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Sometimes late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
She's lost in peaceful dreams

The first time he had watched her sleep was on their wedding night. Abbey had been just twenty and probably the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her hair fell in a curtain to the middle of her back. And her skin had been pale, lit only by the moon. That night she had sighed contentedly as she slept, remembering their small but intimate wedding and he hoped the moment of love they had shared.

Now she thrashed in her sleep more often than not. His burdens were her burdens and she no longer had peaceful dreams. Except tonight she almost looked heavenly, trapped in the light of the window.

***************************************
So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark
And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake up in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel
About her in my heart
**************************************

He had loved her practically the first moment he saw her. Jed had been stretched out under an oak tree, reading a theology text and ignoring the soccer game going on around him. The ball had barely missed his head and he had glanced up to glare and there she had been. A vision in red, surrounded by friends and guys, always so many guys. His heart had skipped a beat and when she had lifted her hand to her eyes to avoid the sun and she had looked directly at him.

It had taken him two weeks of watching her from afar before he plucked up the courage to ask her out. And then he had been too late. She was dating someone more outgoing, better looking and more financially astute. So he had continued to watch, to love her. Finally one day she had approached him and asked him out.

From then on he was hers, there never was, nor he believed would there ever be, another woman for him.

They had married less than a year later and he had told her every day he loved her.

Now he tended to forget, to believe that she would always be there.

*******************************
If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one
*******************************

He knows that one day he will die. That she will be left behind. That, is what he fears she dreams about, losing him. He is hot headed and determined, but always her jackass. Making love has always been his way of showing her how much he loves her, but now with things the way they are, he fails to manage even that.

*************************************************

And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes

**********************************************

He knows maybe he doesn’t show Abbey how much he cares. That sometimes, more often than not, he puts his job before her. That is just his way, but it doesn’t mean she isn’t everything to him.

Their daughters are a testimony to his love. Three beautiful, intelligent women in their own right, who he loves. Making love with Abbey has always been special, passionate and fiery and conceiving their children made it all the more special. Their inability to conceive the son they so desperate coveted never diminished the depth of his feelings for her.

Once upon a time he would bring her flowers every day, now he only brings crises and complications.

*************************************
'Cause I've lost loved ones in my life
Who never knew how much I loved them
Now I live with the regret
That my true feelings for them never were revealed

**************************************

It scares him to think that he might outlive this woman he promised to love forever.

His mother died when he was twelve and he never got the chance to say goodbye. His father had thought it best he went to school, remembered his mother as she was in life. Now he can barely remember the image of the woman that gave him life and that is another thing he will always hold against his father.

Then he lost Delores, his sister, his friend. Once more someone was taken from him quickly and with little warning. He hopes she knew how important she was to him, how much her constant presence in his life made him feel safe. How her absence left him lost.

Jed knows how lucky he is to have had three women in his life that he loved and loved him back unconditionally.

*****************************************

So I made a promise to myself
To say each day how much she means to me
And avoid that circumstance
Where there's no second chance to tell her how I feel

****************************************

Gently he reaches over and kisses her on top the head, his fingers tracing her cheek bone.

Abbey stirs in her sleep and rolls over to face him, her body pressing against him.

Without a second thought an arm drapes across her waist holding her tighter, whilst the other tangles in her hair. He grins as he watches her smile in her sleep, her breathing becoming shallower as she leaves her dreams far behind and relaxes in his embrace.

“I love you, Abigail,” he whispers, shifting down the bed until his face is barely inches from hers. This is how he wants to wake up. Her face is the thing he wants to see in that stage between sleep and consciousness. And if tomorrow never comes it is the image he will carry with him always.

The End

*****************************************
So tell that someone that you love
Just what you're thinking of
If tomorrow never comes

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