loosen his shoulders and lean more against my side. My chest unfurls, too, but quieter. I curl my fingers around his shoulder and pull him closer, tucking his head under my chin.
Parchment and ink. Lemon tea, but with honey instead of two sugar cubes. Smells I've grown used to from all the time spent here. And somewhere deep inside I want to believe it heals me a little more every time I nuzzle in, like applying sedatives to an old wound and seeing it disappear.
I’m seeing my past. Not in him—never in him because he’s my present—but in the little things I let pass me by because I was too busy trying to be normal. Now I see that I was being dumb and stupid. And I just want to be the strange, maniac, unsentimental psychopath people labelled me as and still be able to be here and feel this ease.
Just like that, I take a deep breath, and the words slowly come out of my mouth in slow, measured murmurs.
“Days seems sometimes as if they’ll never end
Sun digs its heels to taunt you,
But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same,
Rises the moon.”
Damn, that sounds more depressing than I remembered it to be. Since when had I know such a melancholic song? Had I truly sung it to my baby?
“Keep going,” he urges in a whisper, nudging me lightly, but his eyes are already closed. “It’s nice.”
He makes it sound so simple.
“Days fade into a watercolour blur
Memories swim and haunt you,
But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke
Rises the moon.”
“Ooh, close your weary eyes.
I promise you that soon the autumn comes
To darken fading summer skies.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.”
Okay. Maybe it’s not that bad, just a little melancholic.
Maybe it’s just me and my pessimistic ass trying to make problems out of things that should be inoffensive. Typical of me. Tragic.
Vil’s right, after all. I have no sense of self-preservation. I’d probably be downing in another cigarette if my box wasn’t gone already. Or if a child wasn’t sleeping on my shoulder right now, leaning further and further that I had to put my hand on his head lest it fell.
And I hate myself so much that if I hadn’t a man with a crow mask making me want to prove myself, I would have probably already taken my own life to escape whatever fever dream this is.
Now I’m attached—with strings, and spells, and feelings—when I promised to myself I would never make this mistake again.
Surprisingly, though, as much as I wanted to: I don’t regret it. That has to be the worst.
I kiss Riddle’s head one last time as the flames of the hearth dies, letting my lips stay pressed there until the final spark it’s gone before finally pulling back and smoothing over the tiny whirl I made.
Hope he’s proud of me as much as I am of him.
“Sleep tight,” I utter to deaf ears, “little one.” And I proceed to stay awake for a few more hours.
My bad habits are of use for one good thing, at last.