Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

“How, with everything going on out there,” I went on, “I
feel like I’m wrapped in a blanket in here—warm, dry, and
safe. And all the world living and breathing and raging outside
makes where I am seem like a world within a world. Like a
fountain in a maze.” I paused, musing, “Like a home.”
Everything with him was like home.
“I hear so much more than when I could see,” I said, my
voice turning to a whisper. “I don’t think I’d ever want to not
hear all that now.”
I missed not seeing things and enjoying the world the way
so many others did, but…I also saw the world so much more
differently now. One kind of beauty was replaced with another.
I rested my head to the side and closed my eyes, lulled by
all the little sounds and hoping that tomorrow would be more
of this with no doubt between us.
“I do love you,” I told him again before I drifted off.
Just so he knew.
I woke the next morning in Damon’s bed, naked under the
sheets, everything from last night slowly coming back to me.
The party. The maze. The drive in the car.
The whole lot of extra energy he had in bed throughout the
night when we got home.
I broke out in a smile, blissfully exhausted but more awake
than I’d felt in a long time.
Reaching over, I didn’t feel him in bed, though. Patting his
sheets and pillow, I landed on a piece of paper, it crinkling
under my hand.
He wasn’t dumb enough to leave me a note, was he?
I picked it up, noticing the little pokes in the paper, and I
laid it in my palm, running my fingers over the raised dots and