𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫, 𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘀

𝟎𝟎𝟒

"𝙽𝚘𝚜𝚎𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚍"
ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ

     "EMILY?" Noah quietly says as she stands beside the woman's bed.

The teen had spent the whole night crying, tossing, and turning in bed.

Emily immediately wakes up and sees the teen.  She notices that Noah has her hand over her nose and quickly sits up. Emily turns on the lamp and rubs her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Emily asks as she checks the time on the clock next to the lamp on her nightstand.

𝟚:𝟙𝟟 𝕒.𝕞.

"I think my nose is bleeding." Noah whines.

"You think?" Emily questions and pulls the teen's hand away from her nose.  There is practically a pool of blood in Noah's hand and Emily jumps into action.

"C'mere, sweetie." The woman says and leads Noah to her bathroom.  She puts Noah's hands over the sink and turns on the water.  Noah washes her hands off as Emily grabs the toilet paper roll and tilts the teen's head back.

"Oh, God, there's so much blood." Emily mumbles to herself.

"Here, sit down." Emily says and gestures towards the edge of the bathtub. Emily holds the tissue to Noah's nose and waits for the nosebleed to calm down. After a couple minutes, Emily notices that the bleeding has stopped.

After Emily takes the tissue off, Noah looks down at her hands and notices that there is still blood stains on them.  She wonders if that is how Nick's hands looked after he killed their mother.  Emily notices the teen staring at her hands and sighs sadly.

"C'mere, come wash your hands properly." She snaps the teen into reality and turns on some warm water for her.

"Are you lightheaded at all?" Emily asks and Noah shakes her head, "You okay to go back to bed?" She asks as Noah finishes washing her hands.

"No," Noah sighs.

"Why not?"

"There's blood on the sheets." She softly says, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Oh, God." Emily mumbles, "Okay, you sit on the bed and I'm gonna go put them in the washer." Emily tells the teen and rushes to Noah's room.

Emily walks into the bedroom and notices the blood on the pillowcases and sheets straight away.  She walks over to tear the sheets off, but stops as she notices a book on the nightstand.  Emily immediately recognizes the familiar cover of Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut — the author of some of her favorite books.

Emily smiles to herself and opens the book.  She notices that the whole first page is completely annotated with, what seems to be, Noah's personal notes.  Emily runs her fingertips along the pen marks as she reads a few of the annotations.  Emily flips through some more pages, seeing more of the notes.  She keeps flipping pages until she realizes that Noah had annotated the entire book.

Emily lays the book down as she ponders about how smart Noah is.  She eventually pulls off the bedsheets and takes the pillows out of their cases.  After crumpling all of the sheets together, she goes to the laundry closet down the hallway.

"Noah, you might just be the death of me." Emily whispers to herself as she stuffs the dirty sheets and blanket into the washing machine.

Emily walks back into her bedroom and sees the teen waiting for her.

"Should I sleep on the couch?" Noah shyly asks.

"No, honey, just lay down." Emily says and gestures for Noah to lay down on the right side of the bed.