Sweetheart

2

Lizzie
August 2020

When the car stops, I allow myself to exhale a deep breath. Let's do this. I open the car door and step outside, taking in a lungful of fresh air, tiny goosebumps rising on my skin.

I circle the car, walking up to Nate, who is standing in front of the open trunk. I stretch out my arm, ready to grab my suitcase, but he steps in front of me. "I'll take that. You grab your backpack, all right?" he tells me, smiling kindly at me. I find myself smiling back.

Followed by Nate and Grace, I approach the front door, a weird feeling churning my stomach. Every time I face something new, my body reacts with shocks of uneasiness, and my brain produces a million thoughts on how the situation could go wrong. It's uncomfortable.

"Well, let's get inside, what do you say?" Grace smiles, looking down at me with kindness. I nod in her direction, secretly taking a deep breath and telling myself to stop worrying so much. I've got this. It's going to be okay.

The house is bigger than I expected, with two floors and a spacious garden. Knowing these kinds of places, it probably has a garden in the back as well. It has two large windows, which surely allow light to wash the rooms to which they correspond. Then, there is a smaller window in the middle of the two. That's my room, I'm sure.

A curtain of the bigger window to the left of my room — at least what I believe is going to be my bedroom. — sways, as though someone who had been watching decided to move away. Could it be Aaron? Maybe he's coming down to greet us.

Yet, when Grace unlocks the front door, no one is there to welcome the three of us. We all step inside, striding across the hall, and I slowly take in the living room. A sofa right in front of the archway, facing a large fireplace. Some pictures are hung up on the wall, but I don't pay much attention to them. The parquet floor doesn't make a sound when I stride on it with caution.

Grace drops her bag on the chest of drawers under a mirror in the hall. "Aaron? We're home! Come say hello!" she shouts, staring towards the flight of stairs taking to the second floor of the house.

No one answers. Only silence meets our ears. Nate scoffs by my side. "Told you he's a dick," he mutters, receiving a side glance from his mother.

"He's probably outside running. He must've just left. Come, I'll show you your room," she explains, offering me another one of her warm smiles. I could get used to them...

With Nate on our heels, we climb the stairs, entering yet another hallway with three doors on its right side and one at its end. "That one's my bathroom," Nate informs me, cocking his head to the end of the hall. "My bedroom is the one closest to it."

I nod. If only, to show him that I was acknowledging him. "This one's Aaron's," Grace proceeds to show me the first white door of the hall. "Yours is the one between theirs. You and Aaron have the bathroom inside," she explains to me, briefly glancing at me through her lashes.

Misunderstanding, I wince. Nate quickly jumps in. "Don't worry. It's one bathroom for each room. She didn't mean you had one in two." I exhale in relief. "Sharing is caring, but not with Aaron." Is he that bad?

Grace shoots him a look. She folds her hand around the doorknob of my door, twisting it and pushing it open. It's pretty simple, and half the size of my bedroom back in LA, but I like it. I really like it.

There is a double bed against the wall, right below the window that isn't as small as it appeared from the outside. A tiny nightstand sides the bed, with a lamp on it. Walking inside, I notice the white desk to my right, the matching chair perfectly slid under it. On the wall opposite to the bed, the door to the bathroom and a white closet.