LOCKDOWN

Chapter 9

It was 11:23am and I still hadn't gotten out of bed. I was scared to face Peyton after her explosive temper yesterday. After she had yelled at me and stormed up to her room, we hadn't spoken for the rest of the day. I had busied myself by cleaning the house, researching all that I could on ENOV-18, and FaceTiming the girls. When the sun began to set, I made dinner using what I could find in the cupboards. I ended up making some sort of Indian curry with rice and left it at her door just like I had with lunch. I figured today would be no different; I would be the one cooking, cleaning, and making any sort of effort. I kept thinking back to what my mum had said about Peyton being in a strange home away from her family. Could that be why she was acting this way?

By the time it was reaching midday I told myself I had to get up. I crawled out of bed and headed to the bathroom to have a shower, seeing Peyton's towels crumpled on the floor once again. I picked them up and placed them on the rack, then spending a lot longer than I normally would have in the shower. I was actively avoiding Peyton and I wasn't scared to admit it, like I had been scared to admit that I wanted to impress her.

I changed into a comfortable matching lounge set, made up of a fluffy jumper and high waisted shorts. I tied my hair up into a bun and checked my appearance in the mirror. The bruise that I had previously been covering with concealer was a dark purplish blue and I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn't be able to mask it. I didn't bother, instead sighing at my appearance heading back down the hallway. The door to Peyton's room was open and I peeked inside, seeing the bed empty and the covers thrown messily to one side — she was awake. I gingerly made my way downstairs to face my fate for the day, and I couldn't help but smile inwardly at what I was greeted with.

Peyton was outside with Dennis, wrestling playfully with him on the ground. His tail was wagging as they both scrambled for the toy, Peyton beating him to it. She threw it down to the other end of the backyard and laughed as he chased after it clumsily. I didn't want to ruin her good mood with my presence so I crept into the kitchen and made some sandwiches for lunch. I placed them in a container and left them on the kitchen bench, walking quietly back up to my room and closing the door. I had no desire to talk to Peyton today - not after the way she had treated me yesterday.

I could faintly hear through my closed door as Peyton and Dennis came back inside. I heard the scraping of a dining room chair against the floorboards and assumed she was sitting down to eat the lunch I had made. It suddenly hit me how hungry I was, not having actually eaten anything since I woke up. I waited until I heard Peyton's footsteps walk up the stairs and into her room before making my way down to the kitchen, only to find the empty container sitting on the dining room table.

Okay...so I hadn't specified that some of the sandwiches were supposed to be left for me, but I figured she might've been polite enough to assume that was the case. There were four, after all. I sighed, placing the dirty container in the sink and walking back upstairs, planning to confront Peyton about her food intake. Her door was open and I peered inside, expecting to find her lying on the bed or exercising again. What I didn't expect was to see her rifling through a cardboard box full of my dads things. Anger surged through me, and my somewhat calm demeanour vanished completely.

"What do you think you're doing?" I raised my voice.

My presence startled her and she dropped what she was holding back into the box. It landed loudly and I heard the unmistakeable sound of cracking glass. She froze, as did I.

"What makes you think you can go through these things?" I yelled at her, storming over and snatching the box away from her.