Madness and Meihem in the Outback

Chapter Fourteen

Fareeha awoke, almost lazily, as her eyelids slowly broke apart, staring up into the white abyss that she'd always done, save for the times when Angela's hair had managed to make its way up over her face. She hadn't ever particularly minded, as she could feel it before opening her eyes, anyway, but on the occasions where she was simply met with the ceiling, it truly felt as though it were a loss.

The most devastating loss was that Angela's warmth wasn't accompanying her in this bed. Her mind thought back to the night before; oftentimes they took turns on who got to curl up with the other- maybe it was her turn to be wrapped around Angela and she'd simply rolled away, inexplicably, in her sleep.

No, no. She heard running water. Angela had gotten up and had begun to start the day, leaving Fareeha in bed, restlessly turning to her side, seeking some sort of comfort as she buried her head in her pillow. It was one of those mornings, she thought; she'd be terrified to look into a mirror and see her hair. For the longest time, she'd been embarrassed for Angela to see her so disheveled, but after enough of the doctor's peeking at her as she quickly moved to find a brush, along with her words that she thought it was cute, Fareeha simply was embarrassed for herself to be seen in such a state.

She heard Angela's steps as she turned in the shower, and her eyes crept open to check her nightstand, noticing her music player had been pilfered from its charger. A sudden jolt of rock music faintly blaring out from the bathroom quickly suspended any suspicion as to where it went.

As she closed her eyes, Fareeha's lips curled into a grin against her pillow as Angela's voice gradually began to accompany the song, and although the song was in Greek, it didn't bother Angela, apparently, to try and make sense of the words in English, "I wanna set your house on fi-re!"

Fareeha suddenly snorted out a laugh, shaking her head as she buried her wide smile into her pillow, Angela's improvisation still running along like the shower, "Your baby's getting the lunch pail! Only on Wednesdays!"

She'd already surrendered the idea of any further sleep, but Fareeha remained where she was, more or less hiding for when Angela left the shower. She had no idea Fareeha heard her doing this, which was odd, considering how into it Angela would get, sometimes even belting out vocal solos. If she had checked, she would have found that Fareeha would take her favorite of her lover's misheard lyrics and place them in the actual lyrics on the player, though that never crossed her mind.

The squeal of the shower handle rang out as the water stopped, with Angela hurriedly shutting off the speaker in the shower. Fareeha heard her stepping out of the shower, though that was the extent of what she could ascertain for a few minutes, until she heard a sudden *click* beside her as Angela quietly returned the music player to its proper spot.

Fareeha would have loved nothing more than to find her near-nude lover in the act, but more so than the idea of teasing her to no end, she was awfully afraid that, if Angela knew, she would stop doing it, and her singing had been the highlight of Fareeha's mornings for months now.

She heard Angela stepping away, leaving Fareeha with her restless movements, acting as though she were just now stirring awake from her sleep. Angela's footfalls grew rapid as she rolled onto her back, sleepily, lifting her head to examine the room around her. She lazily rolled along across the bed, making it to the edge, and she slowly stood up, rubbing her eyes with a yawn, fixing the strap of her pajama top before slowly making her way out of the room.

Crossing the threshold immediately took you across from the bathroom, its door open as light filtered out. Fareeha slowly approached, finding Angela standing in front of the mirror, hair collected up at the top of her head in a fanciful twist, strands of hair falling like starlight behind her. Fareeha smiled as she watched her in the mirror, the doctor carefully poking and prodding at her face, hunting down any blemishes.