Inhale

14.

"I am tired. These people make me feel like I have a hole in the middle of me."

(A/N: This chapter discusses grief and loss. Take your time if you need to.)

The following weeks passed in a nonsensical and nugatory manner. Though the sun set earlier, my days grew longer; I spent more and more time in the late hours of the night cleaning and reading. Once the laundry was done, I moved to stripping my bed of its sheets and remaking it in its entirety. Josiah glanced at me sideways and quite purposefully sat himself, firmly, on his bed.

The hallways seemed quieter and ghostlier than usual. The outbursts of laughter and raucous debates were held at a minimum. Walking up the steps to and from our dorm felt like a violation of peace. My steps echoed too loudly, my heart thumped too aggressively against my ribs and I found myself holding my breath until I could expel it in the safety of our room.

Killian remained elusive, though I recognised his footsteps in our corridor on multiple occasions. If I hadn't been so exhausted I might've let him in. To see what he had to say or how he would respond. Perhaps he had heard about what happened. No, I reminded myself. I would have to tell him what Selene said in the J-Classroom. He wouldn't be worried about me, no. He would be worried about our impromptu obstacle. 

Josiah had began staying in for the evenings which unfortunately meant he had started smoking from the window in our room. When questioned he threw forth inane excuses about it being too cold to spend any amount of time outside.

"I spend hours on the pitch regardless," He quipped one night, an arm and a shoulder hanging out of the open window. "Surely you must want me home?"

I ignored the constricting feeling in my lungs. Guilt visited me bidiurnally. The reality was that my anxious episode had caused some alarm amongst my friends. I had overheard Ellie instructing him in hushed and forceful whispers when he came to collect me from the J-classroom. Collect, like an incompetent child. I chided myself. It is nice to be cared about, after all, even when the lines between care and pity are terribly blurred.

Despite this guilt, there was a cruel relishing of his presence. Since he could no longer go out at night, he pushed himself back into lessons to socialise then. I saw more of him during school hours, and more of him back in the dorm too. It's good for him to be at school, I reminded myself when I felt guilty, better school than smoke-breaks. That was the logic of it, anyway. I can't tell you for certain if this is where the relief came from.

As a result of my state, Josiah spent his evenings doing homework. I know what you're thinking, this completely contradicts everything I have said thus far. Some nights he worked on little ink drawings in his sketchbook. Others, the scrape of graphite against paper filled the silence like a misty downpour. He still wouldn't let me see. I knew better by then than to press him. If he wanted to show the work then he would. Creating things was a miserable little cycle that never seemed to appease the creator. He drew, I wrote, and we both hated it all.

Some nights I went to bed at foolish hours of the night, only to wake and find myself still in my bed in the middle of the day. Food was left on the coffee table, the curtains still drawn, along with messy scrawls on random scrap paper that read: 'At practice - back soon!' or 'Your homework is in the second drawer."

Naturally, this mortified me. My attendance was sure to drop miserably. But my body began to thrum in a way that it hadn't in years; I was sleeping more than four hours a night. I hated it. I hated that taking a break was the right thing to do, I hated myself for needing a break. I hated Josiah for caring so much, I hated Ellie for criticising him for not caring enough. Selene followed suit in this list and I batted her away. I don't know why. Please don't ask me. I suppose I wouldn't know if you had. Did the tree fall if no-one heard it, and all that.