Supernatural Boarding School #3 - A Brush of Death ✅

Chapter 1 - Simon

Simon's point of view

Waking up in the mornings is the hardest part, because it always feels like I'm losing her all over again. The first few seconds after opening my eyes, the world still feels the same as it did a month ago. I yawn, stretch myself out and let the bond expand, checking to see if Demona is up yet.

That's when the hard part begins.

Demona isn't awake and I can't even feel her presence anymore. It's like she disappeared. Instead, I find only Eros on the other end of the bond. And he is always awake. Ever since he carried her out of his room, he has been by her side, hardly ever leaving. I worry about him almost as much as I worry about her.

Once I remember that I already know all of this, that Demona has been in a coma for a while now, I get up, dress, brush my teeth and head down for breakfast. The first day back was the hardest. Two weeks ago, I decided I was no longer going to spend all my time in the hospital. It was doing nothing except making me depressed. When I walked into the cafeteria that weird first day back, I didn't even know where to sit for breakfast. Dylan was gone, living in a motel nearby the hospital after the end of his transition and spending almost as time at Demona's side as Eros, who hadn't set in foot in here after driving off after the ambulance.

I ended up sitting with my old roommates. Will and Antwan had a way of making me feel like I belonged, even when the world felt like a strange and hostile place. The sense of normality hadn't lasted long, since everyone kept asking me how she was.

One by one, they asked me the same question. Every day. This morning was no different.

"How is she?"

I looked up to see Eve looking down on me with a worried expression on her face. I sighed and prodded my breakfast cereal with a spoon. Eve meant well, but she was the fifteenth person to come up to me this morning, and I'd only been sitting in the cafeteria for approximately ten minutes.

"No changes so far," I told her, somehow managing a smile that hopefully looked genuine. "She's stable, but there are no sings to indicate she'll wake up anytime soon."

Eve sighed and sunk down on the chair opposite me. "I miss her. A lot."

I made the milk in the bowl in front of me swirl around like a tornado, afraid to look up into Eve's eyes. I was having a bad day and if I saw anyone looking at me with sympathy or sadness, I might break down into pieces. I'd sworn to myself I wouldn't do that – with Eros falling apart every other day, there was simply no room for me to go through some kind of breakdown as well.

"I'm sorry," Eve said softly when I remained silent. "I know things are a lot worse for you than they are for me, with her being your best friend and bondmate. I guess I just wanted to..." She fell silent again and I was surprised to feel her soft hand on mine. "If you need anything, Simon, anything at all, let me know, okay?"

Finally, I looked up and was relieved not to see the kind of sympathy I had gotten so used to lately. The kind that said 'I wonder when you'll finally break down'. Instead, she just seemed to want to connect to me, to let me know that I wasn't alone, that even people who weren't bonded to Demona missed her. It was strangely comforting.

"Me and my friends are planning on having a Guitar Hero battle," Eve told me. "We'd love it if you would join us."

"We kinda need you to teach us how to beat Dem's ass when she finally comes back to the land of the living," Paulie said, joining us mid-conversation. "We can't let ourselves get rusty while good old Dem gets her much-needed beauty sleep."

For the first time in days, I laughed. It was refreshing to hear someone talk about Dem's coma like it was just a normal thing, something you could joke about. Unexpectedly, I found myself thinking about Dylan. He and I had never really been friends – he had just kind of been there. He was Eros' best friend and Dem's friend and cousin, but I had never been sure what he was to me. Fact was I wished he hadn't turned yet and was still at school with me. I could have used his temperamental banter and his easy-going and quasi-pessimistic outlook on things. Lately, he had become one of the only people I could stand to be around for longer than an hour or so. Aside from Paulie, he was one of the few friends – if I could call him that – who could still manage a joke about Dem every now and then. He hadn't stopped loving and hating her at the same time, hadn't stopped being a loyal friend as well as her biggest critique.