Bless You

[16.] intense situations

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I woke up on the solid gym floor, three feet away from the gym mats.

My backpack was gone, and my coat was nowhere to be seen.

Until I turned around and saw Dominic all the way on MY gym mat, laying his head on MY backpack, with MY coat draped over top of his coat on his shoulders. He was sound asleep with soft snores emitting from his throat.

I slowly sat up, ignoring the pain in my neck I achieved from sleeping on the rock-hard floor and having no head support for the latter part of the night.

All because someone stole my backpack.

Sleep-Dominic was a thief.

I checked the time on my phone, then turned to Dominic. "It's time to get up!" I announced, pulling my coat and his coat off his shoulders. "People will start coming to school soon."

Dominic groaned, rolling over.

And his body landed on the cold floor of the gym, completely missing the gym mat.

Slowly, his eyes blinked open, and with a disoriented groggy look, he processed his surroundings. Then, his dark, heavy-hooded eyes landed on me.

He spoke.

Whatever he said, I could barely understand him. His voice was so thick with sleep, I could only pick out the word "Why" and "hoodie".

"What?" I asked.

Dominic cleared his throat, then sleepily propped himself up on one elbow. "Why are you wearing my hoodie?"

I dumbly stared at him.

"Um..." I started, suddenly remembering Dominic's unnatural behaviour last night involving the bad dream. And how it was unnaturally freezing in the gym. "I was cold."

He dumbly stared at me.

So I quickly explained. "I didn't take it off you or anything weird like that, don't worry! You offered it to me."

"I did?"

"Yep."

He closed his eyes for a moment, let out a long, tired sigh, then brushed his fingers through his extremely fuzzy curly bed hair. Then, he shifted into a sitting position and looked at the gym mats beside him.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly.

"Pardon?"

"Sorry for... last night. I didn't mean for you to get scared."

I blinked. He must have misheard me. "I was cold. Not scared," I said.

He shook his head and let his hand run down his face. "No, I mean... I must have scared you during the night... because of—" he paused.

I waited.

"You know," he finally said.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, waving him off. "You don't need to be sorry!"

Dominic gave me a glowering look before turning away, and I stood there wondering if I had done something wrong.

We started to clean the gym. As we gathered up the gym mats in silence, I occasionally snuck glances at Dominic. He looked dazed.

Lost in thought.

"Dominic?"

He frowned at me.

"It really is alright," I timidly said. "I was more worried about you than scared. You must have had a terrible nightmare."