"I love you."
"I love you, too."
"I've got to get going. Don't wait up."
That was our little joke now. Of course, being a creature of the night, all I could do lately was wait up.
He hung up the phone.
It was evening.
I was pacing inside the foyer of my house. The muscles along my neck were tense and stiff. Outside, through the partly open curtain, I could see the upper curve of the setting sun.
I continued to pace. Breathing was always difficult at this time of day. I was making a conscious effort to inhale and exhale, to fill my lungs as completely as I could.
In and out.
Slowly.
Keep calm, Samantha Moon. You'll be all right.
Nevertheless, a sense of panic threatened to overcome me. The source of the panic was the sun. Or, rather, the presence of the sun. Because I did not, and could not, feel fully alive until that son-of-a-bitch disappeared behind the horizon.
I checked the curtain again. The sun was still burning away in all its glory.
Crap! Had the earth stopped in mid-orbit? Was I doomed to feel half-alive for the rest of my life?
Panic. Pure unabated panic.
I breathed.