TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SIX

Sudden loss of control...

The spinning of the wheel...

The collision...

The opaque silence that followed...

A shattering scream came from somewhere in the house around me and it nearly knocked me out cold. The shrilling sound deafened my ears and my hands jumped on their own accord as they covered my head.

"Ori, what the fuck?" Another voice cut through the screaming and managed to quickly grab my attention.

My eyes, suddenly filled with tears blinked up as my mouth dropped open. I felt the scorching need to drink something, to extinguish the fire that burned from inside. My fingers were trembling as I roughly pushed my hair out my face.

I could then finally see Link standing by the door, his eyes open wide and staring straight at me as though I lost it. And then slowly everything fell in place and I realised I was the one who screamed.

"Did I-" I started to say, my voice coming out scratchy. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I'm sorry I woke you up." I said earnestly.

Link shrugged, still standing out by the hallway with his hand on the doorknob. "I wasn't sleeping anyway."

I frowned at him. "Why not?"

He answered with a simple shrug.

I let out a sigh and ran my hands over my eyes. My fingers were still trembling, a cold rush floating over every fibre of my body.

I felt the side of the bed dip as it complemented the new weight. Link's arm awkwardly rested on my shoulder, and surely, I felt the unsure pull. I caved into the strength he had, dropping my heavy head just shy of the curve of his neck.

He was warm, extremely so. I couldn't help but latch onto him, my legs curling into his side in hope of getting all his heat. I felt his feet shift and then he slowly bridged the small gap between us.

"It was just a bad dream Ori," he whispered low in the dark. I nodded my head, too afraid of what my voice would sound like.

"I'm fine now," I managed to say, my voice scratchy and high after it endured a whole marathon of screaming.

"Then why are you still shaking?" He asked softly.

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. For the life of me, I tried to recall what I saw in my dream, tried to see why it made me jump and scream the house down. I couldn't see anything though as everything behind my eye was pitch black and nothing popped up in my mind.

Yet I was still shaking.

"I'm just really scared," I answered truthfully. In the back of my head, I prayed he wouldn't ask the reason for my fear since I wouldn't have any answer to it.

After a long pause, assuming Link had enough time to muse over my words, he said something. "If I stay here would you be able to sleep?"

The unfamiliar kindness and sincerity that was coming out of Link that very night would have thrown me off balance if I wasn't sitting down.

"Would you mind?"

It was going against everything I worked hard for. All these past few weeks I've been trying to show Link no sign of weakness, no sign of any petty individual that couldn't take a few hits here and there. To have a mere dream cause a rush of quivers over me, render me speechless and lead to admitting that I was scared, was a massive kick to the face. For Link, it could have been a triumph moment.

But the kindness and sincerity was still present and he did nothing to take advantage of this moment.

"No," he replied back with, reaching behind me for the duvet cover. He threw it over both of us, more me than him so I was fully engulfed by the cover. "Not in the slightest."

****

I was a nervous wreck the following morning.

My face was already heated up before I got to the kitchen. My palms were sweaty and I kept wiping them on my jeans but it was to no avail. I kept breathing in and out, trying to find a clear pattern so my breathing did not sound laboured.

"Oh who cares if you slept in the same bed," I muttered to myself. "You were both fully clothed."

Maybe that was the problem. The fact that we were both fully clothed and the possibility that it could have been the total opposite. We pretty much made it into bed together and had sex minus the sex.

"We both slept." I said through gritted teeth. I had to tell my own stupid head that sleeping in one bed together did not always lead to sex and the fact that I even thought of it should be beyond weird and borderline diabolical.

"But I woke up with my head on his chest and my arm-" I cut my rambling short as my mind conjured up an image of what I woke up to.

The early morning started off with my head on a warm platform. It was hard yet the most comfortable thing and I couldn't help but snuggle into it more.

My eyes were still firmly shut as my legs moved and slid up against my own heater. They were so satisfied with the touch that one leg threw itself over, hugging it more closer.

A soft smile etched onto my mouth and a content sigh escaped out my mouth.

"Ori we have to get up."

My eyes shut open.

I shook my head rigorously, trying to stop it from going back to that moment and reliving it again. It already took every ounce of courage in my body to go face him this morning that I couldn't allow anything to damper it.

Slowly walking into the kitchen, I made sure to keep my eyes plastered on the coffee machine. As I got closer, I saw my own mug was filled with fresh, hot coffee so my wish of avoiding the person sitting on the table flushed down the drain.

"Link just poured you a cup because he heard you come down the stairs," Palmer let me know with her sweet voice.

I turned out and shot her a small smile, all the while, trying to avoid making any kind of eye contact with Link.

"Thank you," I said quickly, the gratitude aimed towards the tattooed guy who sat in front of me. I dropped beside Palmer, and turned my whole upper body so I had her just in my vision.

"How's your morning going?" I asked her casually, pulling the steaming cup in my hand close to my mouth. The strong scent of coffee wafted up to my nose and I stupidly wondered whether Link knew how I took my coffee as I took a sip.

I couldn't even bring myself to appreciate that fact that the coffee was perfect as it drowned my insides.

"Very good," Palmer smiled, taking a sip from her own cup. A quick glance into the mug before, I was aware that she was just drinking water. "You just came into the kitchen in time since I was about to leave for the bakery."

"Now?" I frowned, looking above her head to the clock. It wasn't time yet and Nolan wasn't here yet either. He was the one who usually dropped us off in the morning even though it was a five minute walk.

"Yes." She nodded, her silvery strands of hair hugging her cheeks. She looked better, with a few noticeable improvements here and there. Her face was slowly coming back to its usual shine, the deep hollows that seized her cheeks nearly gone. The dark shadows that circled her eyes were lightening up as the days went by, and her whole body seemed more active, less tiresome.

"At least wait for Nolan to come- I'm sure he's on his way." I told her.

"I'm not going to ask him to take me every morning, Ori dear."

A small smirk came across my face. "You never asked him in the first place."

"Very true," she muttered under her breath. She put her mug down and stood up slowly. I watched her, unsure of her decision to walk. She had to rest for a few months before she could fall back into her normal routine. She was going to hurt herself-

"Ori, stop worrying." Palmer said from above me. I aimed a rueful smile at her, knowing perfectly well that it didn't reach my eyes. "Besides, Link is walking with me."

I officially acknowledged him then, turning my head slightly towards him. He was staring at me hard, the cold look back across his face. Something must have pissed him off this very morning and I knew then that I was staying clear from him.

It would be beneficial for the both of us.

I quickly snapped my head back and shot Palmer another false smile. "I'm going on a breakfast date with Versa. I'll swing by the bakery on my way back?"

Palmer grinned. "Oh, enjoy your date and tell Versa I say hi."

"I will."

I pushed off the chair and quickly scurried out the kitchen without so much as giving Link another glance. He was staring after me as I put on my shoes, grabbed my jacket and high tailed it out the house.

****

"So did you find a place?"

I looked up from my plate at Versa. It had been a while since I was alone with my best friend. She was occupied with her new love interest and it was clear, with the glow shining from her face that she was entirely happy with him.

I was more than grateful for Ryan, more than he could ever know. I finally had someone else, someone more stronger physically to look after the brave, beautiful girl in front of me.

"Not yet," I told her. Versa was the only person who knew I was searching for my own place. She was the person who came with me back home to ask my father for money so I could get one. Surprisingly, he was more than willing to provide for anything I wanted as long as I did the finding and the choosing.

"I don't get why you have to move an hour or so away when there is plenty of places around this area." Versa said in a small voice.

Although she was all for me getting my own place, the idea of being far away from her didn't sit well with her. And I couldn't lie and say I was okay with is as well. But the fact that she had Ryan now made it easier for me to move on.

And that's what I was precisely trying to do.

Versa had Ryan. Palmer had Link. And my parents had themselves.

I was more than an unnecessary figure in their life.

"It's going to be hard coming to see you," Versa said out loud what I planned for all along.

"We'll make it work," I told her again. I've been saying those words over and over again ever since I told her of my plans. "Besides, you'll be so busy with university and then your life that you wouldn't have time for me anyhow." I joked lightly.

But my best friend didn't see the humour in it as she glared at me from across the small table. "I feel like you deliberately want to lose our friendship." She blurted out. I opened my mouth but she carried on speaking, cutting off whatever lie I could make up on the spot. "And I'm just sitting here and letting it happen because we both know very well that there is something you're running from and it's not your life at home."

I closed my mouth. She had to hit the bullseye. Freaking had to.

"I don't want to lose our friendship, trust me." I said. And I didn't want to but there was this stupid idea planted in my head that Versa would be better off without me and every baggage I had hidden. Because soon enough, all those nasty things would come out and every vessel of mine wanted to protect Versa no matter what.

"What are you running away from?" Versa asked me, her eyes planted on my own. She wasn't going to drop this, not today.

"Nothing." I lied. "Nothing but the mess my home life is and I want to have a fresh start some place else, probably get away from my Mother mostly."

"Liar," she muttered back.

I opened my mouth again but her next words cut me deep. "You need to forget what happened to me."

I gasp escaped from my gaping mouth. "How could I?" I breathed out incredulously.

Versa didn't look the slightest bit moved by anything being said between us, as she adapted this new hard façade. "I'm okay and I don't know when or how you'll ever see that. I don't need you protecting me from anything, not even a door being slammed in my face. And you really don't need to protect me from your own bullshit when in fact you're too darn scared to get yourself fucked over."

"Versa how can I ever stop wanting to protect you? You're my best friend and what happened nearly kills me everyday when I could have stopped it."

Versa furiously shook her head. "Just because you didn't pick up your phone because you were sleeping doesn't mean it was your fault or that you could have stopped it." She inhaled deeply. "Let me tell you what I told myself for a long time until recently I realised that there was no way things would have gone differently. Say you picked up the phone. It would have taken you probably ten minutes to get to me and it still would have happened." She gritted the last words through her teeth.

I was shaking all over, my heart close to failing me. I dropped my voice low. "I could have been there to at least catch something you possibly couldn't have. I could have seen those bastards when you couldn't have-"

"I saw who they were for goodness sake."

I physically reared back at those words. My hand flew to my mouth as my stomach twisted and turned into every direction, setting off the squeezing feeling in my lungs.

"No." I gasped into my mouth, refusing to believe one more second of what she was saying.

Versa, still seemed unaffected by everything going on, as if she was to hold on a face in case I couldn't. And it was abundantly clear that I couldn't hold myself together any longer.

"Why didn't you go to the police? Why did you lie?"

She didn't have an answer to it. Her eyes dropped down to her clasped hands on the table, a hollowing silence coated over both of us. The tension and the sorrow was thick in the air as I tried to keep my own tears at bay.

Angry tears or sad tears, they were trying their utmost to get out.

****

I left her a few minutes after the new information surfaced. Close to resembling a zombie, I walked with my hands slumped by my side, my gaze fixated on nothing as my feet dragged my whole limp body down the street.

I found myself in front of the bakery a few minutes after. I swept away the tears that ended up streaming down my cheeks in a silent manner.

"What the fuck?" Someone cursed as soon as I stepped inside.

I looked up and saw Link behind the counter, a burning fire in his eyes as he glared at me. I couldn't, for the life of me, muster enough energy to fight him off. If he planned to bite my head off for an unknown reason I was not going to fight back. At all.

"Why the fuck are you crying?" He said, storming from behind the counter and towards me.

"I am?" I asked dubiously, my hands patting my damp cheeks. I sniffed, just before my fingers pinched the bridge my nose. I tilted my head upwards, hoping to drain back the water in my eyes. The wishful thinking on my part was a joke as I continuously sniffed.

"Cut the bullshit." Link said in low voice.

I dropped my head down, my eyes falling to my feet. They looked oddly pale in the beige ballet flats I purchased long ago and wore just today. "You know when you think you've known one thing for a very long time but then it was all a lie and now you don't know why the lie even had to exist and all the other things that came along with it-"

"Ori, you're rambling and not making sense."

I tipped my head up at him. "I am?" I asked again. He replied with a slow nod.

It was like a snap had gone off inside of me. I heard it in the back of my mind, a tense feeling mounting from the back. I was suddenly really freaking pissed off.

"She knew all along who the fuck did it to her. All along." I gritted through my teeth, my hands clenched by my side.

Link seemed momentarily confused as to who I was talking about. But he was Link. He didn't need long to put two and two together.

I saw his jaw clench as he realised who I was talking about. "She knew?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't she go to the police about it?"

I shrugged. And wondered whether my best friend and I genuinely had a problem with going to the police about something serious. I shook the thought away, because I made up my mind long ago that I was never going to the police.

A serious of trembles shook over my body, and I tried to keep some equilibrium in me. "She doesn't want any help from me."

"Maybe it's for the best?"

I glared at him. "She's my best friend."

"And she is also human and also the victim. Maybe she doesn't want to say anything because she wants to forget it ever happened?"

My mouth tightened in a small frown.

I hated this. Every good inch of it. That much was clear even when everything else seemed muddled up.

"Why didn't you look at me this morning?" Link asked out the blue, completely catching me off guard so he ended up seeing the exact expression on my face, before I could have hid it.

"I did." I lied stupidly.

"And it didn't last a second," he said back.

I rolled my lips back into my mouth, hoping that I was anywhere but here with Link right now.

"You thought of how we woke up this morning?"

My heart sped up inside of me and I could feel my cheeks turning a bright crimson shade. That reaction enough was an answer for Link.

"Right," he drawled out. "You had a nightmare and asked me to stay. Nothing more than that."

I turned my head away from him, wanting to avoid his eyes. "Exactly."

"Did you like it?"

My gaze snapped back to him. No. The word itself was dangling down my tongue, but for some bizarre reason it just wouldn't come out.

"I'll take that as a yes."