Frostbitten Past

X X V I I I

WHEN ANDORRA awoke, she wasn't at home in her bed, and she wasn't at school, where she remembered being before she fainted.

When she sat up and looked around, she realized she was in Noah's bedroom, in his bed, warmer than she could ever remember being. His bed smelled of him, and for some reason, that made her chest warm, made her smile.

She laid back down, burying her face in his pillows, inhaling deeply. It was a pleasure she'd never had before, and she knew she was either dreaming, or her life was turning around.

And then, she remembered what had happened at school, and she was sitting up again. She could feel herself shake with fear as she remembered what she had done, how she had killed that man with absolute confidence in her actions. She hadn't even thought about how to kill him; her body already knew.

And those powers. She had never before been able to move things with her mind. She could remember the way her anger had exploded inside of her, and outside of her, and how she had taken complete control.

It wasn't like her, not at all. She knew something was wrong, but she didn't know what.

She slid from the bed on unsteady legs, gripping the bedpost to steady herself. When she looked down, she saw that she was in a baggy shirt and sweatpants that didn't belong to her, and she blushed immediately, knowing just who had undressed her.

She stopped to listen, to see if she could hear him, and she felt shy when she could. She could hear the faint shuffling of someone deeper in the apartment, soft enough that no normal human would be able to hear.

She took a deep breath, confident he could hear her too, and she pressed forward, exiting his bedroom and walking down the hall towards where she could hear his shuffling. Her chest felt tight, for no reason, and she felt real shy.

When she approached him in the kitchen, she just stood in the doorway, waiting for him to notice her. At first, she watched as he stood over a stove, wearing his outfit from school. He was flipping something in a pan, and she watched as he reached for a plate, then put something on it.

When he turned, he didn't look surprised to see her, although he didn't have any sort of emotion on his face at all when he pushed the plate towards her on the table. "Morning, Andorra. I made you an omelet, because I'm not sure when you ate last." What he didn't say was that he was worried about how she would react to what happened yesterday, and he wanted to make sure she had something to eat.

She sat down, looking at the omelet as if she'd never seen one before. She felt the tension in the air, and she didn't know why she felt it, or why it existed in the first place. She focused on her omelet, digging her fork into it.

"Thank you," she said before eating a piece of it, her eyes widening in delight as she tasted peppers and spinach. She met his eyes, grateful. "You put in veggies!"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You like veggies."

She nodded, feeling a laugh bubble in her throat. "Yeah, I do. But I didn't think..." she didn't finish her sentence, because it made her embarrassed to think he wouldn't care. After all, he had saved her, had brought her back to his apartment, had cooked her breakfast. Of course he cared.

He leaned back against the stove, arms crossed. "You didn't think... what?"

She ducked her head again. "I didn't think you cared. Or that you noticed."

It was Noah's turn to feel embarrassed, but he didn't show it. He'd been so nasty to her that she didn't think he even liked her. But the truth was, he cared for her more than she would ever know.