meraki.

Heart Beating

Fire and blood. 

Sweat and heavy pants. 

The concrete harshly meeting the nude skin. 

Hissing in pain and getting back up again. 

Running and running and running. 

Tears and sweat and fire and blood. 

Anna's eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring at the darkness sorrounding her, dilated pupils, a gasp caged in the back of her throat. 

For a while, things were far too confused for her to understand what was going on. All she could do was try to calm down her breathing, instructing herself to take long slow breaths in through her nose and release the air from her mouth. The lump in her throat wasn't making it easy for her, but with years of self-discipline and the categorical refusal to let out a scream or any sort of cry, anything was possible. 

Once she had finally started breathing normally again, Anna became aware of the fact that tears were streaming from the corner of her eyes, trailing down her temples. 

She could feel them as they trailed down her skin and ended up inside her ears. 

Postponing the moment she would've addressed what had just happened - the reason she had woke up in such an abrupt way - Anna blindly reached for her phone on the nightstand close to her, finding it after a couple of attempts.

When she tapped on the screen, she had to squint an eye because of the screen's bright light. 5:21am. 

Amazing. She rolled her eyes. 

At least she could've tried and gone back to sleep for some more - if her brain was having it. 

She went to wipe a tear away, and her elbow bumped against a... pillow? 

Anna tilted the phone so the screen light would've enlightened what was right next to her. 

The sheer terror that took over her when she saw Harry laying next to her, on the other side of the pillow that was right next to her, made her instantly sit up. 

He was asleep, still fully clothed, and when the phone light hit his face, he squinted his eyes. 

Anna feared he would've woke up, and she silently prayed he wouldn't have. 

Still squinting his eyes, Harry stirred a bit, then - luckily for Anna - he simply buried his face into the pillow he was hugging to his body. 

Slowly releasing her breath out of relief, Anna let her eyes scan his figure - what she could make of it in the pitch dark, considering she wouldn't have risked pointing the phone screen back on him - and all the images from the previous night gradually came back to her. 

The Halloween 2000s themed party, the choreos, the drink her and Harry had shared in her room, the almost kiss... Harry falling asleep on her bed while she was out washing the glasses trying to come to terms with what had almost happened, her not waking him up to send him back to his room, her picking that pillow from her closet to create a barrier while sleeping next to him. 

Shutting her eyes closed, Anna banged her head against the wall behind her. 

She still didn't want to acknowledge what had happened to her, but she was slowly starting to understand why it did. 

As silently as possible, to avoid any kind of confrontation, Anna got out of bed, discovering - with a huge hint of displeasure - that she was still shaking from the events that had led her to wake up at such an ungodly hour.