Best Way Out

11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

—

Waking up in Victor's bed is a spiritual experience.

It's the first time in a long time that Amirah doesn't wake up to the shrill ringing of an alarm.

Alarms in the morning make her sad. They always have, and they always will. She's always thought that it's so utterly fucking lonely to woken up by an alarm every morning. That she sets herself. Of a sound that she hates more than anything. To absolutely no one next to her.

She can't remember the last time her mother woke her up. She can't remember the last time anyone woke her up. She can't remember the last time she woke up to the sound of anything other than her blaring alarm.

Now, as she wakes in Victor's bed, there's no alarm waking her up. That, in itself, is better than most days that she wakes up in her own home.

Victor's bedroom is... not necessarily brimming with personality, and yet, it's still innately him, with its clothes neatly folded up in one corner of the room and sticky notes lining the walls with words scrawled on it in near-perfect script, just laundry lists and grocery lists written on each one, with numbers dating back to last year.

It should be disorienting to wake up in Victor's bedroom, but really, it feels perfectly normal. She doesn't know if that thought comforts her or scares her.

Comforts, she decides.

Right as she begins to crawl out of Victor's bed, the bedroom door swings open.

"Victor!"

"You sound awfully excited for someone who was asleep just moments ago."

Seeing Victor in his own house is a surreal thing.

For starters, his hair is more flat than usual— it's still in its usual waves, but it's a bit more stuck to his head. Less wild. Which leads her to the conclusion that he styles his hair every morning to make it more voluminous.

Oh, Victor. You fake fluffy-haired boy.

"It's—" Her eyes flit to her phone, which Victor apparently plugged in last night. She doesn't remember much of it once the clock struck three, her mind a delirious state of floating in between sanity and the sky. "It's almost twelve, good grief, why didn't you wake me up?"

Victor snorts, he snorts. "Oh, believe me, I tried. You refused to budge."

"Hm," she says with a shrug, foraging through her duffel bag for her toothbrush and her three-step skincare routine that involves a cleanser that was way too expensive, a moisturizer that she got for free at the pharmacy, and a sunscreen that smells of almost entirely nothing. "Sounds like me."

Victor looks more put-together than Amirah could ever hope to look. His t-shirt looks ironed.

"Why are you staring at me?"

Amirah blinks. Oh, I was staring. "Can I help you cook?"

"Cook what? Lunch?"

"Well— yeah," she begins, when really, she wants to say, I would give anything to cook with the people I love. Of course, lunch. I want to cook lunch and dinner and breakfast for people because it's the only way I know how to show my love. "I guess it's time for lunch now."

Victor must notice her blatant desperation to be in the kitchen with him, or maybe he also sees how much love is stored in the kitchen, because he just says, "Okay, sure. But just know that I'm fucking annoying in the kitchen. If you're in my way, I'll tackle you."