“The Space Between”, originally published at cafelitmagazine.com (Jan 17,2025) is featured on Short Edition’s The Current.
Nikki Blakely lives near San Francisco, CA. You can read more of her work at www.nikkiblakely.com
Georgia lies in bed, eyes closed, curled into a ball, listening to the soft tick-tick-tick from the clock in the living room as it counts down the minutes until morning. The minutes tick into hours, and the hours creep past midnight, past one, past three, and still, sleep does not come.
The bed is too big, too empty, the nook behind her knees, too cold. Even though she's rolled up an extra blanket and tucked it into the empty space—a placebo is what she'd have called it back in her nursing days—it doesn't help.
It's only been three days, she tells herself. You'll get used to it.
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