Carrying The Weight Of The World [on hold]

04 - Looming Doom

A/N: Sorry for mistakes, I didn't get the time to check before uploading. I will come back and edit this chapter as soon as possible though :)

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LOOMING DOOM

Shortly after midnight, Declan and I decided to call it a night. While I went to lock the back door and grabbed a water bottle to take upstairs with me, my brother took care of the living room and the front door.

“Look what I found,” he startled me, appearing behind me out of nowhere. With my hand over my heart, I turned around to see Declan holding a stuffed animal in his hands. “I bet Matt misses it already. Nick said it is one of the only things that will calm Matt enough to fall asleep.”

“Then he’s in for a long night.” I replied compassionately, shaking my head a little at the thought of having to look after a child that refused to sleep. Been there, done that, and it wasn’t exactly something I wished upon anyone else.

“Do you think you can drop it off tomorrow? I have work and already made plans afterwards as well.”

That does not sound like a good idea, I thought to myself. Out loud, I said something entirely different. “Sure, no problem.”

A note was taped over the doorbell, asking to knock because the bell didn’t work. So, that was exactly what I did. After three quick thuds, I waited. As I heard no movement inside the house, I raised my hand to knock again but the door opened before my knuckles met the wooden door.

Groggily, as if I just woke him up, Nick appeared before me.Despite the fact that he looked exhausted with his messy hair and small eyes, he smiled at me anyway. I noticed his black shirt was all wrinkled up and the jeans he wore had a hole in the left knee – he looked even more handsome than I anticipated.

“Uhm, hi…” I quickly lowered my hand that was still stuck mid-air. I opened my handbag and retrieved Matt’s teddy. “Sorry to disturb you and showing up like this, but you forgot this at our house yesterday. Declan said Matt was rather keen of his blue teddy and because Declan had to work, he asked me to drop it off. So yes, here I am.” I smiled awkwardly after I finished my rambling. Just to have something to do, I held out the teddy to Nick.

“Thanks,” Nick took the teddy from me. “As grateful as I am, you shouldn’t have come all the way though. Did someone drop you off or –“

“I came with the bus. Don’t worry about it though, I was on the verge of losing my mind at home. There really isn’t much for me to do to pass the time between now and when I get the results of my exams.” Half an hour had been all it took for the nice weather to do a one-eighty. When I left at home, the sun had been out and the temperature was nice. Now, however, the sun had disappeared completely and a nasty, chilly wind had come up. I wiped some curls out of my face and crossed my arms to get a bit warmer. Nick noticed.

“I’m sorry. My mind’s still not fully functioning. Come on in. You don’t have to stay outside.” He opened the door all the way and stepped aside.

“Thanks,” I smiled when stepping inside. As I passed him, my arm brushed his chest and I shivered again, but not quite from the cold. He seemed to think so, though.

“Go ahead, it’s warmer inside.”

Leaving the small hallway behind me, I entered the living room and thought this room to be rather small, but cozy – at least, when overlooking the clothes and toys that covered every piece of furniture and most of the floor. Several pictures of Nick and Matt decorated the wall on my rightand next to the television, hungfour paintings that seemed to belong together, each a part of something bigger, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Nonetheless, they didn’t look bad. Before I could try to figure out what they referred to, Nick spoke from right behind me.