The Guardian (Final Version)

10th chapter: To trust another

Mia's PoV

I woke up feeling my head light, my throat sore and my muscles ached just as if I had run a marathon the day before – at least that's what I thought someone would feel like. During the night some of my scars on my back had opened and the t-shirt of my pajama was dirty with small stains of blood, fortunately, or rather miraculously, the sheets from my bed weren't stained at all which allowed me to put off until next week the dreadful task of exchanging them for a clean set of sheets.

Lazily I got up and took off the t-shirt shoving it in the laundry basket in one of the corners of my room, covering myself with a yellow bathrobe I exited the room and proceeded to the bathroom two doors away from mine. In the morning the floor was always cold and normally I would just hurry up not to touch it too much instead of just buying some slippers to wear at home, however today I allowed the cold to actually penetrate me from the contact of my bare feet on the floor as it cooled off my rather warm body.

Fifteen minutes later I left the bathroom wrapped, once again, in my yellow bathrobe and hurried back to my room. Even after being awake by my morning bath my head still felt light and I had to sit down a couple of times in order to stop seeing everything spinning around like I was in a merry-go-round; dressing up ended up being more difficult than normal since it was as if my energy had been drained out of my body and I felt way too lazy to move my arms and legs, but five minutes later I managed to put on my uniform, which normally takes me less than three.

Leaving my room for the second time I started getting down the stairs, however when I reached the bottom I felt so dizzy that I slipped on the last step and hit the floor with my face.

"M-Mia! What happened?" mother rushed to my side once she heard the loud thump.

"The floor looked lonely so I decided to hug him." I got up sitting on the last step whilst rubbing my face as mother let out a sigh and squatted in front of me.

"Your face is red." she exclaimed observing me better and I nodded, after all I had just hit with it on the floor.

Taking my hand from my face, to allow her to look at it better, she placed her own hand on my forehead and her face twisted with worry.

"Mia, you're burning up!" mother's voice resonated in my ears. "You can't go out like this, you have to stay in." exclaiming she got up and disappeared inside the living room reappearing a few seconds later with the phone on her hand as she started dialing. "I'll call your school telling them you won't be attending today so go back to bed."

I looked up at my mother and opened my mouth to talk back and say I wasn't that bad and that I could go to school but she cut me off even before I could utter a single word.

"What are you waiting for? I'm not letting you out of this house!"

This time I nodded resigning myself to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to have my way and got up starting to go up towards my room. Once I passed through the door of my room I took off my uniform's coat, untied my tie, took off my shoes and crawled onto the bed laying down as I closed my eyes read to board the dream train, however mother entered the room making me stay awake for some minutes more; she had a thermometer in her right hand and a glass of water on the other hand along with some pills to help the fever go down. She placed the water and the medication on my bedside table and handed me the thermometer.

"Here, let's check your temperature." she announced and I placed the thermometer under my armpit waiting for it to ring. "I'm going to call the office warning them I'll be taking the day off so you can rest."

"You can go. I'll be just fine." I admitted with a smiled as I looked at my mother who had worry stamped on her face.

As she stared down at me, the thermometer's alarm went off so she made a gesture with her hand ordering me to give her the thermometer. I obeyed and as soon as she saw the temperature marked in the little visor her expression soften.