Is it a mirror of the girls’ dorms?
Do I just follow the staircase all the way down to the grand parlour, then go from there?
All in the dark, too?
First, what I need, is a pain brew.
Eric must have something in his nightstand. No one has a useless top drawer.
Head pulsing, I shift my legs under the weight of the covers.
The soles of my feet glide over his shins.
His sleep is so deep, he doesn’t disturb.
A slumbering statue behind me.
The hand that holds mine, the fingers entwined with mine, belongs to the arm under my pillow. His other hand must’ve been resting on my waist at some point, because it has slipped to my back, at the small of my spine.
I can move easily enough without waking him.
It’s so not a moment I need to deal with when my head is thumping, thumping, thumping.
I untangle my fingers from his warm ones, and the bite of the cold is quick to nip at my hand.
Gently, I draw away from him, tilting onto my middle before scooting across the mattress.
I move with the lethargy fighting to pin me down—until I halt.
Because my toes poke out from the covers and touch thick fabric.
A dense frown settles on my face.
I wiggle my toes against the material, then reach out my hand for it.
The familiar velvety sensation gives it away.
Drapes.
Bed curtains.
The kind that silences sound and turns a bed into complete darkness, like a little pocket of blackout dust.
I’m not in the blackout anymore.
Eric just pulled the curtains over the bed.
The relief escapes me with a sagged breath.
There will be light to lead my way out of the boys’ dormitories.
I feel along the dense curtains, until my fingers poke through a gap.
I slowly stretch out a leg, then the other, until I’m drawing my body out into the cold.
The bare soles of my feet flatten on the floorboards—and it’s like standing on a sheet of ice.
My teeth bare around the wince that tenses me.
