Garden of Roses ✔️

Chapter 15

Zara

 When the alarm starts ringing at 7:00 a.m., I almost crush it with my fist. It was surely Camilla's doing. I wasn't planning on getting up so early, and the irritating sound pissed me off. The intensity of last night made me feel like a zombie this morning. Like somebody beat me with a bat while I was sleeping.

It's not like I managed to get much sleep, and now my head is pounding. Like that isn't enough, as I roll to the other side of the bed, I feel a sharp pain in my arms. When I look down at them, I frown at the damage I did to myself last night.

My skin is red, and there are small but deep lunar cuts on my skin, caused by the digging of my nails.

I sigh exhaustingly, accepting that this is going to be a long day.

I get up and immediately search the room for some aspirin or anything that could take away the pulsating pain in my head. I manage to find some in the second drawer of the bedside cabinet and chug two of them at once.

The next thing on my to-do list is a shower.

The hot water streams down my skin while I massage my scalp, trying to relieve some pressure off my head, and then I wash off the dried blood on my arms.

Great, I look like I've gotten into a heated fight with a cat.

As I wrap a towel around my body, I hear a knock on my bedroom door. Before I even get to ask who it is, the door flies open and Camilla storms in, already looking perfect even though it's not even 8 a.m. yet.

"Morning!" she chirps with a wide smile on her face. It soon perishes when she sees the claw marks on my forearms.

"What happened? Did someone do that to you?"

"Oh, no. Well... I did," I say as quietly as possible, dropping my eyes to the floor and suddenly feeling ashamed of what I did. I didn't want to explain to her why I did that. She would probably just think that I was mentally unstable.

And maybe I was, but that was beside the point.

Instead of asking me about it further, she just looks at me for a second. Her head tilts slightly to look at my face since my head is bowed and my eyes are pointed at the floor. Her move encourages me to lift my head back up so she can look at me properly.

Camilla still doesn't say anything as she continues to watch me closely, her eyes becoming softer with every second. She doesn't look confused, not even surprised for that matter. Her gaze is sympathetic. It tells me she somehow understands exactly what's going on. It doesn't need to be put into words. Her understanding is just there, hanging in the air.

"Let me run to my room real quick and grab some makeup. You can get dressed and I'll be right back," Camilla squeezes my shoulder lightly and gives me a modest smile before leaving my room.

I don't say a word as she leaves. I just feel grateful that she didn't ask me anything that would put me in a position where I'd feel uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable than right now.

I open the closet and I'm left shocked again by the number of different clothes in it. I feel kind of bad for their effort since I'm probably not going to wear anything other than a different combination of jeans and t-shirts every day.

I decide to go all black today because that's just how I feel. Black jeans, black t-shirt, black combat boots. It's warm today so I decide to leave the leather jacket behind.