22
I spend all Saturday in bed.
Sunday comes, and my stomach is eating itself. It churns acid and bile, since I didn’t pack snacks to keep in my nightstand for the semester, and also, I don’t exactly have an appetite.
Still, I force myself out of bed.
My socks drag over the floorboards to the long mirror by the vanity, and the sight should startle me.
I look as rough as I feel.
My eyes are burned raw from the tears, my face is puffy and scarred with the indents of my pillows and hands.
My hair is knotted to the touch, and the sound of the brush stroking through it isn’t unlike Velcro ripping. I tangle it into a plait before I slip on a pair of plimsoles, thermal leggings and a lumpy sweater.
I need to be utterly alone today.
But if I don’t eat soon, I’m going to start sicking up bile.
Obviously, the mess hall the last place I want to go. The heart of the academy.
Where everyone will be shouting and laughing over their trays—as though I didn’t just let my enemy, my tormenter, fuck me into his mattress in the blackout.
A groan rolls through me.
I tilt into the mirror.
My forehead presses against the cold bite of the glass, and I shut my eyes, willing the surge of turmoil back into my shellshock.
At least in that, I can stomach leaving my bed.
The grandfather clock strikes to the twelfth hour. I flinch as the chime reaches my bones.
I managed to fight my hunger until noon.
I hope that’s good enough.
The Snakes might have eaten and gone at breakfast, maybe to the village, off to watch a game if there are any on, or even to study hall.
I need them to be out of the mess hall.
But I’m not so certain.
Ropes of anxiety unfurl through my insides, my worming gut slowing down the steps I take out the dorm room.
Last night, some of the Snakes could have stayed up late, being a Saturday, and so maybe I’m walking right into their late-hour start with a hangover.
My steps are dragging by the time I reach the atrium.
The unwillingness turns my legs to lead, and my hands fist on the long sleeves of my lumpy sweater. The wool creaks under the scrape of my fingernails—but I don’t hear it over the surge of clattering as I enter the mess hall.
It’s busy. Busier than I care for.
I throw a sweeping glance around the faces, some dull with hangovers, others alight and animated, mouths moving, hands flailing—probably still going on about the blackout, the things that happened in it…
A shudder pulses through me.
I drop my stare to the toes of my plimsoles all the way to the buffet.
