His Happy Place (Getaway collection) by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Author:Zakiya Dalila Harris [Harris, Zakiya Dalila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2022-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Saturday

The first thing Ama saw when she opened her eyes was the back of Nathan’s torso, long and tan and ten feet away. The first thing she felt was a blinding, pulsing pain in the back of her head.

“Nathan?”

Saying his name required more effort than it should have. In fact, if Nathan hadn’t wheeled around to wave at her from the kitchen, she might not have known she’d spoken at all.

“Ama! Perfect. Breakfast is just about ready,” he said excitedly. Something on the stove behind him popped and sizzled. The sound turned her stomach, although she didn’t know why. Bacon was her favorite.

Ama slowly turned her head to the right and saw the record player beneath the window. When she looked left, she got a face full of leather cushion. This wasn’t the bedroom. But how . . . ?

“I found you out in the kitchen this morning,” Nathan explained, as though reading Ama’s mind, “so I moved you to the couch. You were out cold. I was starting to get worried.”

“I was . . . in the kitchen?” Ama put a hand to her face and closed her eyes. There were faint ridges on her cheeks, like she’d fallen asleep on top of one of her braids. Her head felt like it might split open as she struggled to sit up.

“Yeah. It was pretty weird. How’d that happen?”

Ama looked over at Nathan again. He’d returned to tending to the skillet. She didn’t love the way he’d asked that question. It hadn’t sounded rhetorical. It had sounded pointed. Deliberate.

“I . . . I’m not sure,” Ama said, her headache creeping into migraine territory. It was the truth. She couldn’t recall how she’d ended up on the kitchen floor. She closed her eyes again, trying hard to remember. Behind her eyelids she saw flashes of black, heard Nathan’s loud snores. But so much was missing.

“Did you . . . hear noises last night, or something?” Nathan asked.

Ama’s eyes snapped open. Again, something in Nathan’s question hadn’t sounded quite right. She waited for him to elaborate, but when he didn’t, she said, “Like what?”

Nathan shrugged. “It took me some time to get used to the sounds here. Especially at night. All the city sounds we get back home . . . the quiet here can be almost deafening.”

“Yeah. I really don’t remember last night. I was so out of it . . . but I do remember feeling very hot at one point. Feverish.”

He nodded and looked at her. “Probably all that wine we had. Maybe you went to get some water and then just, I don’t know—passed out?”

That sounds right. The three words were perched right there on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t get them to leave. Because what Nathan had suggested didn’t sound right. Ama didn’t just “pass out.” Not from drinking, at least. She took pride in how aware of herself and her surroundings she always was, even if it sometimes meant being a little paranoid. That was why she’d been so relieved when Nathan locked the cabin up tight the night before.

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