I was in a bad mood. It was based off of several things. Being here with people I wasn’t entirely comfortable with, feeling like someone had been watching me, making my skin crawl, Hurting Dash’s feelings. And, lastly, but certainly the most important, exposing part of my history to Dash in hopes of making him feel better. I shook my head angrily. First Tyson, now Dash. Who was next, Julian?
I did not think so.
I stomped up the stairs, shaking off his hand and made it to the landing before he did.
There were three doors, all of them closed.
He gestured to the left and I moved to the closed door he’d directed me to.
His hand curled around the doorknob and he paused. His lips curled up in a boyish smile, a smile that said he had a secret and it was a good one.
“Something for you to remember,” he said. “Tyson never forgets anything. Not one single little thing.”
Julian turned the knob and pushed the door open. He stepped into the room with me coming in directly behind him. What he’d said about Tyson didn’t really register until after I had stepped into the spacious room.
It was a spacious room for a normal sized house. Which meant that it was half the size of my bedroom at Mr. Cole’s house. The perfect size for a bedroom because the room I had at Mr. Cole’s house was way too big for me, I would never be able to fill it with stuff and the space was wasted on me.
The floors were a gleaming dark wood and looked recently polished.
The walls were a sweet, sunny, canary yellow that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Now I got it about what Julian had said about Tyson. Canary yellow was my favorite color and I had only told Tyson, it had been on the second day of school.
There was one window facing the front of the house and the driveway. The window was framed by black, gauzy, see through curtains.
I stood in the middle of the room, moving in a slow circle, taking everything in.
The bed looked to be Queen size and the metal frame was painted a light, girly purple. The comforter was black and covered with yellow, open bloomed roses. Not all that different than the comforter I had on my bed at Mr. Cole’s house. Tyson really had been paying attention. I wanted to know what color the sheets were. There was a pile of black and purple pillows at the head of the bed. One of the black ones even had
silver sparkly sequins on it. Sparkly wasn’t really my thing but I appreciated the attempt towards girly that they had made for my benefit.
A wicker love seat sat alongside the wall beside the window. There was a white padded cushion on the seat and the love seat was loaded down with more black, decorative pillows. At least there were no sequins or sparkles this time. It didn’t make up for there not being a window seat and if I stuck around I would probably trade out the pillows for my own girly ones.
A thick, black, hand woven circular rug lay on the floor in front of the love seat. Everything had looked brand new until I got to the rug. I didn’t much care for the thought of them spending money on me. I had a bed and a dresser at Mr. Cole’s that were more than perfectly suitable for me and they could have easily been moved here. Now what would be done with them? Perhaps they could move it to Quinton’s house so Mr. Cole wouldn’t have to do anything with it.
There was another matching rug laid on the floor beside the bed.
A tall dresser was against the wall opposite the bed. A black framed oval mirror hung on the wall above the dresser.
My eyes skirted through my reflection in the mirror and I took in the rest of the things decorating the walls. A black and white Bad Religion concert poster had been framed and hung on the wall. It made me smile. I had never hung up posters of the things I liked up on my walls before. A framed Boondock Saints movie poster hung up on different wall. Norman Reedus stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sean Patrick Flanery and they looked brutal but delicious standing together.
A tall, black bookshelf was pressed up against the wall behind the open bedroom door. A few steps closer showed me that half the bookshelf was empty, and the other half was filled with books about magic, the history of witchcraft, rituals, candles, spells, you name it. Some of the books looked old and worn and I wondered where they had come from.
Julian remained silent as he stood back, silently watching me take everything in. I appreciated him standing back, giving me space. If it had been Quinton or my Salt and Pepper twins they would have been in my space and drilling me with questions and the twins wouldn’t have been able to remain quiet. Tyson would have probably been able to give me silence, but he wouldn’t have given me space, I knew that much.
Julian was a different, rarer breed of male. One I liked a whole lot at the moment.
I would investigate the books on magic and whatnot at a later time, when I was alone and had the time to thoroughly examine them, when I could give them the time they rightfully deserved.
I looked away from the bookshelf to give the room another onceover and gasped in shock when I made it back to the bed. My lips parted, and my wide eyes were unsurprisingly wet.
Oh my god.
They didn’t.
They couldn’t have.
Why would they?
I blinked rapidly as I curled my fingers inwards, balling my hands into fists. My fingernails bit into my sweaty palms, likely leaving the indents of half-moons into my skin. The sharp bite of pain always served well to chase away my tears. I had scars more than on the area around my collarbones. My palms were covered in scars. At least these ones I had inflicted upon myself. The scars were well worth it. Unshed tears had sometimes been what stood between me and a whole world of physical pain. A safety mechanism I no longer needed. I should probably look into a healthier way to deal with my emotions and to stop my tears. I didn’t see it happening in this lifetime. Maybe in the next one, I wasn’t really all too interested in breaking old habits in this lifetime.