An Unexpected Girl

chapter twenty-two

Even before opening her eyes, the first thing Iris noticed was how warm she was. It was a comfortable type of warmth. Not too hot, just right.

Iris opened her eyes slowly and quickly realized the source of the warmth. She was lying beside Adi, with her body fused up against hers. She could feel the steady rise and fall of the red-haired girl's chest.

For a moment, Iris' mind was blank as she took it all in. Sure, it felt fine; it felt more than fine, actually. But Iris couldn't understand why she was lying next to Adi in bed, or how she had even ended up there.

Then last night's events suddenly came back to her and Iris startled, shifting abruptly.

"You're finally awake," Adi's voice said, as the red-haired girl readjusted so she was sitting up next to Iris.

Iris imitated her actions, sitting up as well, but her head was spinning slightly. So much of last night was coming back to her right then, and a part of Iris hoped it was all just a dream. Some sort of cursed nightmare.

Yet, Adi's keen eyes studying her made it clear to Iris that this was, in fact, not just some bad dream.

Iris cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Yeah, I'm awake. Have you been up for a while?"

"Yeah," Adi responded, "I usually wake up really early most mornings, so my body clock woke me up by 8."

Iris nodded, looking everywhere but at Adi.

"What time is it?"

"Around 10 am," Adi responded smoothly, "you pretty much went straight to sleep after we got here last night."

Iris nodded once again, feeling extremely awkward and embarrassed. If Adi felt the awkwardness too, she did a good job of not showing it. Iris, on the other hand, felt like she was gonna implode from everything.

Adi reached over to her bedside table and handed Iris a bottle of Gatorade like she had done the night before.

"This will help with the comedown," Adi said.

Iris only nodded thankfully before taking the bottle from Adi, their fingers brushing lightly. Iris slowly started sipping the Gatorade. Adi was right, the comedown was hitting her.

Although Iris was no longer high off her ass or hallucinating like crazy, she still felt pretty out of it. She had a headache that seemed to be gradually growing louder in her head and felt pretty nauseous as well.

Truth be told, Iris was actually extremely grateful for Adi, both then and last night. She was the only one that had actually come to her aid. Yet, ‌Iris was still so damn embarrassed. She wished Adi hadn't seen her like that. Hell, she wouldn't have wanted to see herself like that, either.

Still sipping slowly from the Gatorade, Iris finally took in Adi's room. The walls were covered in posters and artwork from head to toe. There was basically no free space that wasn't filled up already. Yet the walls didn't look too crowded or overwhelming. Adi had positioned the posters in such a way that they fit perfectly.

Tucked away in the room's corner was a large desk with two computer monitors and a couple of video game consoles scattered around. Apparently, Adi was a huge gamer.

Adi sat in silence next to Iris, studying her as she studied and took in her bedroom.

"You like what you see?" Adi asked, her voice light, teasing.

Iris snapped her attention back to the girl in front of her, realizing with embarrassment that she had been watching her the entire time.

"Yeah," Iris said, shrugging slightly in a manner that she hoped made her appear nonchalant. "It's cool."