It's deep into the night when Mina is jolted awake, precisely 2:23 A.M according to the digital metallic gold clock blinking on her nightstand.
The room is blanketed in darkness, the only light that of a stray moon beam streaming in through the open curtains of her window that illuminates a soundly snoring Noah on the floor beside her bed.
Mina shivers at the sight, her hands tightly gripping her bedsheets between her long fingers as she dares to lean over and look at the floor on the opposite side of the bed, but she is relieved to find that Sahil's figure isn't sprawled there too.
Mina determined that he must have gone back to the group home at some point, and she runs a shaky hand over her face, though she quickly yanks it back when she realizes it's covered in a thin layer of sweat.
Her brows furrowed, she throws her covers back, avoiding Noah's slumped figure as she hops to the floor and makes her way to the bathroom across the hall.
Closing the door with a gentle thud before flicking the lights on, Mina is surprised to find not only her hand but the entirety of her neck and face glistening with similarly large beads of sweat.
She's slick with it, her sickness painfully evident.
Her dark brown skin, somehow, looked pale and slightly translucent, her throat oddly dry and desperately scratchy from all the dry-heaving she had been doing, her eyes were scarily and glossy and, worst of all, her entire body ached.
Standing upright was a feat in itself, though she was desperately clinging to the porcelain sink as if her life depended on it.
It did.
Mina wrenched her eyes closed, her head bowed low in front of the mirror as she swallowed down more bile that was slowly clawing its way up her throat, taking care to terrorize her stomach too.
She couldn't suppress another shiver and, just when she thought she couldn't hold it in any longer, the sound of a faint knocking sound coming from the depths of her room distracted her.
Her eyes flew open, her brows furrowed in confusion wondering if she had possibly misheard the sound but the knocking reverberated once more, and it was significantly louder and more aggressive this time.
Mina wasn't sure what to make of it, but she had sense enough to be hesitant as she tiptoed back into her bedroom still cast in darkness and made her way over to the window where she had a sneaking suspicion that the sound had resonated from.
She gazed outside the first floor window, spying nothing but towering trees with bare branches swaying in the wind.
She took a step closer to the window, her nose practically pressing firmly against the glass now, but she quickly stumbled backwards in surprise when a familiar face suddenly appeared on the other side.
Glancing backwards briefly to confirm Noah's still soundly sleeping status, Mina pushed her curtains further apart before gently lifting the lever that kept her window pan tightly shut.
She winced when the action elicited a high pitched squeak, and she shot yet another glance backwards before pushing the window open.
"What the hell are you doing here?" She simultaneously whispered and yelled at the same time.
"I wanted to make sure you were ok." Khalil said, pulling her window open wider so he could slip inside. Mina opened her mouth to protest, but quickly snapped it shut once more when she remembered the sleeping guest on her bedroom floor.
Instead, she tightly grasped Khalil's hand in her own, ignoring the electricity that shot through her veins at the sensation of his skin gently brushing hers, and angrily pulled him towards the bathroom across the hall.
YOU ARE READING
The Memory Of Us
Romance|Sequel to "The Illusion Of Us"| It's only been a month since Khalil ruined Mina Joyce's life and disappeared without a trace and, in his absence, Mina has become a shell of the person she once was. Her dreams and daydreams are both characterized by...
