(18+) RED (Complete)

Ch. 34: Heavy slumber

It felt like I'd been run over by a truck. A monstrously large one. And when I rolled over to my back, I groaned in pain. It was mostly my head that hurt, but I felt like crap in general. I just couldn't understand why.

I yawned and rubbed my eyes, but frowned when I felt sticky mascara smeared all over my cheeks. I never slept with my makeup on.

"What the hell?"

I sat up a little too fast and whimpered when an explosion went off in my head, which caused me to dig my fingers into my hair and rub my skull to ease the pain. I hissed through my teeth. It didn't only hurt inside my head. It also hurt on the outside. How was that even possible?

I squinted around in the room and found myself, not very surprisingly, at home with my aunt. What I didn't expect though, was to see Benjamin sitting on the floor next to the door, leaning his arms over his bent knees and his head hanging low on his shoulders. Did he fall asleep like that?

"Benjamin?"

"Yeah..." he said with a voice so gruff that it barely carried out.

"Are you okay? Why are you sitting on the floor?"

I sat up a bit more and suddenly became awfully aware that I was naked under the sheets. What?! But instead of asking, I quickly I covered myself up, and slipped my bare feet down over the edge of the bed. I would get my answers soon enough. Starting now.

"Benjamin?"

He finally lifted his head to look at me, and I gasped silently when I saw his eyes. They were swollen and red, and I'd never seen such sadness in them.

"Why are you crying?"

It took a while before he answered, and each passing second added more fuel to my sneaking anxiety.

"How much do you remember from last night, Mia?"

I thought for a moment, but everything was a blur.

"Uhm..."

"It was your birthday," he said to give me a hint, and suddenly my mind caught on.

"Oh! The dinner with auntie Dorothy. Chicken parmesan. And then the party."

I smiled but started to feel confused, both because of Benjamin's expression and because my memory gradually faded the more I tried to think about last night.

"The surprise went pretty well," I halfway asked and halfway joked, while I searched him for any more clues.

"And the chocolate cake was delicious. Did you make it yourself?"

"I did," he said and nodded. His gaze dropped to the ground for a moment, before he faced me again to urge me to continue.

"Where are my KitKats?" I smirked and giggled, hoping it would cheer him up a little, but there wasn't as much as a tiny twitch that reminded of a smile. I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all.

"What's going on, Benny?"

There was a brief glimpse in his eyes, but it disappeared just as fast as it came.

"Anything more?" he asked, totally ignoring my question.

"You're scaring me here. What's so important about last night? Did something happen?"

He slowly got up, his movements stiff as if he'd been sitting on the floor for hours. Maybe he had?

"What time is it?"

"Almost six pm."

"Six?!"

"You've been out for almost seventeen hours."