These High Walls

Chapter 8

A little while later Zayn comes in with some awful smelling food. I scrunch my nose which Niall and Zayn immediately see.

"I am sorry, I wanted to cook today but it's not my biggest talent. Maybe I should just keep to painting and drawing and let Liam do the cooking. Either way, it's supposed to be pasta pesto, I think something went wrong with the pasta."

I look at the bowl from which the awful smell comes.

"I think you cooked it too long", I say when I take a better look at the pasta.

"Oh mate, even I can cook better than you", sighs Niall on the other side of the room.

Zayn puts the bowl on the bedside table and quickly runs away. Niall comes rushing over as soon as he sees me struggling with sitting up. Throughout the night my limbs started to work a little better so now I can move most parts of my body. It's still far away from what it used to be though. Niall gives me a remote controller that can change my bed in different positions.

When I sit comfortably, I start to eat the bad-smelling pasta. It is indeed overcooked but the pesto is very good made for someone who hasn't cooked or eaten anything except meat for 5 years.

While I eat Niall tells some more stories about his school years. I start to wonder how he did all of that in just a couple of years, it seems like he did a whole life worth of things in just his high school years. He starts to talk about his first love, when he notices I am done with eating he takes the bowl and puts it on the bedside table again.

"How was your first love, if I may ask?" Niall asks politely like he always does when he asks something about my personal life.

I laugh: "Well that's easy, it's not existent."

"What!?" yells Niall, "that surely is not true. I am not believing that."

"Well, then too bad for you but what I am saying is 100% true."

"Why?"

"Because I am gay, I guess."

"That's not a reason, there is plenty of men on this planet."

"Can we not talk about this please?"

"Okay, yeah, of course, I'm sorry."

"No, you have nothing to be sorry about, I just don't like talking about it. It's not your fault", I quickly say afraid to make him hurt. I may not know how shapeshifters work in real life, but I did watch a lot of Netflix when I was younger. So I know that bad things happen when the main characters say hurtful things to weird creatures. I am not saying I am the main character, but I am the only human being in this house and the woods around it.

After a long silence, I ask: "Can I take a shower?"

"Maybe at the moment, it's safer for you to take a bath. I don't think your body will let you stand that long under a shower."

I nod understanding. Niall comes over and asks: "Are you able to walk there or should I carry you?"

"I think I can walk", I say while I swing my legs out of the bed. I carefully put a bit of weight on my legs, they don't collapse so I stand up. Niall takes my hand to assure I don't fall. While we walk I hear something that sounds like someone punching something, but I don't think about it any further. All my focus has to be on not falling.

We walk through Niall's bedroom to his bathroom. In his bedroom I see a lot of things that weren't there before, there is a lot of stuff laying on the ground. I see clothes and books, cushions and some things I have never seen in my life. I decide to ask about it after I've taken a shower.