Sinner's Place {h.s}

forty-nine.

Under the circumstances I tried not to get excited about it. It was a nice place, possibly the nicest place I'd ever stayed in. There were old paintings that hung up on the wall that even I found Harry gawking at the next morning. It was a rental after all, I didn't expect us to stay here long. I was just thankful to the boys for booking us an Airbnb on such short notice.

Now, it was morning. Harry had just left sometime ago. He said he was going to visit his mom, which I understood so I didn't pry. I was happy for Harry because he was able to spend time with his mom. On my end, he still had no idea that I may have killed mine in self defense. I tried to block it out of my head for as long as I could, but the memory kept flooding back to me. I even called Zayn, which I was surprised that he picked up the phone.

I promised myself that I would try to be more in my friends life. I was slowly working myself back in, but it was hard. What was I supposed to even talk about? I remember before all of this tragedy, we used to go to this cute diner in downtown Madrid and have lunch after church and talk about life. Hobbies. Interests. Now, I felt like the boy who cried wolf because every time I talked to someone I was shook over the things happening. I guess I had a right to speak about it, but it was even annoying me how often I talked about it.

I missed having a life. Before all of this madness. I wasn't the most interesting person, but I remember at one point I had thought about journaling. Maybe doing some crafts. When you grow up as a church girl, there's so little to your personality. Not when all I did was live and breathe church. I wanted to branch out at some point and gain a hobby. I think it was just a spur of the moment thing, but if things started to slow down in my life, maybe I could look back into doing that.

Waiting around for Harry got boring. I had stayed on the couch all morning wrapped up in a blanket while the TV played in the background. I think it was cartoons, but I couldn't care enough to look up. I was too entranced in my phone. I spent hours texting Gracie and updating her about everything that happened last night. When I finally put my phone down, I realized that this was the first time I had spent alone in a while. It was an odd feeling. Some part of me tried to manifest some sort of paranoia, but when I walked outside onto the porch, I realized we were really out in the middle of nowhere.

If they found us here, then there's nowhere they wouldn't be able to find us.

My feet were padding against the cold porch as I fixed myself on the small bench. I breathed out. A cold puff of air followed. It was only getting colder and colder now. We were near the dead of winter. When I tried to think about how long this was going on, I could only think it to be a few weeks.

It's been almost four months.

It was almost like yesterday that my kids were coming back from fall break and I was antsy to get back into teaching. Seemed like a memory I could just reach out and grab.

I missed having a job.

It wasn't for the money aspect of it all either. I genuinely loved teaching. It was my utmost favorite thing to do. I was shaping the minds of the next generation and if I could make a positive difference in someone's life, then I would see that as an accomplishment. It's all I've ever wanted to do. To just make someone a little bit more happy than they were when they first woke up.

"What're you doing, Angel?"

Harry's voice floated from beside me. I hadn't noticed the sound of the car pulling into the gravel driveway. I was zoned out, staring ahead to the rather large yard we had. I could see myself living in a house like this, I liked how it was hidden by a line of trees all around.

"I was just sitting outside," I hummed with a tight smile as I swung my legs over and placed my feet back onto the cold porch as I padded over to him with my arms open, "How was the visit?"