WIP Wednesdays -Hyde; the return of the bad side! (Patreon)

Hullo everyone! It took me literally hours to read and reread and decide what to post for this week's WIP Wednesday! I debated between 3 WIPs but settled on this one since you've not 'seen' it before!

This is from a project I titled Hyde since it's a modern retelling of the Jekyll & Hyde story except my duo are gender-flipped! For now I've named the main protagonist 'Claire' but that might change... The following excerpt is basically the beginning of the novel -you'll see I indicated where a new chapter starts. The start of the excerpt is the end of what is right now "Chapter One". I will return to this WIP eventually but for now its last major update was made between 2013-2014 so it's a bit of an older piece of writing... Still, I hope you enjoy! Please note I've also kept in notes on needing to insert dates, for example. So you can see this piece truly is a WIP :D

But the years passed and everything remained normal. I almost wondered if everything before had been a bad dream. I forgot I even had a secret.

I was living happily with my husband of a year and a half. Things were…perfect; normal.

We went to bed.

And then –

CHAPTER 2:

She opened her eyes slowly. It was pitch dark at first and it took a moment to get her bearings. She was laying on her side –hands pressed against the pillow. In the little light given off by the digital alarm clock she caught a glimmer of metal. A wedding ring? Hmm. She turned her head to get a look at the one whose arm was lying across her waist. Yup: a handsome husband. Make that a fucking sexy fine man. This was going to be fun.

She woke him with a mischievous look on her features. She was truly going to enjoy this.

“Hey,” he murmured softly, seeing her sitting up on her elbows.

She kissed him hard on the mouth and when he finally responded back she pulled herself on top of him. She’d make sure he didn’t forget tonight.

It was good to be awake again.

CHAPTER 3:

I woke up slowly to my dark room. It seemed quieter than normal. 

I rolled over to find my husband wasn’t there. Bathroom I thought but then noticed as I rolled back that our door was closed.

“Jaxson?” I called out. No answer. Hmm. 

I decided to wait it out a few more minutes. He had to be in the bathroom. I doubt he was snuck out to play video games like he sometimes did. I would’ve heard the TV by now.

Now lying on my back, I wanted to fall back asleep –but not without Jac. Besides, his arm around me always reminded me someone was there for me. I was not alone. Not with him.

I stretched and turned on the lamp beside me. I exhaled a soft sigh and noticed the time. 12:48. That’s impossible. I’d taken a bathroom break myself at 1:11. I remembered that because I’d made a wish on the identical numbers of the time. A little superstition of mine.

I rolled over to Jaxson’s side of the bed and grabbed his watch –which told the date as well as the time. Insert date here. That was impossible too. Wasn’t it? I had to think for a second. The day that had just passed was Insert date here. If it was 12:48 of that evening after I’d fallen asleep that would mean that the watch would technically read one day later. But it read two days later.

Am I dreaming? I thought in confusion. How could I lose a whole 24 hours –or almost that?

Rolling back to my side, I touched the light bulb of my lamp. It was getting hot. I don’t recall you can feel things like that in a dream but then again I’m too tired to know what’s what. Right?

A foreboding sense of dread had begun to overtake me. If this was a dream, it was starting to turn towards becoming a nightmare sort.

I lay on my back again and ran my hands over my face. Okay I’m going to just take a second here and at any moment Jaxson will come through that door and we’ll laugh about this. Or I’m going to wake up in a second because he’ll turn over in bed and this time I won’t have to scold him for it.

After watching the bedside clock pass another minute, I had another thought. What if we had a power outage and it just reset the time and then I read Jaxson’s watch wrong? That had to be it; I was so tired that my brain wasn’t thinking straight. Or, this was just a weird dream. I grabbed for my watch on the bedside table. It had a crack across the glass face. “What the?” I picked it up and noticed my arm in the light was indented with the imprint of a much thinner watch. One that I did not own.

“Jaxson?!” My watch clattered back to the table. “Jaxson?!”

I pulled the covers off and sat up on the edge of the bed. Was I just overreacting?

I stood up in preparation to leave to find Jac.

I took a step and hesitated. What am I doing? I assured myself this was stupid. I should just crawl back into bed. Everything was fine; just fine. I sat back down on the bed and prepared to pull the covers back over my legs.

The only problem was I noticed Jaxson’s side of the bed was neatly made. Or at least –to my eyes– not tossled as though he’d scrambled out of bed to use the bathroom. And that’s when I noticed his pajamas were on his pillow where he always put them. Meaning he hadn’t come to bed yet tonight.

Oh God. What the hell? What the hell is going on here!?

“Jaxson?!” I called, hearing the desperation in my own voice. 

There were a few things on the floor by the dresser; a bag and a cardboard filer for papers, books, etcetera empty on its side. Were those there before? I couldn’t remember. I got off the bed and headed for the door. Oh yes, they were; he hadn’t put them away yet. But where the hell was Jaxson?

I started to feel sick. I’d started to piece things together and it all led to one conclusion; my past was back to haunt me.

I ran through the house calling his name praying to God nothing had happened to him; that I hadn’t hurt him.

“Jaxson!?”

I heard someone stir in the living room and I ran in to find him lying down on the couch.

“Oh hey babe!” he greeted hoarsely, rubbing his hand through his hair. “Sorry I guess I fell asleep on the couch! Didn’t mean to…”

“Oh. Oh, okay yeah that’s fine. I uh… Okay…” I hid my relief feeling as though I could cry. I thought he was gone…Hurt…Dead…

“Hey what’s the matter? You okay?” he asked after a moment.

“Oh… uh just feeling a bit weird.”

“Yeah you’ve been acting a bit weird too…” he put in.

“Yeah? Sorry, I’ve just been… I don’t know what’s gotten into me…” How do you explain this?

“It’s alright,” he assured, coming to stand in front of me and putting his arms around my waist, “It’s kinda exciting though it scared me too… I’ve never seen you so spontaneous. I like it though,” he declared with a grin then planted a kiss hard on my mouth.

“I’ll try to remember that…” I murmured absently. I was wondering what it was I’d done. Judging by his kiss, I think I knew one thing.

“Are you coming to bed?” I asked. He nodded and we went back to our bedroom together.

“When I woke up with you not beside me, it kinda scared me for a moment,” I confessed as we crawled into bed after he’d pulled on his pajamas.

“Why? Scared we couldn’t go at it again like yesterday night?”

“What? No. No it wasn’t that. I thought that… maybe you’d left or… hadn’t come home or…”

“Hadn’t come home? I was here all evening.”

“I just meant like didn’t want to come to bed with me or something, I don’t know…” I felt stupid trying to sound legitimate in my thoughts when I had no idea what had gone on in the last 24 hours.

“Now why wouldn’t I want to come to bed with you after last night? If anything, I should be waiting to go to bed.”

He had his arms around my waist again and was lying almost chest to chest with me. Though I appreciated the affection and eagerness to be close, I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with what this whole conversation was suggesting.

“So, uh…” he began after I hadn’t said anything for a few seconds, “two nights in a row too much do you think? Or have we tired ourselves out a bit since we’re not used to this, um… sort of behaviour?”

“Judging by the fact that you passed out on the couch and I fell asleep before waiting for you to come to bed I think we’d better not…” I covered smoothly.

“You’re right. Well I guess sweet dreams Claire,” he told me with a smile and a long kiss.

“Goodnight,” I replied.

“I’m going to dream of you tonight…” he murmured quietly as I rolled over and he placed his arm over my hip letting his hand lie on my stomach.

I scoffed a laugh and lay quietly as I waited to hear his even breathing as he fell asleep.

What the hell did I do? I thought in a panic. Besides the sex –which I’m now fairly positive there was plenty of the night before—what else happened? I’d missed a whole day; a whole 24 hours. That’d never happened before when I was a teenager.

What the fuck did you do with me? She’d been pretty good with it too; falling asleep in my regular pajamas, placing my watch where I normally kept it, taking out my earrings, keeping the room the exact same way I’d had it. If Jaxson hadn’t been out of bed, I might’ve never caught on until work the next day or even later that something was up. That I’d had an episode; a whole twenty four hours long.

I barely slept that night feeling sick over my revelation. I wasn’t alone anymore. Maybe I never had been.