You Have Us... Always.

Chapter 38- Comfort.

It just felt like he was everywhere. No matter how many times the duvet was brought up to her crinkled eyes.

The feeling of him was everywhere, enough to make her shiver underneath the duvet. 

She needed to check. 

She needed to check behind each door because that would be an easy hiding place for him. 

But whenever she went to even think about checking, an unseeable force squashed her back down into the mattress.

Occasionally, adrenaline would surge through her, enough to make her get up off the bed, allow the cool, prickly air to pinch her skin and open the bathroom door, making sure he wasn't there.

Once the adrenaline fizzled away, she retreated back under the sheets, back to cowering at the feeling of him all around.

It was a vicious cycle.

A cycle that was only interrupted whenever someone slid a small meal into her room for her to eat. The only current comfortable way she liked to eat. 

A cycle that was only interrupted by the occasional chime from Brynn's phone, from Penny or Aubrey asking if she were okay. She always responded yes, thank you and asked the question back.

She didn't feel okay.

And she felt lazy in her bed all the time.

Sitting at the desk to do homework was her only distraction and a stressful one at that. She hadn't attempted her homework since her last attempt at her physics homework, which ended in frustrated, paper-scrunching tears because she couldn't figure out the stupid elastic potential potential of the stupid elastic thingy.

Her entire wardrobe had been reorganised. She didn't know where she had found the time to do that. Or the energy.

The places where her shoes were, was now where her socks were. The places her jumpers hung, was now where her school shirts were hung and the places her pyjamas were folded, were now the places which held, well, her re-folded pyjamas.

It just felt like nothing.

And at the end of the day, once she shuffled her way throughout the entire expanse of her room, she retreated back under the covers, the overwhelming presence of what she could only assume to be Milo overtaking all senses.

Walking to a different spot in the room was frequent. Just to stand there and look around, only to do the exact same in a spot a few metres away as if that was any different.

The window was one of her favourites, but it always reminded her of the one from the library. No window could compare to that one.

And at one point, she found herself hovering over a bath she ran. The steam from the boiling water rising and the crackling of the cloudy bubbles taking over any sound in the silent room.

She turned her head to recheck the door was locked and then re-looked at the steaming bath.

Slowly, a leg was placed into it, the goosebumps on it going down as the heat melted them away. And then she was stood in it.

Lowering down and down further, she felt covered. Warmly covered. 

Her first bath in over four years and she didn't get out until the water got too cold. It took a while to motivate herself into drying off.

But eventually she ended up back in her pyjamas. She found herself back where she started.

And then she ended up pacing over the carpet that was at the end of her bed. Walking from one side, then turning around when her toes grazed the edge of it, repeating this action until she felt a simmering feeling of agitation in her stomach.