Page 11

The bright sun shone in through the window. Wait, window? My dorm didn’t have a window near my bed!

My eyes flew open as I sat up but immediately regretted the action. My body screamed at me and I mentally cursed myself as I groaned. I heard some movement coming from the other side of the door.

I tried to remember who helped me last night, but I couldn’t think of the name.

“He-hello?” I asked as my voice cracked. The door creaked and in came a person that I had met yesterday at some point, but I still couldn’t remember his name.

“How are you feeling?” He asked as he brought in a plate of eggs and some toast. I tried to reach out and grab the plate, but my hand only went about four inches off of the bed.

“I guess…fine” I said shrugging and looking away. Something about his stare really unnerved me.

“Look at me.” He said sternly as he sat on the side of the bed beside me. I turned to look at him when a fork of eggs almost hit me in the face. He looked at me expectantly and I gave in after a few seconds.

“Th-those are r-really good.” I said. My childhood stutter was coming back and I was not looking forward to trying to get over it again. I worked really hard during my mid-teens to get rid of it so that kids would stop picking on me for it.

“I don’t remember you stuttering before.” He said with a gleam of worry in his eyes.

“Th-that’s be-because I didn’t be-before.” I said looking at my lap. Then his name flew into my head. DAMON! Yeah that was his name!

“If you want to talk about what happened yesterday you can.” He said in a soft tone. I didn’t think Damon had this much of a soft side. He had the hole bad-boy-who-doesn’t-give-a-fuck vibe going on.

“N-not r-right now” I said and looked out of the window. It was to soon to talk about. I still didn’t even want to relive that.

A lone tear fell down my face and I quickly wiped it away, but more replaced it. I sniffled really loud and wiped my nose on my long sleeve shirt.

“Are you okay?” Damon asked leaning around me.

I nodded but my voice betrayed me as I sobbed “No!” I wailed and cried even harder. Damon wrapped his arms around me and it only encouraged the awful onslaught of raw emotions to keep flowing.

“Shhh, it’ll be okay.” Damon said as he rubbed my back. I hugged him even tighter and shoved my head into his chest.

After who knows how long I finally calmed down enough to remember I had class. “Shit!” I let the profanity roll right out of my mouth.

“What’s the matter?” Damon asked as he rushed into the room again.

He had left a few minutes after I calmed down to get some tea to help my muscles relax.

“N-nothing it’s j-just I have cl-class today. W-wait what day is it a-again?” I asked as a sudden panic filled my being. What if I was out for more than a day and I missed several classes. What if I missed a surprise test that was worth 50% of our grade and I couldn’t make it up?!